Mukes Fools Sooner Coach
On Jan. 1 Choctaw, Okla. defensive back Jordan Mukes held no offers and was almost entirely unknown in the recruiting world. By April 1 he will have landed more than a dozen offers and committed to the school he has long wanted to play for, Oklahoma.
The latter came together last night when Mukes announced his pledge to the Sooners after first telling Alex Grinch Monday afternoon.
"Of course I've been thinking about it and I've been talking to Ethan Downs and he was saying he wanted to be my roommates and stuff and talking about a lot of things. I always wanted to go there," Mukes said. "I talked to my coach about it and he said 'stop waiting'. I know they've got offers to other guys and I don't want to lose my spot.
"I talked to coach Grinch and he wanted me to do it but didn't want me to wait super long because there are kids they've offered and I didn't want to wait too long.
"After I talked to my coach, my football coach was talking to coach Grinch, so he told me to call coach Grinch - he was excited. He was saying I'm glad you did this and I can tell all these other guys 'I don't need you anymore because I've got my 6-3 guy'."
From there Oklahoma's defensive coordinator wanted Mukes in contact with the Sooners' head man, Lincoln Riley. But before he could speak to him, Mukes had a little fun with the longest tenured member of Oklahoma's staff.
"(Grinch) told me to call Lincoln at 3:30, but before that I called coach Roy (Manning), he was all excited and telling me a lot of good things. Then I called Cale (Gundy) and I told him I committed and he said 'where' and I said 'Texas Tech' and he was like 'why would you do that?' and I told him I was just playing and that I was committed (to Oklahoma)."
As mentioned, Mukes has gone from a player who was almost exclusively a member of the Yellowjackets junior varsity as a sophomore to an Oklahoma commitment in the order of about nine months. And with that in mind Grinch, and his defensive staff, continue to show a willingness to turst their own evaluations.
And in the case of Mukes they've been very open-ended on where his future fit could be.
"(Grinch) told me that I'm athletic and could play any of the five positions, one of the three safeties, any of the corners and that I'm movable," he said. "I haven't been playing that long so that's the only thing about it but they said that isn't a big deal because they can train me up in that stuff."
The talk about Mukes has often revolved around his athleticism, length, and his basketball background with some using the latter as something of a knock on his willingness to be physical. However though Mukes didn't play football for several years, his early formative years were spent in the thick of football's most physical spots.
"I used to play fullback, outside linebacker, and defensive end. I had more weight on me, but then I broke my arm and didn't play football until my sophomore year. And my sophomore year I didn't really play any varsity," Mukes offered.
Though he mentions Grinch often as far as his future at Oklahoma it's another Sooner staff member that has been his point man. But beyond that, Mukes talks about his ability to build a relationship with the majority of Oklahoma's coaches.
"It was Cale Gundy, me and him are real cool - he just kept everything real with me. There wasn't one coach that I didn't like. Chip Viney, coach Ro, Grinch, Cale, coach (Dennis) Simmons, the offensive line coach [Bill Bedenbaugh]. I liked every single one of them," he said.
In all though, the longtime Sooners fan says a year ago it would have been hard to believe that he would be in his current situation.
"I probably would have laughed. I knew I was going to be good, I knew I'd get offers but I just never knew it was going to come this quick. I would see division one players but I could see I was up there with them but they just had a lot more experience."