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Just goes to show how much recruiting rankings mean.
Its interesting to read about Lamar Harris as well. Merv's comments on his athletism parrallels some comments made from a friend of mine on ths inside. He was telling me from day 1, that Lamar Harris was a freak athlete...and that I should just wait and see that he was a bad****. However It never came to fruition.
Which ranks as the biggest black hole of a recruiting cl**** for OU: 2003 or 2008?
This only shows why OU coaches need to perform better player evaluations and be better at signing who they want.
There is a lot more involved with this than athletic talent.
A team of good character, high desire and smart players will beat a team of more talented players when they don’t do things right and care more about their own desires than the teams goals.
On further review, 2008 was a star-crossed cl**** no doubt but we did get several quality starters. 2003 was way worse imo, a very highly-rated cl**** that almost completely evaporated:
Lewis Baker
Tony Cade
Tashard Choice
Steven Coleman
Mo Dampieer
Alonzo Dotson
Joe Jon Finley
Cody Freeby
Tommy Grady
Jacob Guiterrez
Marcus Johnson
Brandon Keith
Akim Millington
Donte Nicholson
Carl Pendleton
Demarrio Pleasant
Anton Reid
Willie Roberts
Tristen Ross
Courtney Tennial
Darian Williams
John Williams
Dane Zaslaw
Brian Zimpel
The 2003 group attrition was 50%, Surprisingly the 2008 group didn't lose as many players but only two or three lived up to their advanced billing.Originally Posted by Morningwood
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Guiterrez and Nicholson started. Choice and Tommy Grady eventually started for other schools. Did Millington ever start?
Damn
I was friends with Zimpel in high school. Disappointing that he didn't pan out like I thought he would.
Dejuan's beast mode stayed in NJ.
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I never put much thought into recruiting rankings or anything. But Dejuan Miller disappointed me more than any other player I can think of under Stoops not named Rhett Bomar. But at least Bomar showed signs that he could be good, he was just an idiot. Miller was a total bust though.
does it look like the '09 cl**** is going to end up much better? not by much if so
He started here I believe and then he started at Illinois. I don't think Grady started for Utah as the regular guy but may have started a game or two due to injury much like Gute did at OU.
Nicholson was JUCO but a starter for two years and a really good player for OU.
And can take a taser like a boss.
Millington never started. He was tabbed to be the starting LT at the beginning of 05 and quit. I heard players were throwing his **** out of his locker outside of the Switzer center.
Wow, Weird.. Makes you wonder why so many didn't pan out.. I would think if you look at 5 star HS athletes most live up to that billing.. I believe they do so weird for sure..
Athlon usually does a article in the pre-season magazine about the top 50 recruits from 5 years earlier. Surprisingly a good number don't really pan out as expected. Most seemed wind up as solid but not special players.
Yet we are the most successful program in the Big 12. This blurb was taken from the Forth Worth Star Telegram
Despite this season's shortfall for the 2008 cl****, the study underscores why Oklahoma -- with eight Big 12 titles in 14 seasons under coach Bob Stoops -- has been the most consistent program in the league. The Sooners, despite receiving only three production points from the 2008 cl****, still have the highest three-year total (62 points) of any former South Division school.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/02...#storylink=cpy
You kinda have to develop players. I think Bob has swerved into some great talent like Tommie Harris, and Adrian and those guys were just physical specimens that would have excelled at any school. I think OU believes they developed these guys but if you look at the big picture, OU seems to have done a poorer job of getting these guys up to par than most consistent top 5-10 teams.
I think of guys like Bradford and Clayton who even the coaches said had a strong work ethic on their own and put in their own time to get better. I guess it's hard to say if the coaching staff is consistently picking up overrated players or is just not bringing them along and making them better.
Last edited by SoCaliSooner; 02-04-2013 at 09:18 PM.
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If OU coaches are doing their jobs…. and among other things that include bringing in the right players... all it takes is the right leadership to put the championship recipe together.
The championships that OU Football has won since 2008 are not particularly remarkable by OU standards!
I will agree that there are some issues right now but here is an article pointing out that OU has done better than any of its direct competitors and yet the coaches are accused of not doing their jobs. Tough crowd
As far the OU standards go, a lot of you need to get out of the 70's and 80's. Back when OU played in an 8 team league with only 1 other program that could compete with them in the league. In the 80's, OU/Switzer didn't fare all that well when they played decent non conf opponents. Stanford, West Virgina, USC and Miami all came to Owen Field and whipped our **** in the early 80's alone.
Again, I won't disagree that some things in Norman have gotten stale lately. But this is completely different landscape than it used to be. Switzer says it all the time
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I don't think Gute started that much but he was a fan favorite. I remember looking at the 04 cl**** and outside of AD it was pretty ****ty too. I think Hartley was in that cl**** and he was probably the 2nd best player in that cl**** overall.
I may be off on this but if Gute ever started another game at RB besides his big effort vs. Baylor in '05, I'm having a hard time remembering it.
I doubt it since our RBs while he was here were both pretty good backs in AD and Patrick. Then Murray/Brown his last year maybe. Can't remember if his last year was 06 or 07. But he did play some throughout his career. And was a locker room leader and fan favorite.
Here's an article the Fort Worth telegram wrote analysing all the Big 12 teams from 2008. OU wasn't the only recruiting cl**** that didn't live up to it's billing.
http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/02...ecruiting.html
I hope the problems at OU are easily fixed and will be fixed quickly by Bob.
The point is that OU coaches are not doing their jobs as well as the coaches who have been wining national titles.
OU now has a university that its football team can be proud of.
OU’s new student housing center puts OU in very good shape for player facilities.
There is still plenty of very good talent with in a day’s drive of Norman.
Things haven’t changed so much that OU can’t win national titles….
"Different landscape", when other can still win, that’s tantamount to making excuses!
It must take an amazing journalistic talent to write about something that happened five years ago.
It's actually how all recruiting classes should be evaluated in the end. Based on what they actually do instead of what you hope they can do.
I think some people see recruiting as some sort of beauty pageant, but my feeling is if you get 10 guys who contribute a lot out of a cl**** (of 20-25) with 2-3 difference makers you have a had a heck of a cl**** no matter what it looked like when they came in.
Hopefully that will be the case with this cl****.
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