With the first day of the signing period behind us, we can all finally let out a deep sigh of relief. While exciting, it can be a lot and taking a step back gives you the luxury of looking at the bigger picture.
For example, the Sooners missed out on a few targets they had one their board but they also signed four of the six recruits they were recruiting hardest leading into national signing day.
It’s all about the perspective there. That same level of perspective will be needed as the Sooners do have to live with their misses on signing day. One of the two misses will sting a bit harder as consensus five-star offensive lineman Devon Campbell chose the Texas Longhorns over the Sooners on signing day.
We’ve maintained for a while now Texas was in the lead here but make no mistake offensive line coach did everything possible for him to get the Sooners to this point in the race.
Ultimately, Texas won out and the Longhorns have assembled and incredible amount of offensive line talent to block for transfer QB Quinn Ewers over the next few years. That brings us to this question: Where do the Sooners stand with the rest of their offensive line recruiting for this class?
As it stands there are just two offensive line in the 2022 recruiting class for the Sooners. At least, currently. They’ve got four-star talents Jacob Sexton and Jake Taylor signed and they have a shot on one other highly ranked offensive lineman in the 2022 class, Michigan Wolverines lean Josh Conerly.
Josh Conerly Jr. is a consensus five-star offensive tackle recruit out of the state of Washington. His recruitment is down to six teams, including the Oklahoma Sooners. The Sooners had Conerly in for a January official visit. He won’t decide his college decision until March but the Sooners are putting their best foot forward there. Who knows where it stands or what it may amount to but if they lose it won’t be for lack of trying.
A commitment from Conerly paired with the signings of four-star offensive tackle Jake Taylor and four-star Jacob Sexton would be a very solid offensive line class overall.
Take into consideration with the Sooners missing out on Campbell, they’ve not signed a consensus five-star offensive line prospect in the last decade. Pretty remarkable that a place of Oklahoma’s caliber has been unable to land such a talent especially considering a couple of the NFL’s best offensive linemen, Trent Williams and Creed Humphrey are Sooners.
The Sooners have the facilities, staff and whatever is necessary to land these five-star talents on both sides of the trenches but until they see it happening, there will always be that disappointing feeling seeing a player like Campbell get away.
The Sooners should continue to recruit elite offensive linemen going forward and by the looks of the offers to the offensive linemen of the 2023 class, the Sooners are planning to do just that.
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