Open Post | Weekend, October 19th – 21st By: TFB Posted on: October 19, 2018

Notebook | Stripling, Steele, Ricks & More
– Super K

***Let’s start with Sooner DL target, Marcus Stripling. Texas A&M has held a lead for Stripling for a while. And though Texas A&M continues to recruit Stripling, as I’ve mentioned, you’ve got start wondering about their numbers. They are still pursuing a number of guys in the 2019 class, including David Ugwoegbu and others.

I spoke to Stripling last recently, he told me that he had just spoken to coach Riley and was about to call Coach Thibs to get his official visit set up. I believe he still plans to make it happen for next week’s game against Kansas State. I did ask him to let me know when it’s confirmed by unfortunately I missed his call. So, I’ll see if I can confirm it today.

***Speaking of David Ugwoegbu, I’m hearing the Sooners have closed the gap with Texas A&M. Honestly, don’t know what to attribute it to but I’ll check with him.

***In case you missed it, 4-star TX CB, Marcus Banks (Dekaney) decommitted from LSU. I asked Banks if he’s had any contact with Oklahoma and he said, he has not. Sources have indicated to me that the Sooners are really looking for a hard-hitting safety or someone can play multiple positions in the secondary. Banks is really more of a pure corner.

***A safety name you may want to keep an eye on is 2019 California DB prospect, Shamar Martin. Martin is currently committed to UCLA. He’s a hitter which is something OU is looking for but he has the hips and drive to cover. Does a nice man turn early in his tape and plays the ball well. Hands on the ball quite a bit.

Martin says OU has been in touch but said they’re still evaluating his film before making a decision on whether to offer.

***This takes us back to Chris Steele. Earlier in the week, I spoke with multiple sources and both sources said that things between Steele and USC weren’t particularly solid as of late.

I also posted the interview with Steele where he confirmed that OU was at one time his outright leader, and should he not choose to stick with USC, the Sooners, and Florida would be his main other options.

There was a lot of smoke around that recruitment, and then there was the fire…

The 2019 defensive back and major Sooners target out of St John Bosco HS in Bellflower, Ca, decommited from USC.

Steele officially visited Norman for the Spring Game and has maintained a solid relationship with the OU staff since that point even while committed to USC.

Recently, as we have reported, things began to trend away from USC and towards OU and Florida to a degree for Steele.

So…this (his impending decommitment) was the piece of news that Charlie posted on the late night ‘Insider Note’ on the Donor board which gave me the increased confidence that OU was trending in the right direction for Steele which we spoke about the other night.

This is by no means a wrap for OU as Florida is a very real possibility…but the Sooners are squarely in the mix for the elite defensive back.

We will have much more on this later.

***5-star CA DB, Elias Ricks (Mater Dei)…

He doesn’t have the visit set up yet but he’s working with OU on it. OU is a player in this recruitment. Obviously, USC, Ohio State, Texas (he has a lot of family from Texas) are in the mix as well and it’s early but I get the sense from him that OU is more in this one that I probably expected.

I’ll also note that OU, in general, has a pretty good presence in California. I don’t know if it’s because of the dustbowl migration or what but…

Strange thing was I walked into the office at the school and saw someone wearing a USC shirt and thought to myself, “I’m probably going to see a lot of USC shirts”. Next thing I know, I look up and there’s some kid wearing an OU shirt. And, he wasn’t the only way. I asked one of the administrators about it and he said that they’ve got a lot of OU alum who have kids that go to school there.

I did see Darion Green-Warren, as well. He said he’ll be at the Bedlam game. He and Ricks are close so I could see that helping OU.

***Continue to hear more and more on some movement with Marcel Brooks recruitment. Trying to proceed here with caution because Brooks has gone back and forth so many times. But essentially what I’m hearing is that OU and Texas are very serious contenders for him. As signing day gets closer, my read is he’s starting to rethink the idea of going too far from home.

I’m told the conversation with Riley went extremely well. It sounds like Riley assured him that he had a spot at Oklahoma if he wanted it. This could end up being a whole lot of nothing but again, I’ve heard now from multiple people that there is some movement in this recruitment and OU and Texas (along with LSU, of course) seem to be where Brooks has eyes.

 

 

Quick Hitter | Spencer Rattler Injury
– Charlie S

– Checking in with Spencer Rattler prior to his game this week and he let me know that he will not be playing as he has suffered an injury.

When I asked him what the injury was he said, “Yeah I sprained my MCL”.

Typically that type of injury will require him to rest and do some rehab, but there should be no long-term issues.

Bummer for the kid in his senior year, but thankfully he should fully recover.

 

 

TCU Pregame | Class Is In Session
– The Professor

Hello. It’s been a while. If you’re like me, you’ve spent the last couple of weeks in a recovery of sorts. You’ve stayed away from social media. You’ve thought entirely unreasonable thoughts about who the next Defensive Coordinator will be. You’ve perhaps woken up in a cold sweat from flashes of defensive players diving towards opposing ball carriers with their arms pinned to their side.

However, it’s time to move forward. It’s time to get back out there and slam some idiots on twitter. It’s time to realize that Nick Saban probably isn’t going to take a DC job at Oklahoma. And, it’s time to have sweet dreams of smashing Texas in a rematch in December.

Oklahoma starts that journey on Saturday against TCU. Here are some stats and facts that will ease the nerves about getting back out on that field.

 

THE HISTORY

For two schools that each has over 100 years of history and are just about 180 miles away from each other, it always surprises me that they’ve only met 18 times. Oklahoma leads the all-time series 13-5-0. The Sooners have done most of that in recent history. Oklahoma has won seven of the last eight meetings.

TCU and Oklahoma have been playing football about the same number of years. However, the two teams have spent those years doing very different things.

TCU has 20 seasons in which they finished in the AP Top 25. Oklahoma has 21 seasons in which they finished in the AP Top 3.

TCU has spent two weeks ranked at #1 in the AP Poll. Oklahoma has spent at least two weeks ranked at #1 in the AP Poll during 19 different seasons.

Come on, TCU. You’ve had since 1896 to practice. You should be further along than this.

 

THE COACHES

Lincoln Riley is coming off of just his 3rd loss in his career. Gary Patterson lost his 3rd game when Lincoln Riley was a senior in high school. In fact, Gary Patterson is the 2nd-longest tenured coach in FBS football. Patterson has been successful too. He’s won at least 10 games in 10 of his 19 seasons as coach of the Horned Frogs.

Despite his success, Patterson is not off to a great start against Riley. In their first meeting, Riley and the Sooners won by 18. Patterson then tried to get revenge in the Big 12 Championship, but lost again, this time by 24.

Something tells me that trend will continue on Saturday. Riley and Oklahoma should be in no mood to let TCU hang around.

THE PLAYERS

Kyler Murray continues to be sensational. He is currently outpacing Baker Mayfield in efficiency and has 377 yards rushing and five rushing TDs on top of his passing performance.

Shawn Robinson…has not. Robinson has 1,305 yards nine touchdowns and 8 interceptions on the season. He’s averaging just 6.7 yards per attempt this season. Kyler Murray could throw 125 passes the rest of the season with every one of them falling incomplete, and he would still have more yards per attempt than Robinson.

TCU’s offense as a whole is pretty horrible. They average just 4.6 yards per carry in the rushing game. Every Oklahoma running back that has carried the ball this season has more yards per carry than that. TCU has scored just 172 points this season. Oklahoma scored their 172nd point in overtime of the Army game.

The Horned Frogs defense is decent, allowing an average of 20.2 points per game. That being said, Oklahoma’s offense doesn’t seem to even notice that defenses are on the field this season.

There is no telling how the defense will play on Saturday. My guess though is that they will come out with something to prove. Bear in mind, Oklahoma’s defense, when it comes to points allowed per play, is slightly better than the FBS average at 0.34. The killer for Oklahoma is that they can’t get opposing offenses off the field facing 79.67 plays per game.

Well, hopefully, this has been as therapeutic for you to read as it has been for me to write. Check back next week for the final.

The Professor, also known on Twitter as Blinkin Riley (Steven Smith) will be dropping some knowledge on us throughout the season with a pre-game lesson and a post-game lesson each week! We encourage you to follow his Twitter account @blinkinriley for additional mini-lessons…