Blatant Homerism: Recruiting in unfamiliar territory
The best word to describe recruiting for the Oklahoma Sooners as they build out their 2026 class is “complicated.”
OU is dealing with the same new variables that every other FBS program has to contend with. Players can still transfer in and out of programs as they please. Schools are cutting in players on revenue from athletics for the first time ever beginning in July. Meanwhile, a new enforcement body is trying to regulate deals offered to players for name, image and likeness rights – the vast majority of which are nothing more than pay-for-play arrangements. And imminent legal challenges to all of the changes mean a sense of uncertainty looms over the college football landscape.
More specific to the situation in Norman, head coach Brent Venables is sitting on a piping hot seat after OU suffered its second losing season in three years with him at the helm. That leaves the coaching staff combating relentless attacks from competitors about his job security. The program is also integrating a new front office into its operations in an effort to enhance its talent evaluation and retention. That kind of project in the short run is bound to create some friction and snags at different points in the recruiting process.
With all of that in mind, what should we take away from OU’s efforts to this point in the ‘26 recruiting cycle? Here are a few high-level thoughts from an outsider’s perspective.
Running behind
No matter the results on the field, recruitniks would tell you Venables and his staff have performed well off of it in attracting high school talent to OU. According to On3, the Sooners’ last four recruiting classes ranked eighth, sixth, ninth and 17th nationally. Those results seem to be in line with the program’s past performance on the trail.
The ‘26 crop appears destined to fall on the low end of the Sooners’ historical range. On3 ranks OU’s current class of 13 committed players 20th overall, with six four-star players, six three-stars and an unranked kicker in the boat. Note that a recent spate of blue-chip commitments helped push up OU’s overall class rank.
Optimists would tell you that the coaches still have months left to persuade prospects to join up. Not to mention, it’s tough to make good-faith comparisons at this juncture between recruiting classes with 30 players and those with closer to a dozen.
Conversely, time is running out to land highly regarded players. If forthcoming additions to the ‘26 class look like those who have been acquired so far, it will make for a lackluster finish to the “stars matter” crowd. In that event, OU fans would have to hope the braintrust in the football offices nailed their evaluations.
Bowe-ing up
To be fair, the state of OU’s recruiting at this point in time shouldn’t come as a surprise. Things tend to fall off when a program can provide such little clarity about the future of its head coach. Can you blame any player who hesitates to sign up to play for a team that might have a new head honcho in six months?
In fact, you could argue that the Sooners are overperforming on the trail in light of Venables’ job status. Case in point: newly committed quarterback Bowe Bentley, who picked the Sooners over LSU.
Bentley, a four-star field general out of Celina, Texas, has risen quickly up the ranks of QB recruits this offseason. On3’s industry consensus puts him at 76th overall and seventh among prep QBs. Ben Arbuckle, OU’s first-year offensive coordinator, identified Bentley as his preferred QB candidate for ‘26 and spent the next six months locking it down.
Bentley doesn’t look like the best QB prospect to ever join the fold at OU. However, given Venables’ precarious tenure, pushing through so many obstacles between Bentley and the Sooners still feels like an enormous recruiting win for the program. At the very least, it speaks to the ability of OU’s staff to connect with prospects.
No use stressing
Candidly, worrying about OU’s upcoming recruiting class feels pointless right now. (That is, more pointless than worrying any time about where a teenager you don’t know is going to college.)
Venables and his assistants are almost certainly coaching for their jobs this season. It’s hard to say what they need to do to remain employed beyond 2025, but we can say they won’t return if their next 12 games go anything like the ones OU played last year. That reality is creating massive headwinds for the Sooners on the trail.
If OU does move on from Venables after the season, the players now in OU’s ‘26 recruiting class will start exploring other options. (They will probably do that much sooner if the campaign starts heading south.) Perhaps the next head coach could keep a few players from scattering, but you have to bake in personnel losses in the event of a coaching change. Resetting the roster would seem inevitable.
On the other hand, let’s say the Sooners thrive this year. The chances of Venables and company landing some late commitments or flipping recruits who are pledged elsewhere will start climbing. And looking ahead, the Sooners would get a springboard into the 2027 recruiting cycle, which features a loaded class of prospects inside the state of Oklahoma.
So if you are the kind of fan who wants to know where OU’s target at long-snapper is taking official visits, obsess away. But what happens on the field in the coming months will likely have an even bigger impact than usual on which recruits eventually sign with the Sooners.