Brent Venables explains the importance of summer to lay the recruiting groundwork

This week, Oklahoma Sooners head coach Brent Venables said he feels the recruiting team is in a “strong position at every position across the board.” That confidence stems from the groundwork the staff put into recruiting this summer, which Venables believes is resulting in more meaningful prospect commitments.

“Really that’s our first opportunity other than the unofficial visits… For official visits, you’re competing to get guys on campus,” Venables said of the summer recruiting period. “Getting the right ones and having a narrow focus through the course of the spring to figure out the guys we really want to target, guys that are a great fit for how we want to run our program.

“I had to prepare our staff to have patience and a game plan to execute if things don’t go your way. For us to have a long-term commitment, we encourage guys to get to a bunch of spots so they can really have peace in their final decision. We felt great, although maybe some other people got more commitments earlier, that we would get the right ones at the right time.”

Looking at the Sooners’ 2023 recruiting class, it’s ranked No. 2 in the Big 12 and No. 7 overall through the summer dead period. The class has 19 commits, led by five-star quarterback Jackson Arnold out of Denton, Texas.

The Sooners hosted more than 30 recruits for official visits over the last two months. Visits will resume when the season starts on Sept. 3. Venables and his staff still have five months until the early signing period in Dec. Between now and then, the Sooners will continue to determine how they’ll balance the high school recruits with needs in the transfer portal.

JD PicKell: Venables repaired Oklahoma through transfer portal

When new Oklahoma coach Brent Venables got to Norman, he found a program that had just lost a portion of its roster to the transfer portal. Some of those players even followed Lincoln Riley to USC. However, Venables knew that as much as the portal takes, the portal also provides.

On3’s J.D. PicKell explained how Brent Venables was able to revamp the roster on The Hard Count.

“I think they have 243 starts with these transfers that they brought in, but in addition to that he said we looked for guys with leadership experience,” PicKell said. “Venables was very transparent about how they repaired this program through the portal. And he said we want to recruit high school guys. We want to build as much from a development standpoint at the high school level. But, with all the things that they lost on their roster, he said we had to go to the portal.”

To fill all the gaps left behind, Venables added 14 transfers, and a JUCO transfer, to the 2022 roster. We’ll see how many are amongst the starting ranks when the season hits on Sept. 3.