Okay, so technically this is supposed to run Friday and not Thursday night. But I figured y'all wouldn't mind an information dump 12 hours early.
— Let's start with the news y’all probably didn’t want to hear. While I was out at Lee's Summit North last night, four-star DE Will Nwaneri told me straight up that he plans to take his Oklahoma official visit on June 9th and the Tennessee OV on the 16th. At face value, that seems like bad news. However, in talking with a well-placed source on the OU side, I'm told that the Sooner staff is actually quite reconciled to that reality. With less official visitors on the 9th than the 16th, the coaches can spend more time with Nwaneri and be more intentional in their interactions with the elite defender. One thing I've reported time and again is that the Sooners have the best relational dynamic with Nwaneri, so this may actually play to their advantage; they can give Nwaneri the full five-star treatment and roll out the red carpet.
Nwaneri also told me that with his Oregon official visit falling on Sept. 23 (the Ducks host Colorado that day), he plans to commit in the aftermath of that trip to Eugene. It's late and I'm tired, so I'll be frank... I figured this would be a relatively low-maintenance recruitment to cover. But between the twice-postponed timeline (first it was July, then August, now late September) and the late OV to Oregon, of all places, I'm starting to catch Standard Five-Star Vibes here. I'm not remotely saying that Nwaneri himself is going to be a headache, but it isn't news to any of you when I point out that programs don't generally concede easily — and oftentimes deploy drastic measures — in their pursuit of five-star defensive linemen. I still like OU, but keep the seatbelt tight.
— Add Kaedin Massey to the visit list for the ChampU BBQ. I checked in yesterday with the three-star offensive tackle from Lyndon (Kan.), and I'm comfortable in maintaining my longstanding assertion that this is an Oklahoma-Nebraska battle. Massey will take an unofficial visit to Ole Miss tomorrow, and it's a possibility (though not a certainty) that he follows up with an OV. For the moment, he's only got four OV's scheduled. Chronologically, the schools that will receive officials from Massey are Kansas, Nebraska, OU and Kansas State, and it seems that Michigan State is out of the running despite cracking Massey's top six last week. A decision before the end of June is likely. Massey is a small-town kid from a tight-knit family, and he isn't going to venture far from home. I think he fits the culture at Kansas State, and I wouldn't totally eliminate the Wildcats from contention here. But it does feel like he'll be a Husker or a Sooner, and it bears repeating that he's developed a very close friendship with three-star ATH Michael Boganowski. It helps the Sooners' case all the more that Boganowski is a heavy Sooner lean right now.
— It'll be OU or Colorado for junior-college defensive back Demetrius Freeney, who's already booked an official visit with Oklahoma next week after adding the offer this morning. However, Colorado has been pursuing Freeney much longer than the Sooners have, and he's headed to Boulder tomorrow for an OV with Deion Sanders' program. Additional visits are on tap with Houston and Louisville, but Freeney told me that he wants to play somewhere with an electric environment, and somewhere that he can truly put his name on the map. Right now, given the renewed energy at Colorado and Sanders' status as one of the greatest cornerbacks of all time, I have to give the edge to the Buffs. They've got the relational advantage, and Prime is nothing if not an effective salesman to cornerbacks. But Jay Valai and Oklahoma will get their shot next week. If he picks Oklahoma, Freeney will join the program over the summer and help provide more stability in a cornerback room with no clear frontrunner for the starting gig opposite Woodi Washington.
— Want to talk about a mysterious recruitment? We get a few every year, and I can promise y'all that Grant Brix will be one of them this cycle. To echo an observation I've made in the past, Brix quite clearly wasn't planning on becoming a highly recruited athlete, and the entire process is somewhat bewildering to him. He hails from a quiet small town in western Iowa, and he doesn't work obsessively with high-profile trainers or travel the country going to camps. He's just a big farm kid who's country strong. From a film perspective, I'm as high on the four-star offensive tackle as anybody, but trying to cover his recruitment has been a task. In the interest of trimming a novel to an anecdote, one source connected to another program told me it's the weirdest recruitment with which that staff has ever been involved.
That said, based on what I've run down in talking to numerous sources, the consensus belief is that this battle will come down to Oklahoma, Nebraska and Notre Dame. Despite their typically strong pull with local prospects, the in-state schools seem to be fading here. To that point, I've learned that Brix has locked in a ChampU BBQ official with Oklahoma, which will follow OV's with the Fighting Irish and Huskers. A trip to Kansas State is also in the cards for the latter half of the month. From the OU side, the Sooners are approaching the Brix recruitment with a "gotta have him" mentality, and the current commits are starting to prod him a bit. It's hard for anybody to identify a leader right now, but my best intel suggests the Huskers and Sooners have the slight edge on the field. Any way you slice it, this definitely feels like a battle that will be won during OV season.
If you want another reason for optimism, albeit a somewhat speculative one, here it is: I actually think Brix and Bill Bedenbaugh have very similar personalities. It's hard to adequately describe, but they're both unique breeds that I believe can mesh brilliantly. We'll see where things go from here, but there's a reason I've been quietly touting OU's chances with this kid since January. He just fits. I'm cautiously optimistic.
— Let's start with the news y’all probably didn’t want to hear. While I was out at Lee's Summit North last night, four-star DE Will Nwaneri told me straight up that he plans to take his Oklahoma official visit on June 9th and the Tennessee OV on the 16th. At face value, that seems like bad news. However, in talking with a well-placed source on the OU side, I'm told that the Sooner staff is actually quite reconciled to that reality. With less official visitors on the 9th than the 16th, the coaches can spend more time with Nwaneri and be more intentional in their interactions with the elite defender. One thing I've reported time and again is that the Sooners have the best relational dynamic with Nwaneri, so this may actually play to their advantage; they can give Nwaneri the full five-star treatment and roll out the red carpet.
Nwaneri also told me that with his Oregon official visit falling on Sept. 23 (the Ducks host Colorado that day), he plans to commit in the aftermath of that trip to Eugene. It's late and I'm tired, so I'll be frank... I figured this would be a relatively low-maintenance recruitment to cover. But between the twice-postponed timeline (first it was July, then August, now late September) and the late OV to Oregon, of all places, I'm starting to catch Standard Five-Star Vibes here. I'm not remotely saying that Nwaneri himself is going to be a headache, but it isn't news to any of you when I point out that programs don't generally concede easily — and oftentimes deploy drastic measures — in their pursuit of five-star defensive linemen. I still like OU, but keep the seatbelt tight.
— Add Kaedin Massey to the visit list for the ChampU BBQ. I checked in yesterday with the three-star offensive tackle from Lyndon (Kan.), and I'm comfortable in maintaining my longstanding assertion that this is an Oklahoma-Nebraska battle. Massey will take an unofficial visit to Ole Miss tomorrow, and it's a possibility (though not a certainty) that he follows up with an OV. For the moment, he's only got four OV's scheduled. Chronologically, the schools that will receive officials from Massey are Kansas, Nebraska, OU and Kansas State, and it seems that Michigan State is out of the running despite cracking Massey's top six last week. A decision before the end of June is likely. Massey is a small-town kid from a tight-knit family, and he isn't going to venture far from home. I think he fits the culture at Kansas State, and I wouldn't totally eliminate the Wildcats from contention here. But it does feel like he'll be a Husker or a Sooner, and it bears repeating that he's developed a very close friendship with three-star ATH Michael Boganowski. It helps the Sooners' case all the more that Boganowski is a heavy Sooner lean right now.
— It'll be OU or Colorado for junior-college defensive back Demetrius Freeney, who's already booked an official visit with Oklahoma next week after adding the offer this morning. However, Colorado has been pursuing Freeney much longer than the Sooners have, and he's headed to Boulder tomorrow for an OV with Deion Sanders' program. Additional visits are on tap with Houston and Louisville, but Freeney told me that he wants to play somewhere with an electric environment, and somewhere that he can truly put his name on the map. Right now, given the renewed energy at Colorado and Sanders' status as one of the greatest cornerbacks of all time, I have to give the edge to the Buffs. They've got the relational advantage, and Prime is nothing if not an effective salesman to cornerbacks. But Jay Valai and Oklahoma will get their shot next week. If he picks Oklahoma, Freeney will join the program over the summer and help provide more stability in a cornerback room with no clear frontrunner for the starting gig opposite Woodi Washington.
— Want to talk about a mysterious recruitment? We get a few every year, and I can promise y'all that Grant Brix will be one of them this cycle. To echo an observation I've made in the past, Brix quite clearly wasn't planning on becoming a highly recruited athlete, and the entire process is somewhat bewildering to him. He hails from a quiet small town in western Iowa, and he doesn't work obsessively with high-profile trainers or travel the country going to camps. He's just a big farm kid who's country strong. From a film perspective, I'm as high on the four-star offensive tackle as anybody, but trying to cover his recruitment has been a task. In the interest of trimming a novel to an anecdote, one source connected to another program told me it's the weirdest recruitment with which that staff has ever been involved.
That said, based on what I've run down in talking to numerous sources, the consensus belief is that this battle will come down to Oklahoma, Nebraska and Notre Dame. Despite their typically strong pull with local prospects, the in-state schools seem to be fading here. To that point, I've learned that Brix has locked in a ChampU BBQ official with Oklahoma, which will follow OV's with the Fighting Irish and Huskers. A trip to Kansas State is also in the cards for the latter half of the month. From the OU side, the Sooners are approaching the Brix recruitment with a "gotta have him" mentality, and the current commits are starting to prod him a bit. It's hard for anybody to identify a leader right now, but my best intel suggests the Huskers and Sooners have the slight edge on the field. Any way you slice it, this definitely feels like a battle that will be won during OV season.
If you want another reason for optimism, albeit a somewhat speculative one, here it is: I actually think Brix and Bill Bedenbaugh have very similar personalities. It's hard to adequately describe, but they're both unique breeds that I believe can mesh brilliantly. We'll see where things go from here, but there's a reason I've been quietly touting OU's chances with this kid since January. He just fits. I'm cautiously optimistic.
