Open Post | Tuesday, December 21st
Posted on: December 21, 2021
Behind the Scenes | WR Room: A Lot of Credit Without a Lot of Results
– Charlie S – Posted on: December 19, 2021
Let’s talk about the wide receiver room under Lincoln Riley and Dennis Simmons, shall we?
For years, the narrative has been ‘The last position we need to worry about at OU is the WR room’ amongst the fan base.
As you know, I have not been in agreement with that narrative for the last 3 years and have been quite vocal about it on the board.
The lack of development in the wide receiver room has been stunning. Sooners receivers had an incredible ability to become guys who could not get separation and developed a bad case of stone hands… nothing near what they displayed in high school.
The moment I started to hop off the ‘OU WR recruiting and development is great’ train was the moment Hollywood Brown headed off to the NFL, as OU did not adequately replace his ‘style.’
Hollywood left following the 2018 season and a look at the Sooners offensive production from that point on tells quite the story:
2019 – 4th in total Offense
2020 – 14th
2021 – 42nd
No, I am not blaming the entire offensive dip on the wide receiver room. Yes, you had different QBs each of those years, and I would wager that the 2019 OU offense was elevated in large part by Jalen Hurts’ magic. (Speaking of Hurts, remember when a lot of guys grew ‘tired’ of his leadership? Yeah, that’s something we will get into later, as I think that was an obvious sign about the rest of the program in retrospect.) But yes, I do think Riley’s offense changes dramatically, for the worse, without a true speed threat who is able to catch the ball.
Since 2018, OU has not had an elite speed threat remotely close to DeDe or Hollywood (both JUCO guys) on the field and it has shown in the WR production. CeeDee Lamb was a freak. OU did a good job featuring him and he took the work seriously, putting in the hours in the offseason to build his body. He was the brightest spot on the Riley/Simmons resume… but in 7 years, you expect way more than that in regard to recruiting and developing high school players.
Rambo was the next guy who OU tried to feature. That didn’t work out well as he was a better ‘Robin’ to CeeDee’s ‘Batman’ in the scheme in Norman. Rambo went off to Miami and had himself a tremendous season and he will get drafted in a much better spot than would have been likely had he stayed in Norman. Jaylon Robinson is down at UCF where he has hauled in 73 catches over the last 2 years. He’s a good player, yet could not find a place in Norman.
Let’s look at the full resume since the pair of Riley/Simmons arrived in Norman.
I ‘bolded‘ the receivers who had the most impact from their respective signing classes.
2015
Jarvis Baxter – 3* (JUCO) – 24 receptions 2 years played
Dahu Green – 3* – 3 receptions 6 games played – Transferred to Ark State
AD Miller – 3* – 28 receptions 4 years played, 5 years on campus – Tried to transfer, couldn’t pull it off
DeDe Westbrook – 4* (JUCO) – 126 receptions, 2 years played, 1 Biletnikoff Award won – NFL – (Jay Norvell recruit)
2016
Mykel Jones – 4* – 33 receptions, 4 over the last 2 years, 4 years played – Transferred to Tulane
Zach Farrar – 3* – Nothing, zero, zip, nada, bagels – 1 year on campus (redshirt) – Transferred everywhere
Adrian Hardy – 3* – Even less than Farrar, never made it to campus
Geno Lewis – 4* Grad Transfer – 32 receptions, 1 year played – CFL
2017
CeeDee Lamb – 4* – 173 receptions, All-American, Biletnikoff finalist – NFL 1st round pick
Charleston Rambo – 4* – 76 receptions, 3 years played – Transferred to Miami (and was quite successful there)
Marquise Brown – 4* (JUCO) – 132 receptions, 2 years on campus, All-American – NFL (Cale Gundy recruit)
2018
Jaquayln Crawford – 4* – 2 games played in 2 years on campus – Transferred to Arkansas
Jaylon Robinson – 4* – 3 receptions in one year on campus – Transferred to UCF (had a nice 2020 season)
2019
Trejan Bridges – 4* – 9 receptions, 2 years on campus – Not in college
Jadon Haselwood – 5* (#1 2019 WR), 62 receptions, 3 years on campus – Transferred to Arkansas
Theo Wease – 5* – 45 receptions, 3 years on campus – Went into the portal following 2021, chose to return under the new staff
2020
Brian Darby – 3* – 8 receptions, 2 years on campus
Theo Howard – 4* (Transfer) – 13 receptions, 1 year on campus – Transferred to Utah
Marvin Mims – 4* – 67 receptions – Would have left Norman if Riley and Simmons stayed
Obi Obialo – 3* (Transfer) – Nothing, 2 years on campus
Trevon West – 3* – 8 receptions, 2 years on campus – Entered portal and came back for 2021
2021
Mario Williams – 4* – 33 receptions
Jalil Farroq – 4* – 1 reception
Cody Jackson – 4* – 5 receptions
Mike Woods – 3* (Grad Transfer) – 32 receptions
Results:
7 seasons
25 commitments
18 High School Commitments
9 transfers
3 NFL players – (1 of which was a Jay Norvell recruit, 1 of which was a Cale Gundy recruit) (4 total if you count Sterling Shepard who played one year under Simmons/Riley)
2 JUCO players sent to the NFL
1 High School player who was recruited and developed throughout his entire college career who is in the NFL: CeeDee Lamb
Pretty telling that the first 3 classes feature JUCO or transfer players as the guys with the most productive careers outside of CeeDee. You look at the last 4 seasons and you cringe at some of the names on the list in the first place and the lack of production in the second case. The fact that the best receivers recruited, by ranking, all have left or made noise about leaving if Riley and Simmons were still in Norman is just wild.
Let’s go back to that much-hyped and ballyhooed 2019 cases and what happened upon their arrival in Norman.
Haselwood, Wease, and Bridges were talked about as the ‘greatest WR class ever.’ On paper, they deserved the accolades, as each member was highly coveted and thought of as a lock for great success. The common line of thinking was that OU would have only 3 years with them and off they would fly to the NFL.
Haselwood and Wease have had injuries that derailed their careers in Norman. Bridges had an off-field incident that derailed his football career entirely, which also came after he missed the playoff game and 6 games the next season after testing positive on an NCAA drug test.
But what about their freshman years when each was healthy and expected to come in and contribute?
It did not work out that way.
Instead of seeing Haselwood, Wease, and Bridges get their opportunities during the season, the Sooners ran out guys named Lee Morris, Nick Basquine, and AD Miller far more often early in the season.
WR Snap counts for the full season in 2019: Lamb 682, Rambo 670 – that seems understandable. Then, you have Lee Morris 484 Nick Basquine 290. Only then do you start seeing the freshman trioL Haselwood got 222 (his snaps grew as the season went on), Wease 185, Miller 135 (snaps went down with an injury), and Trejan Bridges at 92.
Things got so weird that Trejan Bridges actually requested to play defense in an effort to get on the field.
So to start the year, Basquine, Morris, and Miller were getting the nod over the trio.
Talk about mismanaging a room!
Bring yourself back to 2019 and the frustration you had when the three freshman were not getting reps aside from late in the game. Recall the Baylor comeback win and how you felt when Theo Wease, who had a grand total of 8 receptions that year had that incredible 20 yard touchdown reception. Most of the yards came after that catch.
Here, I will remind you…
Yeah…that guy couldn’t get on the field for the majority of the year. *Insert Mind Blown GIF Here*
You had speed guys in Robinson and Crawford. Neither of those guys was given the opportunity to show what they can do as you had guys like Myles Tease and Basquine taking snaps from them early in their careers and both transferred when the trio came in the next year because…they expected, incorrectly, that talent would get reps over longevity.
Some of these younger guys couldn’t even get on the field when some of the ‘stars/starters’ ran afoul of the rules of conduct within the program. When incidents happened, and multiple incidents did, (nothing illegal, more along the lines of things we already talked about) the people in charge looked the other way…(go back to the S&C accountability/lack thereof issues, much of that noise came from this group).
In the offseason leading up to the 2021 season, the Texas Longhorns hired Steve Sarkisian as their head coach. Sark made a play for Simmons and OU made a decision to retain him. In retrospect, was that the move to make for a guy who had ONE… UNO… 1… high school recruit develop into an NFL draft pick? Any draft pick?
CeeDee was CeeDee and he was likely going to succeed no matter what school he went to… but there are 17 other high school kids on that list who will never be credited to Simmons and Riley for their full recruitment and development… over a seven year span with two Heisman trophy winning QBs and another who was the runner up.
Give them credit for CeeDee. Yes, they recruited him, helped to develop him, and sent him to the league as a first-round draft pick.
But that is literally the only skin on their wall in regard to recruiting and developing high school kids at OU. There has been a TON of wasted talent that has come and gone through Norman in that time frame.
In 2020, Jaylon Robinson had 55 catches for 979 yards and 6 touchdowns for UCF.
In 2021 Charleston Rambo had 79 catches for 1,172 yards and 7 touchdowns for Miami.
Over those same two seasons, the Sooners leading receiver was Marvin Mims.
In 2020 he had 37 receptions for 610 yards and 9 touchdowns.
In 2021 Mims had 30 catches for 648 yards and 4 touchdowns.
But Simmons and Riley couldn’t find work for Robinson and Rambo? Rambo couldn’t catch a cold while in Norman the last year and couldn’t get separation to save his life. Robinson never got an opportunity to show what he could do. Looks like those guys developed pretty well at their new destinations.
Not even going into Marvin Mims and his disappearing act for games at a time in 2021. Nothing like putting your best wide receiver on the shelf after moving him inside during the offseason. If Riley and Simmons had remained in Norman, I would bet big money that Mims would already be in the portal and likely at TCU by now.
Had a source tell me 2 years ago that “They only care about stacking chips for the future. You have to wait your turn no matter who they are putting out there. That shouldn’t be how this works when you tell a guy he will have every opportunity to earn his time! How can you earn your time when you don’t get the looks?” (Sounds a lot like what the DBs have gone through over the last 3 years…lot of words, little evidence of that actually being the case)
Let’s take a look at the ‘almost disaster’ they left in Norman with the 2021 class when they fled to the west coast. At one point the Sooners turned down Evan Stewart (they also turned away Armani Winfield around the same time) who wanted to commit but OU had ‘their guys locked in’.
The year prior they walked back on JoJo Earle, who also wanted to commit to Oklahoma.
They quit recruiting guys after they got verbal commitments from Jordan Hudson, Luther Burden, and Talyn Shettron. Just stopped recruiting. One by one all those wide receivers decommitted and at the end, while Simmons and Riley were still in Norman they were left with only WRB Raleek Brown until the week before they left when they landed Nic Anderson.
Luckily, Anderson stuck through the coaching change and Jeff Lebby and Brent Venables pulled in Jayden Gibson with a final push on the weekend before signing day.
Out of the guys who would be in their prime as seniors for the 2022 season (2018 and 2019 commits), only Theo Wease remains (and he was very close to leaving through the portal). Robinson, Crawford, Haselwood, and Bridges are all gone.
Without a Jay Norvell recruit and a Cale Gundy recruit to their credit, reality definitely paints a different picture than the narrative. One high school player recruited and developed throughout his entire career in Norman was drafted. One.
Dennis Simmons and Lincoln Riley did a good job recruiting wide receivers. They did an ‘OK’ job in getting them to sign.
They did a terrible job of managing and developing the room over the years. The stats don’t lie and neither does the exodus/potential exodus of their players if they had remained in Norman.
Update | Twitter Activity
– Charlie S – Posted on: December 19, 2021
After checking with sources both at OU and around the recruits who were tweeting today, here is what we have:
***Source around the recruits indicates they are talking about 3 different recruits.
***Source at OU confirms that there are in fact 3 recruits in play and they are aware of who the recruits are speaking of…2 of which we have pretty thoroughly documented for you which we would consider being in the boat.
***Third recruit in the discussion has indicated he would be open to being part of the class and we have touched on him but he has not yet visited Norman so there is a ways to go on that one.
***Yes we are aware that Kobie indicated additional guys he feels good about. We have not vetted that info with the OU side at this point.
Staff Notes | Sourced
– Super K – Posted on: December 20, 2021
***First, after speaking to a few folks, I realize that some of you may have been under the impression from my original report that the playoff DC candidate and the playoff DB candidate were on the same staff. That is not necessarily the case. There are only four playoff teams so just about anything I say would give it away. But I did want to clarify that.
***The playoff DB candidate is still in play.
***Also, have heard that with Tashard Choice leaving USC, it seems Lincoln has circled back to DeMarco Murray. He originally came after Murray but Murray turned him down. I’m told Riley has offered him more both in terms of compensation and title.
***I’m told Murray absolutely wants to remain at OU but the OU admin needs to make these coaches feel valued. Saying, no one person is bigger than the program shouldn’t mean, we can take our guys for granted. Don’t use their loyalty to OU as leverage in your favor, use it to reward them.
***And while I know a lot of you put blame on Riley, and I do believe there is a lot more he could have done to help himself at OU, I’m getting a stronger and stronger sense that the administration wasn’t as supportive in terms of providing the players and coaches what they wanted and should expect at a blue blood. Venables fortunately isn’t play that.
***In my estimation they need to make sure that the folks currently at OU are treated like they are truly valued.
