Open Post | Monday, July 31st (UPDATED 1:30 pm) By: The Brainiacs Posted on: July 31, 2017

Image of DaShaun White via Twitter

– DaShaun White: Sunday afternoon, I went out to Plano to see Sooners 2018 LB offer & #ChampUBBQ attendee, DaShaun White, at Flight’s Skills Clinic. I wanted to get a glimpse of him in 1v1’s, as well as talk to him about how everything went on Saturday in Norman. With a decision date approaching, White is someone we are keeping a close eye on.

The first thing I noticed about White was that he had put on quite a bit of good weight since the last time I saw him at the Nike Opening Dallas Regional Camp back in early March. At that time, he weighed in at 203; I was informed he recently weighted in well over 220 and you can tell.

He moves really well, as some of you may have seen in some of the tweets I put out yesterday. Watching him back pedal, plant, and change directions with ease was impressive. He did a great job staying in smaller, quicker receivers’ back pockets throughout the day. White did this without coming up to the line and using his physicality to jam receivers, which made it even more impressive to watch as his agility and feet were fully on display.

One of the main things that stuck out to me is just how confident he is in coverage. You don’t see any panic at all; he stays calm and mirrors routes really well. He has good feet, a good feel for reading the route, and then shows the burst to undercut at times to make a play on the ball. And, to top it off, he has good ball skills as well. You don’t see athletes as big as White with his level of fluidity all that often. He is a 3-down type of LB that can fit right into the pass happy Big 12 and excel.

I caught up with him after the camp was over to discuss the BBQ and he had nothing but good things to say. “It went better than I actually thought it would” he stated. “It had been a while since I had been up there, so seeing everything was nice.” He talked about how everyone seemed like family, which was big for him; he commented that when he plays, he wants to play with his brothers.

I asked him who was recruiting him the hardest. He responded by mentioning Leon O’Neal from Texas A&M’s class and Patrick Fields from OU. I also made sure to ask him if Bob Stoops leaving affected him at all with how he felt about OU initially. “Nah, not really, it seems like it may be for the better actually as Riley seems to have them going in a good direction.”

It seems to me that OU did all that they could to impress White this past weekend; time will tell, however, if it was enough. – (Alex)

– Team Note | Support Staff Departure: We have confirmed via a couple of sources that Sooners’ Director of High School Relations, Rajeeb Hossain will be leaving the Oklahoma support staff. From what we’ve heard “Jeeb” was very well liked by the OU players, staff and especially the visiting recruits and their families. We are told he has taken a position elsewhere and will be missed.

It does sound like the Sooners have their eye on a replacement. We’d expect that to be announced fairly soon. – (Super K)

– Darrell Simpson: If you’ve been reading the site regularly, you will recall that we reported last week that Darrell Simpson is expected to announce his decision in August. Last night, Simpson confirmed this via twitter.

Simpson was at the BBQ this past weekend. It’s difficult to recall just how many times the talented OT has visited OU but he’s been on campus quite a few times. We expect the Sooners to receive some good news on the 12th but we shall see. – (Super K)

– Team Note | Kick Return: Fall camp begins today. At the start of fall camp the staff has a general idea of who they like and who they’d like to see where and what competitions they’d like to see. A note of interest on special teams that I came across this past weekend is that the staff is going to look at transfer WR, Jeff Badet, at kick off return. I’m also told Marquise Brown will get a look. Also of note, I was told to expect Marcelias Sutton and the dynamic freshmen WRs, Rambo and Lamb to possibly get a look. In other words the Sooners staff seems to hope one of the new additions to the team can become that guy as a kick returner. – (Super K)

– Brian Asamoah: Sooners LB target, Brian Asamoah says he will announce his decision in the next week…

https://twitter.com/b_moah211/status/891742308026261505

Brandon had a chance to speak with Asamoah immediately after his visit and if you read yesterday’s OP you know that things went very well.

I asked Asamoah what, specifically, he loved so much about OU to which he said, “the amount of love the coaching staff showed me. The key role they want me to play in the defense and the opportunity to come in and make an early impact”. The “role” the Sooners would like Asamoah to play is, “either SAM or WILL”.

Asamoah said he had a chance to have some one on one time with coach Riley multiple times throughout the day. He was clearly impressed with Riley, “You can’t tell he just got hired as a head coach two months ago. He operates like he’s been doing this for years. He cares about his players and wants to develop all of them. He brings a lot to the table as a person and I see why a lot of athletes have bought into his system already.”

Things look good for the Sooners but it’s important to keep in mind that Asamoah has a number of excellent regional options including schools like Penn State, Michigan, Pitt and others. Asamoah told me he does have a top five but is choosing not to release it. – (Super K)

– Bobby Brown: I had a chance to speak with Sooners top defensive line target, Bobby Brown (Arlington, TX). I’ll try to have a more complete write up on him later in the week but I did want to pass along an interesting note about Brown. He tells me that he has made a final decision. He obviously didn’t divulge where he’s headed but he did say he’s made up his mind. It’s unclear when he will announce said decision. In speaking with Brown before his trip, the plan was to announce in early November. We’ll see if that date remains. – (Super K)

– Noah Cain: Noah Cain knows a lot about Oklahoma. Before transferring to play at IMG Academy, Cain was a star running back at Denton Guyer High School in Denton (TX), which is only two hours from the OU campus. So, Cain has heard about Oklahoma for a while.

Cain also gets to hear about Oklahoma from fellow IMG running back and 2018 Oklahoma commit, TJ Pledger every day. Those two flew up from Florida to visit OU and attend the ChampUBBQ over the past weekend. The relevance of that is Oklahoma is selling them on being teammates again in college. Cain has already been to Norman on a number of occasions. In fact, he’s attended multiple OU games.

But this time he saw a different side to the OU staff. The staff showed Cain they were about more than just football. Cain was surprised and thrilled saying, “They let us be 16, 17 and 18 year old kids. That’s unusual on a visit. It’s usually all about football.” And Cain meant it saying he really enjoyed the water balloon fights, baseball games and other activities the staff had prepared for the visitors at the ChampUBBQ.

As expected though, football certainly was part of the visit. Cain said he and fellow IMG teammate/Sooner commit TJ Pledger spent a ton of time watching film with head coach Lincoln Riley and running back coach Jay Boulware. They showed both of them how they use a two back system. Cain said, “They want us to be the next Perine/Mixon.”

Cain said he has no plans on deciding until December. Cain will be an early enrollee, so any school that gets Cain will be getting a guy that will be on campus for spring ball of 2019. Oklahoma hopes they are that team and the BBQ and visit did nothing but help OU’s case. – (Brandon)

– UPDATE (1:30 pm): I spoke with Tank Jenkins HS coach a few days ago and he let me know that there was a possibility that Tank Jenkins would make it to OU this past weekend. I am told that the visit did not happen and he apparently was not able to make it in today either. – (Super K)