New coaches doing work man. TE Carson Meier is a Sooner. http://rivals.yahoo.com/oklahoma/football/recruiting/player-Carson-Meier-145148
Great couple of weeks for the Sooners. Now, if we can land a LB, I won't feel so uncomfortable about Kish.
Word has it he was in my old stomping grounds, Irving TX. recruiting a linebacker. I love we are landing guys but to this point, they are guys i expect us to land. Now, I want to land a guy no one had us getting a verbal from. Let's Go Sooner Magic!
I've defended Kish while the heat has risen on his seat. I figured he really has only had one recruiting cycle, and even that was tough considering he was just brought in, but I've quickly been moving the other direction with him. There have been a couple of reports that recruits tried to call him and couldn't reach him. Whether those are true, or not, it's not something I would ever want to hear someone say about me, and I'm not recruiting for a football powerhouse. Add to that the lack of any LB commit this year, and I'm starting to think there is fire with that smoke.
Three 3-stars and a 2-star doesn't excite me too much. 4-stars have become our grand prize, and 5-stars seem out of the question. I'd be encouraged to see one from the top 100. I don't know what made us lose it (bowl game beat downs?), but in just a few short years we've fallen unbelievably with our inability to land big time recruits
this... I know our 2000 NC was full of 2/3 star guys...BUT we seriously need some top 100 guys...in the trenches. Wonder why we havent got many since OU has actually put oline and dline guys into the nfl lately...8time??
I think there is a confluence of events that are causing a decline in recruiting and not all of them are OU specific. I agree that I don't get excited about 2-3 star recruits though obviously some turn out to be really good players. I don't think you can dismiss players out of hand because they are 2 star. I'm sure there are some 2 star guys out there that will become NFL all-pro players some day. That said the teams that win ncaa championships will have higher rated recruiting classes. They just will. The stars by their names do matter. While having the higher rated recruiting classes from Rivals will not assure a championship not having highly rated classes will pretty much eliminate you. You just have to get your share of the top-tier recruits to win.
First, I want to say that OU hasn't hit the skids/fallen way down/lost their luster, or any other way you want to say it, when it comes to recruiting. That seems to be the general vibe most Sooner fans have right now, and what it really comes down to are two things: 1. Not signing Justin Manning last year. 2. Not signing a big name LB in several years. If you take those two things away, the Sooners are right where they've been since Stoops got to Norman. I won't add DT to that list, because OU did land some big names (Jamarkus McFarland, Stacy McGee), they just didn't pan out the way previous DT's have. OU continued to land big names at QB/RB/WR/OL & DB. It's the LB position that has been void of any names. Over the past couple of years, OU had taken a different approach to recruiting. They spent a lot more time evaluating kids, and waited very late in the cycle to offer. Whether that was a function of coaching decisions or just an overall failed philosophy, Stoops realized after last year that something had to change. This year, the Sooners have been more aggressive on the recruiting trail than they have been in years, and it's already starting to pay some dividends. As for LB, there are a couple of guys with offers that I think are close to committing, but right now it's going to take a lot of selling on behalf of the coaches to attract those players. They have to convince them that last year's lack of LB play was an anomaly and will not be repeated. Has the recruiting prowess of OU dropped? A little, but nowhere near what most believe. That's not a knock on anyone that feels that way, because I can understand the sentiment. But, I follow this stuff closer than I should, and spend far more time that I should on recruiting, and I'm telling you, OU is still doing well, and the last couple of years were a (failed) experiment that is in the past.
Bingo. Plenty of 3-star Sam Bradfords out there, and Having all 4 & 5 stars is no guarantee when coaching is inept (i.e .Mack Brown, Lane Kiffen) but the winners (LSU, Bama, Florida/Meyer) are consistently loaded with them.
I hope you are right. It just feels like the edge in physical talent we always used to have has completely slipped away. We've been handled or even manhandled on both OL and DL too many times in the last few years. I hope I'm wrong, but I just sense we are heading for a really disappointing season this year with a roster/talent level that doesn't measure up to our standards after several years of weak recruiting, and a recognition that until something changes we are no longer a top 10 program.
I'm not too down on the O-line, and I think new coaching will help the on-field issues (although, I don't think there are many). From a recruiting standpoint, OU has landed some big recruits along the line (most recently Ty Darlington). As for defense, I put that on Jackie Shipp (which is why he is no longer in Norman). He had gotten lax in his recruiting, and even when he did bring in big names, they didn't do what they were supposed to do. Going forward, I think both lines will be better, with an improvement in both recruiting and on-field coaching. My concern is at linebacker. I'm trying really hard to stay neutral with Kish, but at some point, he's going to have to bring in a linebacker. This is Oklahoma, and attracting linebackers has never really been an issue, it shouldn't be now.
I agree that it appears Shipp was doing some coasting but if you are an elite LB do you really want to play in the Big 12? If you're a big time run stuffing DT do you get to showcase your talents best in the Big 12? OR do you look at the defense first culture of the SEC? Even if OU changes it's philosophy can it recruit the best defensive talent if the rest of the conference plays their brand of 1990's WAC Football? These are questions I really don't know the answer to however I do think that OU is going to be at a disadvantage as long as they remain in the Big 12 which looks to be a very long time.
Your post does have some credible concerns, but TCU and Texas both have been able to land some big name DTs. And just this last week, Kansas (yep, Kansas) landed the #4 LB in the country, so there is precedent of players at those positions coming to the Big XII. Still, the place to be is the SEC if you're a big, hole plugging DT. As for LB, unless you are Bama, Georgia or LSU, there isn't a huge advantage in the SEC. But, if things continue the way they are going, LB will soon be like DT in that conference. The bigger question is; what is it going to take to "undo" what the SEC has done? Is it as simple as knocking them off in a title game, or will it take years of doing that? If OU could win a title, that would go a long way in getting back in the hunt for those interior linemen. There are probably only a dozen schools that could see an immediate impact like that from winning a title. For all the rest, it would take many more years of the SEC getting beat for anything to change.
I don't see a point in getting too excited or too upset in May, a mere 7 months before NSD. FWIW, South Carolina is turning out some decent LB's of late, and recruiting some as well.
So it seems like we go through this every year. Everyone is gnashing their teeth on people we "should get" or getting people we "shouldn't get". The problem is that 50% of the top 100 bomb out. Statistically it is a good place to be, but if you get one of those bombs does it really matter? We are weak in 2 areas -> DT and LB. We are thin at OL, S, and CB. The first 2 items are a relatively new occurrence, the last 3 has been like that for almost 15 years. In order to get great DTs you need to either get one in the top 3 OR find 3-4 other good players in the top 75 of high school DTs (yes, it is a laundry list of bombs on that list) OR grab some of the bigger DEs and bulk them into DTs. Under Stoops the only scenario that has worked consistently for us is getting a Top 3 DT. KState has success with the second method and the SEC has had a ton of success with the last method. LB is a little bit more problematic. The quality in college football as a whole is down and we have struck out looking for 5 years. We've tried a bunch of different angles, but what seems to work the best right now is to find kids who are tackling machines in high school and figure out which ones can semi-translate to the next level.
Spot on jkm! A fundamental change in approach at recruiting DT and LB is needed. I would like to see OU scour the JUCO ranks for a LB until they can find a way to recruit better at the position, but that doesn't look to be happening. As I mentioned earlier, I've been a Kish defender, but his recruiting is beginning to make me second guess my position on him.
