The Football Brainiacs

– Taquon Graham: The Sooners made a big impression on 2017 DE Taquon Graham (Temple, TX) when he visited Norman earlier this summer, with the OU coaches selling Graham on playing Charles Tapper’s old position. Following that visit, there were folks around Graham who indicated the Sooners had perhaps overtaken Texas as the favorite to land Graham’s commitment.

Graham himself also told TFB that Oklahoma had indeed put themselves in a good position, while indicating that he would like to announce his decision before the summer ends. However, since that visit/conversation we now get the sense that decision will be delayed.

TFB spoke with someone close to Graham over the weekend to see where things stand now that the post visit high has worn off some. Although Graham appears to be intent of visiting USC prior to making a decision, the distance could very well end up making it difficult for the Trojans to be a real factor. So this will likely be an OU vs. UT battle.

So what is Graham waiting on?

Like several other recruits in Texas, we’re told Graham is waiting to see how the Longhorns look on the field here in a couple weeks. Graham’s mother is a long time Texas fan and TFB’s source mentioned that while she has told Taquon she will support him wherever he goes, at the end of the day she is a Longhorn fan and would prefer he stay closer to home.

Incidentally, a couple other recruits that are also really looking to see what the Horns do early on this season are DT Marvin Wilson and WR Omar Manning, both of whom are top OU targets as well. If Texas shows marked improvement on the field, then the Red River Rivalry (or whatever we are calling it now) is going to be a game that could go a long way towards determining the outcome of some big recruiting battles.

With OU only taking one defensive lineman last year, the battle for guys like Graham and Wilson in this 2017 class are significant. The Sooners really need to have a lot of on-field success to keep the momentum they’ve built going. – (Super K)

– Defensive Starters: Oklahoma is now more than half way through fall camp, so we figured now would be as good a time as any to go through what the starting rotation currently is and where it looks like it’s headed for kickoff in Houston.

Secondary

The secondary is pretty much set. The Sooners only needed to fill one starting spot, which was the CB position vacated by Zack Sanchez. We fully expect Dakota Austin to be the starter against Houston. We do believe, however, that the coaches are high on a couple other CBs as well, so Austin will need to play well in order to keep that starter’s job.

CB – Dakota Austin
CB – Jordan Thomas
S – Ahmad Thomas
S – Steven Parker

Linebackers

This was a unit where the Sooners are forced to replace three starters in Dom Alexander (ILB), Eric Striker (OLB) and Devante Bond (OLB).

The vacant ILB spot is expected to be filled by Tay Evans, which certainly comes as no surprise. But JUCO transfer Emmanuel Beal and Curtis Bolton have both had good camps and could provide some real depth on the inside.

As expected, Ogbonnia Okoronkwo is poised to take over the main outside linebacker spot. And while the outside backer positions are typically referred to as ‘Jack’ and ‘Sam,’ it’s probably more accurate with respect to OU to think of them simply as ‘field’ and ‘boundary.’

If you’d like to observe this for yourself, take a look at last years OU/Tennessee game where the Sooners played in their base defense with Striker and Bond most of the time. You’ll note that while in the 3-3-5, Striker will align on different sides of the ball. Where in the base defense, he plays to the ‘field’ side.

The Sooners played Will Johnson almost exclusively as their other field OLB (nickel – aligned to the passing strength or drop side) in the spring. And while Caleb Kelly and Kapri Doucet are coming on as guys who can play that position at a more traditional size, Johnson will certainly be relied upon heavily in the spread/pass happy Big 12. This is especially the case since the Sooners face more 10 personnel than any other personnel grouping.

ILB – Jordan Evans
ILB – Tay Evans
OLB – Ogbonnia Okoronkwo
OLB/Nickel (vs. 10 personnel) – Will Johnson
OLB (vs. bigger sets) – Caleb Kelly/Kapri Doucet

Defensive Line

The Sooners will only replace one starter on their defensive line in Charles Tapper. Last year Tapper played primarily on the right side of the line with Matt Dimon opposite him on the left. Charles Walker, however, played plenty of snaps behind Dimon and, when healthy, was arguably OU’s most disruptive defensive lineman.

New d-line coach Calvin Thibodeaux is rotating a group of 6+ guys in practice right now with a number of the “back-ups” getting first team reps at various times. So expect to see multiple guys, especially someone like Neville Gallimore who we’ve told you has been playing at multiple different spots along the line so far in fall camp. But as it stands today, we’d anticipate your starters to be:

DE/DT – Charles Walker
DE/DT – Matt Dimon
NG – Mathew Romar

– (Super K)