Lincoln Riley’s remaining 2021 4-Stars shining under Brent Venables

A lot has been made of the difference in recruiting at the University of Oklahoma since Brent Venables has taken over. The Sooners have had three top 10 classes during Venables’ tenure. The biggest difference might be on the defensive side of the ball, where Oklahoma’s added three five-star prospects in the last two cycles in Adepoju Adebawore, Peyton Bowen, and David Stone.

Despite the transition from Lincoln Riley to Jeff Lebby and now Seth Littrell, the Sooners have remained adept at recruiting blue-chip offensive talent as well.

While recruiting has certainly seen an uptick, Oklahoma’s going to rely on four players from Riley’s final recruiting class in 2021 to lead the way. But at this point it’s safe to say these are Venables’ guys.

From a signing class headlined by Caleb Williams, Billy Bowman, Ethan Downs, Jalil Farooq, and Danny Stutsman are leading the way for the Sooners in 2024.

Bowman, Downs, and Stutsman weren’t recruited by Venables, but they hung with the defensive-minded head coach after he took over in December of 2021. All three were instrumental in Oklahoma’s year-to-year turnaround from 2022 to 2023. Though the three defensive stars are on their third defensive coordinator in four seasons, they remain committed to the vision laid out by Venables and his staff. And each has shown improvement each season under their head coach.

More: Recent USC decommitments further validate Oklahoma’s recruiting strategy

Farooq, who had a strong relationship with Williams (they both played high school football in the DMV area on the East Coast), has stayed with the Sooners despite working with his third offensive play-caller and fourth position coach in four seasons.

In this modern era of college football, that many coaching changes would send any number of players into the transfer portal. Yet,…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/lincoln-riley-remaining-2021-4-162411004.html

Author : Sooners Wire

Publish date : 2024-06-20 16:24:11

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