Oklahoma Sooners Are Quietly Planning An EXTRAORDINARY Move

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]All right, let's talk about the Oklahoma Sooners. The Sooners are very obviously having an outstanding off seasonason.

[00:00:05]They're quickly emerging as a tour to force across the SEC and national recruiting landscape. But when you dive into the latest out of Dorman, there's another tonal shift that's happening when it comes to the Sooners and their recruiting strategies. This is great news for Oklahoma in the short, medium, and long term. We'll get to the latest there, plus some interesting data. But first, I'm Nick and this is Saturday Morning Inspection.

[00:00:35]There's a lot of cliches out there when it comes to adversity and you find out who you really are when you're facing adversity is the crux of them. And I think when it comes to the recruiting trail, it's a very apt saying. It's it makes a lot of sense. You figure out what kind of program you have, what kind of team you are when you have recruiting attempts that don't go the way you want, right? You have a kid flip on you, you lose a kid, you commit a lot of resources in. And the reality is most programs in Oklahoma used to be like this. You lose a kid, a Tom flight recruit, what do you do? You kind of scramble. Okay, who's the next guy on our list? You you have a degradation of talent. You were going after some fourstar and now you got to settle for the three star, whatever it may be.

[00:01:11]That's not the case with the Sooners.

[00:01:13]The Sooners have done something that I think is actually kind of unheard of in a lot of ways. They lost out on a kid and they're stepping their game up to an even better recruit. Let's dive into the reporting right here. courtesy of the site Stormman and Norman. The Oklahoma Sooners couldn't do much better after losing the commitment of 2028 running back Michael Rhodess after running backs coach DeMarco Murray left for the NFL.

[00:01:34]But they're still looking to turn that deficit into an upgrade. Remember this is incredibly unusual. You lose out on a recruit, especially a good recruit.

[00:01:41]Usually teams, they say, "Hey, we got to downgrade. We got to go to the three star now. If we were going after five star, now we got to go to the four star." Not the Sooners. Kevin Hartzfield, the top running back in the 2028 class, announced via X an offer from the Sooners on Monday as OU joined a crowded race loaded with college football blue bloodoods, also wanting Hartsfield in their future backfield.

[00:02:01]And it's obvious why Hartsfield is such a top target for everybody. Roads was the Sooners lone panone pledge from the 2028 class after committing in January as the number three running back in the country. After Murray just left a few weeks later to be the Kansas City Chiefs new running back's coach, though, Roads changed his mind and opened up his recruitment back up to leave U without a 2028 commit. Again, it would be a difficult task to replace Roads as a consensus four-star recruit and a top three prospect at his position. But with Dan Mcola now in charge of the Sooners running backs, they're looking to do even better with a target like Hartzfield. According to the 247 sports composite, Hartzfield is the top running back in the 2020 class and the number 37 overall prospect as a consensus four-star recruit. He's also the number four player in the state of Georgia out of Newton High School. All right, so why are the Sooners so ambitious? Right?

[00:02:48]It's one of these things to make these sort of, you know, moonshot declarations or attempts in the recruiting game, but why do they feel so confident? And they have good reason to feel confident and it's because of Mola specifically. So, let me pull up this report that I saw also on Stormman Norman to give you the reasons why. This is uh again from that same site. U hired Dan Mcola to as its new running back's coach over the offseason. Mola spent last season with the Las Vegas Raiders. But before that, for three years, he was at Notre Dame where he coached Jeremiah Love and Jarian Price, who were both just selected in the first round. Notre Dame got all the credit for the talking heads, but the Sooners were quiet beneficiaries from the draft results. If I'm a running back, this is this is a former Alabama running back uh Damen Harris talking about on a CBS sports show. If I'm a running back in this transportal era in NIL, why would I not want to go to Notre Dame? You you just had two running backs tanking the first round and you play one or two tough games a season. You're going to play 10 more than likely you're against lesser opponents that don't have the talent that you do. So, that's a favorable situation to get your thousand plus yards. And guess what? We saw it last year. You don't even have to go to the Culture Bowl playoff and you can still have two running backs drafted in the first first round. Well done by those two young backs. Notre Dame might become a running back factory coming up here soon. Kelly, who coached up at Notre Dame, this is Brian Kelly, responded to Harris, if Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman is not taping this right now, you could probably sell that. So, they're viewing it from the context of, oh my goodness, Notre Dame's doing great things in the recruiting. Their running back's coach that developed Jerian Price and Jeremiah Love, he's doing great things for Notre Dame. The problem is he's not at Notre Dame, is he? He's in Norman. He's in Oklahoma. This is why the Sooners are confident. One of the things we forget when it comes to the recruiting pipeline and how you sell recruits on visions is it's the position coaches that are talking to these kids all the time. The head coach can be the deal closer. He can be the final guy coming in to to put the icing on the cake, but it's the position coaches that sell the dream, sell the opportunity, make the personal connections. It was that way when I was recruited. Now, granted, I was a very small time recruit. I was a I was a zero star, right? you know, I I didn't even I didn't even get a rating at all. I was an FCS kid, right? Division 1A. So, very very small time recruit. But going through my own recruiting process, I interacted mainly, especially later in the process, with position coaches. In fact, by the end of the process, exclusively with position coaches. I was an offensive lineman. I was dealing with O line coaches. The reality is those are the the relationships that matter. and what Oklahoma got here with Mcola replacing Murray who was fantastic in that regard obviously doing great things I'm sure with the Kansas City Chiefs already and I'm sure he will do good things in Kansas City for years to come but with Mcola they got a guy who got Jarian Price who got Jeremiah Love and developed them and he's going to each and every one of these running back recruits he's going to Hartsfield he's going to whoever and saying listen you see that guy that just was a number three overall pick going to the Arizona Cardinals I recruited him and coached him I can do that for you see the guy that's playing for the World champion Seattle Seahawks first round pick Jaren Price. Listen, I'm going to make you like him. He didn't even start for [clears throat] us, but he became a first round pick and a good player.

[00:05:49]That's the selling point for Oklahoma.

[00:05:51]That's the selling point at the running back position. And that's why they're being so aggressive and that's why they're being so confident. Misplaced confidence or sometimes referred to as arrogance is not a good strategy for recruiting or transfer portal moves or really anything in life. The Sooners don't have that. The Sooners have set themselves up to make these kind of moves. That's the beauty of what Oklahoma has done. None of this is by accident. Brent Venibals has put together a solid plan to improve the recruiting, certainly on offense. Jason Whitten, DeMarco Murray. Murray moves on. Hey, that happens. Tough break. What do you do? Replace him with an even better or just as good in some respects running back coach that can help you win in the recruiting department. This is phenomenal work by Oklahoma and a great sign for the future of the Sooners program. All right, Oklahoma fans. We got a lot more to talk about today, but first I want to hear from you guys in the comment section below. Got a really interesting question for you guys today.

[00:06:41]Who is the most underrated underrated now running back in Oklahoma history?

[00:06:46]Not the best, but the most underrated.

[00:06:49]This kind of an interesting question that could go a bunch of different ways, but let me know your answer in the comment section below. The most underrated back in the history of Oklahoma Sooners Football. I want to hear from you guys, but I want to move on to this. So, this is a a look at the highest rated running back recruits at Oklahoma per 247 Sports Composite in the Venibles era. And you can look at these guys here and you can sit there and say, you know, a lot of them are obviously very good as you would expect from a 91.2 uh grade all the way up to a 97.5. So, these are really good scores, really talented players. Obviously, some of them have not worked out, but Oklahoma has had no problem recruiting top flight skill position players. And I think that's one of the criticisms that people falsely attributed to Venibables and said, "Listen, he's a defensive guy. You know, how's he going to recruit Tom Flynn offensive guys like they had when Lincoln Raleigh was there?" Well, on the recruiting side, they've done a great job. I mean, the numbers just speak for themselves, and this is again the best in the last four years. I mean, this is really good stuff across the board.

[00:07:43]We'll see what happens with with John Hatton. I think we expect him to do great things. Uh, I think when you look at this Sooners team and this offense, they've recruited topflightly talent.

[00:07:51]But the thing that's interesting about Hartzfield, if I pull up this uh, graphic right here, is that he would be the best of the best. He would be elevating it to a whole another level.

[00:07:58]You can see him in the darker shade of red on the screen right there. And I think this is what the Sooners are doing that I think is really smart. A lot of programs, they enter into stasis or manage decline in terms of recruiting.

[00:08:10]They get up to a certain level of performance. They're finished number one in the class, five in the class, top 10 in the class, whatever it may be. like, okay, let's hunker down, right? We're already a good recruiting team. We made the college football playoff. We won our conference, whatever it may be. Let's hunker down and protect our territory.

[00:08:24]That's the Sooners in a lot of ways, at least on paper. They made the playoff last year, should have won a playoff game. I think we can all agree that they're in a good spot for next year.

[00:08:31]They're doing good things in recruiting.

[00:08:33]You would think in the out years it would turn to, okay, we're doing good.

[00:08:36]Let's hunker down. Let's maintain where we are because we're in a really strong place, which they are. But that's not Brennon Vibbles's mindset. He's 100% go attack, attack, attack. We are always going to get better. We're doing a great job recruiting the running back position. We're going to step it up another with another level at Hartsfield. A guy who's would be the best recruit uh from the running back perspective that arrived in Norman if they were to secure him in the Brent Vinnibles era. That's the mindset of this program. Attack, attack, attack.

[00:09:03]Lose a coach, replace him with a better one, right? Demarco Murray, great coach.

[00:09:08]Wish him the best. Like I said, replace him with a guy who's just as good, if not better. lose a recruit, it happens.

[00:09:13]Replace them with a better one. This is the Sooners's new mentality under venables. And this is a really important part of organizational excellence from the Sooners head coach. A lot of programs when they have a rough recruiting outing, they lose a kid, they lose a coach, they wallow, right? We've been there working for companies or I've worked for companies, I'm sure you guys have as well, or worked for the government or agency or whatever it may be, been part of a church where things don't go your way and you know, oh, we got to settle or we got to pivot. we got to we didn't get plan A and plan B is worse and it just kind of degrades the morale. Instead, what Venibals is doing is he's empowering his assistant coaches. He's empowering his staff. Hey, you lose a guy, don't worry about it. Go get a better one. Let's go get it. Let's get it done. Hey, we lose a top assistant. AOC, that stinks. We got to we got to replace this. Who Who can we promote? Who can we find? No. No. Let's just get a better one. Right. This is the mentality of a winner. This is again the great saying, do not let your environment control you. You control your environment. This is Venibals taking that to how he runs the entire program. And this is the kind of thing that trickles down to the players.

[00:10:14]Players notice the vibes. They may not be in the the dayto-day with the recruiting minutia and and the staff changes, but they notice the feeling among the coaching staff where every member of the coaching staff. They're in control of their environment. It's not a good day in terms of recruiting. Go get a better one. The players are going to see that and feel that energy on the practice field. Hey, rough day at practice. Next play is going to be better. Right? Hey, rough game. We're going to fix it. We're going to get better next game. Right? It's the mentality that trickles throughout the entire program that sets the culture that Brent Venibals is trying to build.

[00:10:43]And again, it's one of those things that often gets overlooked when it comes to the head coach. Everyone wants to talk about X's and O's, and that's incredibly important. Recruiting and transfer portal, incredibly important. Managing and building a staff, incredibly important. All those things you have to be good at. working with boosters and donors and all of that, of course, but setting the culture, beating the guys, setting the standard, and implementing the processes and systems that'll trickle down all the way to the lowest levels of the program is such an underrated part of big-time college football success. And Brent Venibals has done that to an outstanding degree with Oklahoma. And as good as they're doing in recruiting, as talented as the roster is, as good as their coaching staff is, that may be the most impressive thing Brent Benals has done in Norman to date.