Logo with 'TFB' in gray and 'OU' in red inside a speech bubble. Open Post | Monday, October 29th By: TFB Posted on: October 29, 2018


4-Star 2019 DB Jalani Williams to Visit Sooners
– The Football Brainiacs

Super K and James Hale contributed to this post

A sports fan in costume holds a protest sign against the playoff committee.

A name you haven’t heard in a while is that of 2019 St. Louis area DB, Jalani Williams (Parkway North). You will recall that the Sooners were pursuing Jalani pretty heavily back in the spring.

He was a player we had a chance to see up in St. Louis. We didn’t get to see him work out as he was still rehabbing from an upper-body injury but he certainly has a good frame on him at nearly 6’1 with a lot of length and broad shoulders. Plenty of room to add muscle.

James Hale mentioned that he had heard via his sources that Jalani was looking to visit the Sooners for the Oklahoma State game.

I checked in with Jalani via text and he said he plans on taking an official visit to Oklahoma and that it will indeed be, “most likely for the Oklahoma State gameâ€.

The Sooners have long liked Jalani but when they picked up a silent commitment from Chris Steele back in the spring, they thought they would be done at the position.

Back in the spring, Williams was high on both Oklahoma and Georgia. You might remember that his sister goes to school at Emery in Atlanta.

I’m not sure where things are with him at the moment in terms of additional schools he’s interested but it does appear he took an official visit to LSU, earlier this season. I’ll try to catch up with him and see where things stand.

I can tell you that OU was in a very good spot with him, last spring.

I’ve heard good things about him as a player. On film, you see a good break on the ball and good speed.

The Sooners obviously have a tie to Jalani. He hails from the same school as 2018 signee, Michael Thompson. This will be one to watch as Oklahoma tries to fill the open safety spot.

 

 

Notebook | Tyrion Davis, Miles Brooks, Evan Neal & Akinola Ogunbiyi
– Super K

***Was at the Fort Bend Austin vs. Kempner game last night to see 2020 4-star WR, Troy Omeire and 2020 4-star OL and Texas A&m commit, Akinola Ogunbiyi.

I’ll write up my thoughts on Ogunbiyi later but a quick recruiting note here.

Oklahoma is very…very much in this one. I had an off the record conversation with Akinola and this one is trending towards OU, in my opinion.

Sooners haven’t really been in touch with Troy Omeire much. I did like both prospects.

***2020 4-star DB, Miles Brooks (Jacksonville, FL) has had a lot of contact with the Sooners staff. Regarding a possible unofficial visit to Oklahoma, he said, “I’m actually trying right now to set up on for this seasonâ€.

I think regardless of whether Brooks can make it in for an unofficial, he’s a name to watch out of Florida. It’s clear there is some early mutual interest. He’s also teammates with 5-star DB, Fred Davis.

***The big recruiting news yesterday was the decommittment of 5-star 2019 running back, John Emery from Georgia. Emery’s decommittment could shift a lot of things which I’ll get into in another post.

But one of the most obvious things to look at is the potential for Emery to end up at LSU and whether that will impact 2019 LSU RB commit and longtime Sooners target, Tyrion Davis (Baton Rouge). Last night I exchanged texts with Davis to see if he would be taking an official to Oklahoma. He said, “most definitely.â€

I hope to have more with him soon but again, I’ll have a discussion up about what the possible impact is of the Emery move.

***Alex had a chance to speak over the phone with the mother of 5-star OT, Evan Neal (IMG Academy). He’s working on that write up for you all.

But I wanted to pass on a quick note of my own. After we received the word and reported last week that Neal would be taking an official visit to Oklahoma, I asked around about Neal. Other than knowing he’s absolutely elite, I didn’t know a ton about his recruitment.

Based on what I was told, it sounds like the teams to beat in this one are Alabama and Miami. I’m told that in addition to his OU official visit, he will take an official visit to Alabama in November. He has already been on an unofficial to Alabama and my sources on that side indicate that Bama believes Neal is an early 1st round type player that could legitimately start as a true freshman. So, they have him as their absolute top priority across the position board.

I am also told that what’s helping Alabama is the fact that Neal’s mother apparently felt comfortable there. I know it may be a long shot, but I’m going to be very interested in seeing how Neal and his mother feel about OU and Lincoln Riley. Riley and the Sooners are really good in situations like these. You think there’s no chance and the family comes in and is blown away. I think we already remember the Bookie situation last year.

 

 

We Have Eyes
– Super K

Obviously, it’s a 2020 prospect. Should be announced later this week…

 

 

Upon Further Review…
– JY

* Great game this weekend.  I feel better about this team than I have in a long time.  Coming in I had questions about whether Oklahoma would be able to stop K State in the running game.  Up until the backups came in they only had about 50 some odd yards rushing, so I’d say they passed that test with flying colors.

* I loved the chippiness at the beginning of the game.  Football, in essence, is a fight.  If you’re not willing to fight stay in the locker room.  I know some frown on that stuff, but I liked when Bobby Evans pushed the guy off of Trey Sermon.  Regardless you’re not going to push one of my guys around.  That’s the message he was sending.

* One of the K-State guys I follow on twitter was talking about how K-State was getting pushed around and seemed to be o.k. with it.  K-State tried to come out and say we’re the big dog, but Oklahoma wasn’t backing down.  Cody Ford, Dru Samia, and Bobby Evans were all talking back.

* I remember thinking to myself that they just pissed off the best O line in the conference if not the country.  Old saying goes “don’t poke the bear.â€Â  Well, folks, they poked the bear.  The Sooners averaged almost 9 yards a carry when you take out the two kneel downs at the end of the game.  Whole O line gets my grown ass man award.

* Outside of 3rd down defense, the defensive unit was much improved overall.  Still had too much space on some big downs, and against a better passing unit, that’s an issue, but overall the defense was much improved.  They held the best rushing offense in the conference to several punts and let’s face it, it was over at halftime.

* Both of Lincoln Riley’s trick plays were there.  Rambo just dropped the double pass, and Kyler dropped the pitch from Sermon.  It looked like that Sermon could have kept it and ran for a first down.  Sometimes I wish he’d just run the offense and not do the tricky stuff, but some players really like that and it probably keeps the mood light.

* I thought the second team O line looked really good.  Swenson, Robinson, Dalton, Mittermeier, and Ealy were in there and had a lot of success running.  It’s crazy that Pledger didn’t play until almost the 4th quarter and still got almost 100 yards.

* That’s the biggest difference I see in this team than teams in years past.  They can run the football the entire game with whoever is in there.  The two and three garbage scores we saw in the Stoops era was because the offense couldn’t run and keep the clock moving.  After K-STate scored the garbage TD I thought they may get another one, but the offense ended up keeping the ball for 8 minutes after that and running the clock out.

* Speaking of TJ pledger, the two-headed monster of him and Brooks will be formidable.  That RB room is at a logjam, and it’s only going to get tougher to get touches.  Kennedy Brooks just has a feel for making people miss.  On his long run, there at the 10 making the soft shoulder cut was big and allowed him to score.  He’s just good.  I don’t know how he’s not the starter, but I tell ya, his success is pushing Sermon to run harder.

* Kyler Murray is unbelievably good.  He accounted for four TD’s and faked everyone in the universe out on the option keep for the TD.  K- STate completely crashed down as he just pulled it and trotted into the end zone.  He is amazing with his feel and his touch.  Several passes today he just dropped into the bucket.  It takes a ton of confidence and talent to do what he’s doing.  The guy is good.

* How about Bookie lighting up that tight end?  I haven’t seen a hit like that in the secondary for the Sooners in a long time.  Also, the pass breakup by Justin Broiles was a huge play for the Sooners.

* Next week in Lubbock will be a big game.  Playing in Lubbock is always weird.  It’s in the middle of nowhere and it’ll be windy.  It’s a good thing the Sooners are finding a defense.  Great game today.  Boomer!

 

 

Sooners Offer 2019 Auburn DE Commit Jaren Handy
– Charlie S

Last night, the Sooners extended an offer to 2019 defensive end and Auburn commit Jaren Handy

This offer, while it looks random, did not come out of the blue…stay with me here.

Back in April, when Jarrian Jones was still a commit and the Sooners were lighting it up on the recruiting trail, I did a write up on “Big Moâ€Â (as in momentum) visiting the Sooners…

Turns out that Jaren Handy was one of the examples I used in that piece…here is a snippet from the article…

 

 

“Jaren, a 6’5″ DE out of New Augusta (MS) who was committed to LSU at one point, was congratulating new 2019 DB commit Jarrian Jones when this exchange took place on Twitter.

Simple right? Something one really wouldn’t think twice about and chalk it up to “kids being kidsâ€.

Wrong. Sources on the OU side tell us they are interested in building a relationship with Handy and have already begun that process. I was also able to catch up with Jaren, briefly, to get his thoughts about OU in specific and his recruitment, in general.

Handy has offers to just about every major program in the country and knowing that this was brand new to both OU and Handy, I asked him what his initial thoughts are about OU, “I view them as a very good program, and I could grow to really like themâ€.

I asked him if he has spoken to anyone on staff to this point, and he said “Not yet, Coach Thibbs and Coach Cooks just followed me on twitter, and I hope to talk to them SOONâ€. He went on to say, “I can see myself taking a visit to OUâ€.

This will be interesting to watch play out as OU already has a couple of DL committed in the 19 class and they feel they are in a good spot with a few others so it could come down to a numbers game.â€

 

 

So fast forward six months later to where we are today…he got the offer.

Couple interesting things about the offer came up as I was speaking with him tonight.

First…when I asked him about how the offer came about, Jaren said, “Coach Hill (Drew Hill) called me and let me knowâ€.

Second…as stated above, he is now an Auburn commit, and the Sooners are seemingly not afraid to go after Auburn commits as they extended an offer to defensive back target Zion Puckett who is also committed to them.

Now, offering kids committed elsewhere at this time of year is not strange in general, but considering they have had an extended relationship with Jaren, found it kind of odd that Drew Hill was the one to extend the offer.

So as far as Handy goes, he did take notice of the Sooners even front of late as he said, “I think it fits my style pretty well you know, it gives me a chance to showcase my skillsâ€.

I asked him if they had begun to discuss a potential visit and Jaren said, “Yeah, we talked about setting up a visitâ€.

I’ll keep in touch with Jaren and should a visit be arranged, I will bring you that news.