Welcome to OU: Jaren Kanak
Before the mid-year enrollees arrived on campus at Oklahoma for the spring semester, SoonerScoop.com caught up with some of them for one final interview.
After some crazy times that saw Lincoln Riley leave and Brent Venables enter, there is no more fitting title for the 2022 class than welcome to OU.
Welcome to OU – Jaren Kanak.
Venables made a lot of things pretty clear in his initial press conference back in December, but one thing he really emphasized was he was not going to recruit any Clemson commitments. Even if it might have made sense and helped OU, Venables wasn’t going to go that direction.
But what if the script was flipped? What if, instead of Venables coming after a recruit, it went the other way with a recruit trying to ‘recruit’ Venables?
That was the case when it came to linebacker Jaren Kanak. The four-star prospect had been committed to Clemson for months and months, but everybody knew a couple of things. One, Venables was essentially the lone recruiter for Kanak. Two, OU is a lot closer to Kansas than Clemson.
Still, Venables preached to Kanak about giving Dabo Swinney and the Tigers a legitimate chance before making any rash decisions.
“But in his heart, he didn't want to even go and try it out,” said Venables last month. “That's what I told him. I said, ‘Man, just go for the semester. You're going to love it. You'll get over me in a minute. Trust me.’ So, I think that they visit with Coach Swinney and after some time to just think it through, I think he was willing as long as they didn't decommit prior to signing day and raise a ruckus with all that, just kept things quiet, just not to sign.
“And then if he wanted, he'd give his blessing to be recruited by us. So that's in a nutshell, pretty dramatic nutshell, but there's really no drama. It's just a young man and his family trying to find the best place for him. And as we all know, that's not an easy thing to do for anyone, you know?”
That’s exactly what happened. Kanak didn’t decommit or sign with OU during the early signing period in December. He quietly went about his business, enrolling at OU, decommitting from Clemson in January and then eventually announcing he would be a Sooner.
“Obviously, Venables was the biggest pulling factor toward Clemson and he was a very big deal in my commitment decision,” Kanak told SoonerScoop.com in January. “So when we saw and started hearing that he might go to Oklahoma we had some conversations.
“We kind of just sat down and considered pretty much every possibility. Once he left Clemson, it put it into perspective that he was one of the biggest pulling factors for that commitment to Clemson. Now that he wasn't there it was questionable to me, it didn't feel 100 percent right.”
It wasn’t like OU was completely foreign to Kanak. He became a name to watch nationwide after his spring track season, verified his speed to go with his size and coaches were offering galore.
OU was one of them, and Kanak did visit Norman. Clemson, however, was different. Venables wasn’t about to offer Kanak until he visited the campus.
Venables is keeping that same mindset as he runs the show with the Sooners. He’s hammering home how important it is to him that recruits who really want to be considered make that trip to OU.
Kanak did just that.
“And I wasn't going to offer him until he showed up,” Venables said. “I wanted him to have some skin in the game and see if he was serious about his opportunity. He had this hat. He had a Clemson hat when he was a kid, and he showed me these pictures.
“I'm like, ‘Why are you interested in Clemson? Come on.’ You know? I want a real reason. Like, give me a reason to get excited. I'm going to go all the way to Hays, Kansas, and spend ... I don't want to practice recruiting. It's hard enough as it is. And so, give me a reason.”
It wasn’t all for show. Kanak’s high school coach had visited Clemson the previous year and had gotten a feel of the facilities and the Swinney culture. He knew Kanak would thrive there, and Kanak was offered when he visited Clemson.
Committed since July 2021, there was no reason for Kanak to look elsewhere. The bond was deep with Venables, and he was set.
But after Lincoln Riley left, and Venables became the No. 1 name everybody was watching in terms of taking over, it was (understandably) a different story.
“I had a scheduled in-home visit with he and Coach Swinney on Monday,” Venables said. “Certainly, the news was out there that I might have spoken to him and we told them, yep, that happened. And you know, I might take it if they offer it, you know? But I'm here to ... I still work at Clemson and I believe in Clemson.
“And I told him even after I got the job, there's nothing changed. Clemson's amazing. The people there are genuine. Everything is as real as it could ever be. And it's not like all of a sudden, now things are different because I'm not there.”
Things might not be different at Clemson, but they were obviously different for Kanak and his family. They had discussions with Swinney, most notably Kanak’s mother, and there were no hard feelings.
It was time to be a Sooner.
“Once he left, he was pretty much my only recruiter there and I talked to him the most and built an incredible relationship with him,” Kanak said. “When he switched to Oklahoma it kind of threw us for a loop.
“I also want to get it on the record that Venables did not try to recruit me to Oklahoma. That's something he mentioned he wasn't going to do – poach any of the Clemson commitments.”
As Venables said, that’s it in a nutshell. An incredible whirlwind of a nutshell, but how it all came to be. Venables and Kanak together again, and Kanak appears to be off to a great start at OU.