For the last decade, Oklahoma has made a strong living of expanding its recruiting base from Oklahoma and Texas to including California.
It became so prevalent that the term Cali Sooners became a common response about what the Sooners were doing on the recruiting trail.
During the last seven seasons, that influence included Lincoln Riley. First, as an offensive coordinator for two years and then the last five seasons as OU’s head coach.
The startling news Sunday afternoon of Riley leaving Norman to become the head coach at USC, though, has turned everything upside down.
There will obviously be a massive fallout regarding players on campus via the transfer portal, but what is going to sting even more is all the work OU had done regarding elite 2022 and 2023 recruits might just go right down the drain.
And might is attempting to be friendly.
Within minutes of the Riley news being broken by The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei’s Raleek Brown was already giving the hints about flipping his commitment from OU to the home state Trojans.
USC finished as runner-up to OU during his initial recruitment.
And then there’s the Los Alamigos, the trio from Los Alamitos (Calif.) High for the 2023 class with quarterback Malachi Nelson and receivers Makai Lemon and Deandre Moore.
All three have been firm commits to the Sooners. But with Riley going their way, it remains to be seen how that is going to affect everything.
USC felt like an incredible favorite for Nelson early on during his recruitment. It was that relationship with Riley and Riley’s ability to develop quarterbacks that helped put OU over the top in the summer.
With less than three weeks from the early signing period, it’s going to be the silly season to the extreme going forward for OU. Gaining and losing 2022 and 2023 commitments like crazy. Nobody has decommitted just yet, but a whole bunch of (rightfully) stunned faces throughout social media.
