The Football Brainiacs

We’ve been dropping recruiting information on y’all in various posts so we figured it would make things easier for readers if we periodically did a recruiting summary to bring some of it together in one convenient place. These are some thoughts on Oklahoma’s chances at some of their targets based on the most recent information we’ve acquired from our sources:

Steven Parker – We’ll start with Parker because just when we tend to think this one is all done TAMU just won’t quit. First of all the latest we’ve heard is Arkansas is not a player even though he made an unofficial to Arkansas a while back. We we’re told that OSU and TAMU were planning on visiting him at the state championship game. However since it was delayed TAMU did an in-home. We’ve heard something interesting about the TAMU in-home but we haven’t been given the ok to share it but if it turns out to be true it will be a positive sign for OU and we will share as soon as we’re given the green light. We haven’t gotten word on what OSU is going to do now that the game date has been changed. As we reported earlier in the week Oklahoma had an in-home visit this past weekend with Steven Parker and Parker’s family raved about the visit. We we’re told it could not have gone better. Interesting thing is I had a conversation with a certain coach who told me, TAMU doesn’t need to recruit an Oklahoma DB…they’ve got plenty of DBs committed and plenty more DBs in-state…they’re doing it to “mess with Oklahoma”. We still feel this one is going to go Oklahoma’s way but I’ll feel better giving an updated prediction once I hear how the TAMU in-home went. I still don’t believe OSU is a threat at all. Hang on to your seats because while we still like OU here there are still some unknowns. I have been told that this commitment could happen this month.

Dwight Williams and Adoree Jackson – asked around about these two again and we were again told that they are not coming to Oklahoma. I will say that we talked to Dwight’s coach and he said that Dwight did genuinely enjoy his visit to Oklahoma and that he liked the fact that OU has Cali kids on the roster. He also said that Dwight has family in north Texas/southern Oklahoma and family in north Florida/southern Georgia which is why he was initially interested in Florida and Oklahoma. Problem is another source feels like Dwight is someone who would either follow Adoree or stay close to home. And we just can’t find anyone that knows the guys out there that’s given us any reason to believe Adoree is genuinely interested in Oklahoma anymore. And of course now that USC has hired a coach we’ve got to believe that the stability will be attractive to guys like Jackson.

Dwayne Orso – As we said earlier in the week Dwayne’s recruiting continues to heat up. We were first to report the South Carolina offer he received last week. Auburn visited the same week but we were told they are full at DEnd. But we were also told that if they weren’t full they likely would have offered. But that wasn’t from Auburn…that was the opinion of someone close to the situation. This week Mississippi State came by to visit Orso (and Jordan Sims). The DC came by and asked Orso to take an official visit to Miss. State (as a side note – in our first report we mistakenly said that the DL coach visited but it was in fact the DC). After we heard that Miss. State asked him to take the official I checked with a source close to Miss. State and he confirmed that Miss. State is looking for one more DLineman and said that if Orso takes the trip he’ll likely get the offer. They are trying to feel out his interest right now. Orso hasn’t decided whether he is going to take the trip. I can assure y’all though that the people around Orso continue to remind him that Oklahoma found and recruited him first and “that’s got to mean something”. I know his mother loves Oklahoma and coach Montgomery. But Miss. State’s sales pitch is, not surprisingly the “come here and you get to stay close to home and be closer to your mama” pitch.

Jordan Sims – Not sure where Oklahoma stands with him so I’ll keep this short. I knew a few weeks back he was open to taking an official especially with Orso committing. We don’t know if that’s still the case. But we’ll find out soon enough. Jordan is being recruited heavily by Ole Miss. Coach Hugh Freeze rolled in this week for an in-home visit. But Orso still hasn’t committed to Ole Miss despite the fact that they’ve been recruiting him for quite some time. He is an Alabama fan though but we’ve heard Bama is pretty full at OG. We continue to follow Sims because we love this kids game (and he’s a great kid from a great family) and we we’re told that after Orso committed Oklahoma decided to start recruiting him again (I say again because OU offered him quite a while ago but there wasn’t a serious recruiter effort back then).

Joe Mixon – As most of you know Joe released his top 4 this past week. It wasn’t a surprise to many folks who follow or report on recruiting. He listed his favorites as Cal, UCLA, Wisconsin and Oklahoma but he said they we’re in no particular order. While we take him at his word we still believe that is the order in terms of likely places he will end up. However between Oklahoma and Wisconsin we believe he prefers Oklahoma as a school but has a better relationship with Wisconsin’s coach. We know a lot of people will dispute that but in the recruiting world we all have “sources”. We’re just telling you what we’ve heard. And FYI our source actually knows Joe and believe me many times hearing from someone around the kid is better than hearing it from the kid. Lots of kids will tell publications what they want to hear in order to gain popularity (not directing that comment at Joe – its just a general statement). We also mentioned in our post earlier that we’ve been told Joe’s mama wants him to stay closer to home. So we just don’t feel good about OU’s chances here.

Ainuu Taua – last time I reported on him I had no confidence OU was going to win this one. There has been some movement here but it’s still tough. Taua’s recruitment is…interesting…and that’s about the only way I can say it. I’m so limited in what I can say here that if feels pointless even talking about it but as always we just try to give y’all everything we hear that we’re allowed to say and then give y’all our opinion on it. This is going to sound weird but with Taua right now we feel there is little to no chance but if a certain thing happens then OU will be in the lead (and NO we’re not talking about a “certain thing” that violates any NCAA rules or anything of the sort!). We’ll follow it. As a side note I know that Oklahoma wants Taua as an NG and I know that he doesn’t feel as comfortable playing near 300 lbs as he does playing closer to 280 lbs. I just don’t know if I see the frame of a 2-gap nose. And I know other football people outside of Oklahoma that question it as well. But I know his coach thinks he can and while a kids coach isn’t always right we definitely give their word a lot of credence because they know the kid the best and they know the kid within a context.

Jonathan Thomas – I know it was reported that Coach Kish would be making an in-home visit next week but nothing has been pinned down so while it might happen it definitely has not been schedule. Right now Coach Kish has just told Jonathan that he plans on visiting at some point. J hasn’t met Coach Kish at all yet and he hasn’t even visited campus but they talk regularly (weekly) and he really likes Coach Kish. He thinks he’s “swell” haha. Obviously OU is waiting to see what Jonathan’s eligibility situation is at the semester. If things look good then I anticipate Coach Kish will make the visit. If that happens OU will have an excellent chance at landing Jonathan. And by the way I’ve said it before but because I think Jonathan is such a good kid I want to say again, he is an intelligent young man and he has made great strides in getting his grades where they need to be. I really hope things work out here and I know Jonathan hopes so as well. Oklahoma loves his athleticism but they also love his size and the diversity in what he can do. They feel like he can play ILB and OLB. Again. great athlete and a great kid!

This post has gotten a lot longer than I expected so I’ll have to break this up into two parts and finish the last few names I wanted to cover in a second post. I’ll be traveling on a business trip this weekend but I will try to get it up for y’all next week.