Daily briefing: On Oklahoma’s recruiting, the Big Ten’s westward expansion and woebegone Stanford

Ivan Maisel’s “Daily Briefing” for On3:

Oklahoma recruiting class still looking good

I don’t know if there’s panic in the streets of Norman just yet, but there’s not panic among the Oklahoma recruits. The Sooners still rank seventh in the On3 Consensus rankings for the Class of 2023. They have six On3 Consensus top-100 recruits, including two from Texas and two from the Kansas City area. That’s where Oklahoma always has made its living in recruiting. Brent Venables is going through the worst first season of head coaching imaginable, but let’s point out that it took half a season to learn just how bare Lincoln Riley left the roster. It’s always possible that the Sooners’ hard commits for next season could soften. But they also might figure they have a faster chance to play, too.

More West Coast teams for the Big Ten?

Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren, speaking at the conference basketball preview this week, took a step or two back from the aggressive tone he had been taking toward further westward expansion. If the league is serious about being competitively fair to USC and UCLA, the Big Ten will bring in four more western teams and set up a Far West division. Otherwise, they will be asking the Trojans and Bruins to make four trips a season across at least two time zones in a 13- or 14-week season. No NFL team makes more than two two-time-zone trips, and that’s in an 18-week season. That’s not just theory. In its 10-plus seasons in the Big 12, West Virginia has the biggest discrepancy between winning percentage at home (.672) and away (.423) of any Big 12 member. The Big Ten probably won’t expand west because those schools would diminish the share of the media-rights pie that each member receives. It’s nice to think that the league would decide to keep the playing field level. I’m not holding my breath.

David Shaw still believes in Stanford

Stanford takes an 11-game losing streak against FBS opponents to Notre Dame on Saturday night, with the last game, a 28-27 loss to Oregon State, the most painful of them all. The Cardinal frittered away a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter and the Beavers scored the winning touchdown with 13 seconds left. Stanford coach David Shaw maintained this week that his players are resilient and thisclose to breaking through. “Our good is really good,” Shaw said. In particular, he praised junior quarterback Tanner McKee. “When this guy is in a clean pocket, he’s one of the best in America,” Shaw said. USC, Washington and Oregon sacked McKee 16 times. Oregon State didn’t get him once. McKee threw for 269 yards and two touchdowns against the Beavers. “I think the phrase is given to too many guys: ‘This guy can make all the throws,’ ” Shaw said. “This guy can make all the throws.”