On the surface, it doesn’t look great.
Oklahoma lost its third-straight College Football Playoff game in a drumming from eventual national champion LSU. The Sooners then turn around and land only the No. 17 ranked recruiting class (11th on 247Sports), according to Rivals.
Tough optics for a program with a fanbase clamoring to end the longest drought between national championships in Oklahoma’s history since Bud Wilkinson won his first in 1950.
That, though, is just optics.
Since Lincoln Riley got to Oklahoma in 2015, the Sooners have steadily climbed back into the thick of the college football blue-chip race. The one where the top programs in college football horde all the best recruits in the country.
Oklahoma ranked with the middle-of-the-pack as only 39.81 percent of its roster was four or five-star recruits for the 2015 season. That number quickly climbed to 50.5 percent in 2017, up to 59.79 percent in 2018 after Riley’s first recruiting class as a head coach and now that number settles in at 63.27 percent for the 2020 season.
The Sooners’ 2020 recruited talent over the last four recruiting classes ranks fifth in college football, behind Alabama (87.13 percent), Georgia (75.25 percent), Ohio State (71.91 percent) and Florida (67.03 percent). And yes, that means Oklahoma is ahead in recruited talent against the likes of Clemson and LSU right now (well … Texas, too).
In the 2020 recruiting class, the Sooners landed 12 four-stars of its 23 member class. Their 2017-19 recruiting classes helped them continue to grow in recruited talent again as the 2016 recruiting class—the last one that the blue-chip ratio was 50 percent of lower—exits the window.
Although Oklahoma didn’t live up to the recruiting level under the past defensive regime and strength staff, the Sooners strengthened their roster with recruited talent—proving its worth on the recruiting trail.
And even with a down recruiting year in 2020, Oklahoma and Lincoln Riley maintained its position among the blue-chip race in college football.
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