Ted Roof offers insight into Oklahoma’s transfer portal strategy

Spring practice is a time for coaches to teach and manage their depth charts and for players to develop in preparation for the football season. Now spring also serves as a time for teams to get a first look at their transfer portal acquisitions live and in person. Oklahoma, like many, utilized the transfer portal this offseason. And after a practice, defensive coordinator Ted Roof was asked about how assistant coaches like himself work in tandem with head coach Brent Venables to land portal recruits.

“You’re right, he’s the ultimate decision maker obviously,” Roof said about Venables .”But we all have opinions and everybody’s opinion is listened to and like you said, whether you knew a kid out of high school and you know hey, this kid would fit our program. Or you know what, maybe that kid wouldn’t fit our program from an off-the-field type situation.”

The coaching world is a small one, and one where plenty of connections are made and maintained over time. Take Roof for example, who has over 30 years of coaching experience at over 10 different programs. Like many coaches, he likely has the connections to find out what he needs to about any given player, but as always, the film of the player itself is also of the upmost importance.

“And then the film kind of talks for itself and then you talk to other coaches that you might know in the places that some of these guys are coming from and get their opinion. And again, it all adds up to a bunch of information and coach Venables makes a decision on what to do,” Roof explained.

The line of communication between coaches on staff regarding the transfer portal is crucial as well, but nothing will trump Venables’ final decision regarding transfers.

“We present our opinions and then say hey, this is what we think should happen and then he says yeah I agree or no that’s not what I want to do,” Roof said.

Oklahoma brought in 13 players from the transfer portal this offseason, ranked the No. 21 transfer portal class in the nation according to On3’s College Football Team Transfer Portal Rankings. And after the team’s first practice, Roof was asked to assess how he felt the Sooners did in their recruiting.

“After the first day I think we did okay,” Roof said. “But we haven’t seen the full effects of the transfer portal because there were some guys out there not practicing. But you know what? We’ve got shorts on man, so we’ll see how it goes when we put pads on you know?”