The Football Brainiacs

While the Kansas State game wasn’t a big recruiting weekend, that isn’t bad news. The Sooners 2017 class is nearly full which typically isn’t the case for Oklahoma at this point in the recruiting cycle.

– Linebacker Recruiting: In this past couple weeks, Oklahoma has landed a pair of linebackers in K’Jakyre Daley and Jacob Phillips.

With the additions of Daley and Jacobs, the Sooners are up to five linebacker commits which may seem like a lot. However, when looking at the Sooners defense and the skill sets of the current commits, it’s really not. In fact, I’d argue the Sooners could stand to take one more inside backer.

The Sooners play two inside backers and two outside backers with their boundary OLB being the more athletic of the two OLB’s due to the need for him to drop into coverage more frequently.

Jacob Phillips: Inside linebacker.

Levi Draper: Inside linebacker.

K’Jakyre Daley: “Jack” outside linebacker.

Addison Gumbs: “SAM” outside linebacker.

So, based on the above, the Sooners have really only taken one linebacker at each position…

Kenneth Murray: Murray is a guy who the Sooners have recruited as an outside linebacker but who may end up at one of the ILB spots. Given the recent retirement of Tay Evans and the impending loss of Jordan Evans to graduation, this is a position of particular need.

– K’Lavon Chaisson: One linebacker I currently don’t expect to end up at Oklahoma is K’Lavon Chaisson (Houston, TX). I spoke with one of the coaches on the staff at North Shore after Chaisson’s visit to Dallas for the OU vs. UT game and I was told that, while things can always change, the Sooners appear to be out for Chaisson.

With the addition of Daley, I’m not entirely sure the Sooners simply don’t have another OLB scholarship available. As I mentioned above, the more pressing need, were another LB to be taken, would be ILB in my estimation. – (Super K)

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