As most of you probably know by now Junior All-American Southpaw Giselle Juarez has decided to join the Sooners. This almost certainly makes her the ACE on the staff.
Oklahoma isn't quite done yet as they are actively recruiting three different Catchers, Mary Iakopo of Oregon, Terra McGowan of Arizona St, and Kelly Martinez of Utah. My money is on at the very least one of this trio will be on the 2019 roster. It will probably come down to how much scholarship money is available and what the player's are looking for in a schollie offer.
With this new Transfer Portal, when a player notifies their current school of their intent to transfer the school has two days to place them in the portal. Once said player is in the portal any Coach from any school can contact them and any player in the portal can contact any school they are interested in. Combine this with the fact that unless it's within the conference these players are immediately eligible. Whether people like it or not this is the new "Free Agency" of the NCAA and schools like Oklahoma will reap the benefits of it as they are one of the Blue Bloods of softball. You will most certainly see this Portal grow in participation and expect to see schools like Oklahoma using it to fill it's immediate needs. There will be no shortage of softball studs contacting Oklahoma through this portal every year.
The next question is how will this effect recruiting? With the new rule that you cannot contact a player until their Junior year it becomes very difficult to establish long term relationships like in the past. In the past these players were fiercely loyal to the coaches they committed to because of these long term relationships. That all changes now with these new changes so expect to see a lot of tranfers because of the portal and many more decommits with the new recruiting rule. That is where we are at and that is the future of recruiting.
Oklahoma isn't quite done yet as they are actively recruiting three different Catchers, Mary Iakopo of Oregon, Terra McGowan of Arizona St, and Kelly Martinez of Utah. My money is on at the very least one of this trio will be on the 2019 roster. It will probably come down to how much scholarship money is available and what the player's are looking for in a schollie offer.
With this new Transfer Portal, when a player notifies their current school of their intent to transfer the school has two days to place them in the portal. Once said player is in the portal any Coach from any school can contact them and any player in the portal can contact any school they are interested in. Combine this with the fact that unless it's within the conference these players are immediately eligible. Whether people like it or not this is the new "Free Agency" of the NCAA and schools like Oklahoma will reap the benefits of it as they are one of the Blue Bloods of softball. You will most certainly see this Portal grow in participation and expect to see schools like Oklahoma using it to fill it's immediate needs. There will be no shortage of softball studs contacting Oklahoma through this portal every year.
The next question is how will this effect recruiting? With the new rule that you cannot contact a player until their Junior year it becomes very difficult to establish long term relationships like in the past. In the past these players were fiercely loyal to the coaches they committed to because of these long term relationships. That all changes now with these new changes so expect to see a lot of tranfers because of the portal and many more decommits with the new recruiting rule. That is where we are at and that is the future of recruiting.
