NewsOK: Oklahoma expands recruiting

[zoogs]

Saw this on SI.com today.

 

I look at Oklahoma as one of the models for our program, in a lot of ways. Our favorite, respected, historical rivals. Middle of nowheresville great plains locations. Storied programs with a great amount of success. Youngstown, OH head coaches who were buddies growing up, and were both hired to turn around a mess and restore the greatness of their respective programs' past.

 

I think there are few teams that exemplify the kind of year-in, year-out success we want to see as Oklahoma. Bob Stoops has been there 14 years. Not counting the first, he's had two down years - 8-win seasons in 2005 and 2009. He's had 9 seasons of 11-wins or more. That's outstanding. And he's coming off of two 10-win seasons, which he considered failures enough to start firing coaches.

 

According to Huskerboard Recruitnik Extraordinaire EZ-E (or was it PaulCrewe. Sometimes I confuse the two =P), we demolished the Sooners on the recruiting trail this year. But Stoops is already at work to rectify that, by making recruiting the central focus of his new hires - getting guys with strong ties to different parts of the country.

 

Bedenbaugh, Oklahoma's new offensive line coach, was officially hired last week after two seasons in the same position at West Virginia. Montgomery agreed to coach OU defensive linemen this weekend, a source confirmed to The Oklahoman, although the athletic department has yet to officially announce the former Michigan assistant's hire.

“They've recruited the Big Ten region, and for all of Bob Stoops and the staff's connections in that area, it's not an area they've really hit in a while,” said Josh McCuistion, who covers OU recruiting for the Rivals network site SoonerScoop.com.

LINK

I'm really encouraged with our own recruiting efforts of late, and I love that this staff is finally seeing the Spring Game as a recruiting tool and going with the televised BTN option. I just wanted to highlight this as an example of what a model program in a similar position to us is doing. Obviously not everything they do is something we should/could copy, but I think maybe there's something to be learned here.

In particular, if we go through another 10-win season, I hope Bo takes a hard look at every part of his staff and makes the moves he needs to maximize. I firmly believe Bo can be that frequent 11+ win guy with national championship runs under his belt if he gets after it enough.