Numerous 2021 Tulsa Football recruiting targets are listed in this initial ranking of the top 35 prospects in Oklahoma.
LINK: 2021 Sooner State Ranking
LINK: 2021 Sooner State Ranking
Several TU recruiting targets included in 2021 Sooner State Rankings
- Thread starter Chris Harmon
- Start date
our page has lots of news about our recruiting commit successes against lamar, directional la, stethen f austin, nt, ark st, tx state, ...
when will we start recruiting against ku, ksu, osu, smu, mem, tulane, iowa st, colorado st, boisie, ... and win a few.
when will we start recruiting against ku, ksu, osu, smu, mem, tulane, iowa st, colorado st, boisie, ... and win a few.
Recruit we just got yesterday. Jolley: He was also receiving strong interest from Virginia Tech, Florida Atlantic and SMU. Wake up and smell the coffee bubbles rolling round like brain cells in your head.
We will need to fend suitors off for 6 more months on this kid. I like him and his game a lot. He's not as much of a freak as Zaven but this kid can play and find the ball. Maybe a faster version of Edmiston. This kid's skills are a tailor-made fit for Gillespie's style of defense.
Or you could check the kid’s profile. His offers?
Dartmouth
Eastern Kentucky
Lamar
Morehead State
North Texas
This has been a disturbing trend for a few years now.
It's early, interest from bigger schools this early often turns into offers. Hopefully that won't happen now. I say hopefully, because as TU_Bla said, we'll probably have to fight them off with this recruit.
Tulsa has done that in pretty much every recruiting class I've covered, starting in 2001. In the 2020 class that TU signed just a few months ago, the Hurricane beat out schools that you mentioned...
Anthony Hayes: Colorado
Jalen Paxton: SMU, Tulane...also Wisconsin, Indiana, BYU
Malachai Jones: Memphis
To be honest, this has been a trend for 20 years. When I started covering Tulsa football in 2001, Keith Burns' classes included several kids with only one or two offers, or just low division offers. Kragthorpe, Graham and Blankenship signed a lot of kids like that too. But every class also included a handful of guys where TU beat out Power 5 schools or numerous Group of Five schools. The 2020 class was no exception, although it was lighter than usual...
Anthony Hayes: Colorado, Louisiana, Southern Miss
Deante Betts: New Mexico, Texas State
Jacob Kainer: South Florida, UTEP, Louisiana-Monroe, Eastern Michigan, others
Jalen Paxton: Wisconsin, Indiana, BYU, SMU, Tulane, Utah State, Louisiana Tech, ULM, others
Dillon Wade: UNLV, North Texas, Wyoming, Utah State, UTEP, ULM, New Mexico State, others
Malachai Jones: Memphis, others
Haydon Grant: Rice, Army
Everitt Rogers: New Mexico, others
Roman Fuller: Texas State
No doubt, and that's part of my point. TU has signed kids like that every year. Trevis Gipson is one of many. Tulsa isn't going to go out and beat P5 schools for half its class every year...but they do beat a few P5 schools every year for kids.
As long as my fandom is old, early 80's, I don't think we've ever beat P5's for half of our class.
I would say that we used to win more frequently against peer institutions like Houston / SMU in the past though. (Even as a guy who likes Monty, I wouldn't say he's a killer on the recruiting trail these days in terms of getting big-time guys. He does have a talent for finding and developing under recruited kids though)
I don't generally disagree, I just thought it funny that we got a guy similar to that, and aTUfan was bemoaning us never getting a guy like that. He actually can be ironic and not even have a clue that he's ironic.
I've done this comparison in the past, and if you look at classes under Kragthorpe, Graham, Blankenship and Montgomery, they are up and down each year as far as how many kids they get with offers from P5 schools or other AAC offers, but they've all been pretty similar in the amount of recruiting battles each has won against those types of schools.
For instance, Montgomery in 2015 had some impressive recruiting wins. Chad President had been committed to Baylor and also had offers from Texas, Houston and Texas Tech. Reggie Robinson had offers from Stanford, Kansas State, Minnesota, Houston and several others. McKinley Whitfield held offers from Purdue, Minnesota and Louisville.
In 2016, Tulsa beat out Texas Tech for four prospects: Jordan Brown, Rowdy Frederick, Robert Revels and Tyarise Stevenson. Revels also had an offer from Indiana. TU beat out Kansas for Josh Stewart and beat out Kansas State and Arizona State for Deya Mhiesen. Tulsa also beat out K-State and Iowa State for Montray Norris. Overall, seven Tulsa signees held scholarship offers from programs in the Big 12, Big Ten or Pac 12 conferences. Extending that further, TU went head-to-head with American Athletic Conference mates for seven of its signees, beating out Houston, UCF, SMU, Tulane, Navy, Memphis and Connecticut.
I could go on and on, but Monty and his staff have done a comparable job to coaches of the past 20 years, overall, when it comes to winning recruiting battles.
I’ve said forever, kids who commit to Tulsa now are doing so to lock in the best offer they have at the moment. That’s why they don’t have as many offers. Usually the kids with a lot of offers are using this time to study all their options. For example, Paxton didn’t commit until the middle of the season last year once he took his official visit. With that being said, I’d recommend just waiting and being patient. Things have a way of working out in due time.
Stars don’t matter heart and grit cant be measured ........ the only way Tulsa can compete is to create a culture of work, accountability , and effort. Coach Hanson is a huge step in that direction. All the offers and stars mean nothing. If we could get 5 kids with the work ethic and drive of one offer kids like Trevis we would be blessed.
We pick up a lot of late recruits in the 60's and early 70's when NEO was a juco powerhouse. Schools like OU, Bama, Arkansas, Missouri, and others used to put their non-qualifiers there. Bear Bryant at Bama put a d-back there and then thought he over recruited him and "released" him late. The next think you know was that Ralph McGill was enrolled at TU.
I get the point you're making, but I'd say offers and stars do mean something, but they don't mean everything. They are just a piece of the recruiting story. Coaches definitely aren't recruiting kids based on stars and offers...but they also know a 4-star kid with 20 offers is probably pretty talented.
Tulsa has a long history of one-offer, 2-star kids turning into beasts, with some making it to the NFL. (Chris Chamberlain, Trey Watts, Trevis Gipson, Tarrion Adams, Zaven Collins, D'Angelo Brewer, Shawn Jackson, etc, etc.) And Tulsa has also had some 4-star kids that didn't work out very well. Before last season, I put together an article on TU's history with 4-star prospects.
But I agree with you on heart and grit. There are a lot of intangibles that coaches look for, and there are a lot of gems out there with 2-stars that are every bit as talented as some of the 4 and 5 star kids. That is proven time and time again.
aTUfan: are you a troll? Expecting us to recruit better is uncalled for
j/k of course.
Ignoring stars, it does seem like the folks we recruit against now has taken a step down. However our defensive staff has been able to identify talent and develop it into NFL caliber players. Collins, Robinson, Gipson are as good as any group of talent we have had in my remembrance and I'll bet we have a couple of more on the roster. I hope Coach Hanson can do the same on the OL. Doesn't seem to be happening much on offense at the moment.
j/k of course.
Ignoring stars, it does seem like the folks we recruit against now has taken a step down. However our defensive staff has been able to identify talent and develop it into NFL caliber players. Collins, Robinson, Gipson are as good as any group of talent we have had in my remembrance and I'll bet we have a couple of more on the roster. I hope Coach Hanson can do the same on the OL. Doesn't seem to be happening much on offense at the moment.
That's because the defensive coaches had a plan for him and sold the kid on it. OU and OSU couldn't see beyond the fact that he was an option QB or an oversized and somewhat too slow safety playing small school ball.
Tyler Smith is one of the biggest freaks I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s too bad he didn’t get a full spring in the weight room. There was a video of him squatting something ridiculous this winter. He’s also very likely the fastest lineman on the team.
Not to mention his ability to fend off Incarnate Word and get the players he really wants. Coaches like TG and BB never had to deal with that.
Don't sell BB short...I'm pretty sure he beat Incarnate Word for a few kids! But IW definitely goes hard these days! Seriously though, it was sometime during BB's tenure that IW started offering every Tulsa prospect.
I guess Monty just beat out Arizona State, Kansas, Nebraska, Purdue, and a slew of G5 teams for a Running back. Well done.
All the credit goes to Gillespie for building such a strong defe— Oh.
If you are going to run sixty times a game, you’ll sign RBs and nobody else these days.
He gets credit for this particular signing, but I’m still waiting for an impact signing on offense at some other position besides running back, that isn’t a transfer or a legacy.
It’s the after effects of the President fiasco.
We still can’t go into a living room with a straight face and tell a QB or a WR that we are going to have a balanced offense and have them believe it.
He gets credit for this particular signing, but I’m still waiting for an impact signing on offense at some other position besides running back, that isn’t a transfer or a legacy.
It’s the after effects of the President fiasco.
We still can’t go into a living room with a straight face and tell a QB or a WR that we are going to have a balanced offense and have them believe it.
Montgomery’s QBs are responsible for the 2nd, 6th, & 7th most yards passing in a single season.
Dane threw 7 more TD passes in the year that he threw for 1,000 fewer yards because the run game was working more efficiently.
and if Smith stays healthy this season, he should finish 5th all time in career passing yards at TU.
this offense is predicated on a strong O-Line and talented running backs. It’s the closest thing there is to a power spread. But if those two areas are clicking, it schemes wide receivers open left and right.
Bill Jackson is a stud...runs super hard and difficult to bring down. TU has been working on him for a while. I should be talking to Bill soon and will have a story.
What a classical frigging name too. Sounds like a guy playing in the old NFL films.
And yet he sat on the bench for half the season because he wasn't a senior. Things changed for TU the second he stepped on the field and took over. Smith had more time to throw. I have no doubt Hanson is going to get these guys to be something nasty and he might tweak a little of the blocking scheme to help them. OU's offense is terribly different from ours SCHEMATICALLY and Hanson has had a chance to be around Lincoln Riley and Bill Bedenbaugh and their track record with OL the last few years cannot be questioned.
And right on cue about all the haters who say we don't land recruits with P5 and peer offers.
Perhaps, but he has shown no ability to recruit that talent out of high school, which was my point above. Smith is a transfer a program didn’t want and he didn’t sign Evans. Both were talents clearly superior to anything Montgomery has brought in on his own. Maybe Brin will turn into the second coming of Sam Bradford - skinny, hidden on the roster, just needs a chance. Who knows. But until then. Solid F grade on QB recruiting out of high school and C- on WR.
I really like some of the wideouts that Monty has brought in. Crawford is going to be a stud by the time he's a senior. Stokes is already a stud. Santana could turn into a quality speedster. Josh Johnson was a pretty decent pickup as well as far as a role playing guy goes. I think Monty's plan is to go with Seth Boomer for one season after Smith graduates. Boomer certainly showed something at the end of that UCF win. I think Boomer could end up being the 2021-22 version of 2008's David Johnson who followed up on Paul Smith's success.
Maybe. I think Johnson was going to be Smith's go to WR except for the fact that he always seemed to get dinged up about halfway through a game.
If Hanson makes some moves and plays the 5 best guys not just who he is told to play they could have a solid line......
Just another instance of Monty's grip on power being a little too tight. Hopefully he'll loosen up a bit, after the line holding us back last year, but that's doubtful. He's going to uptight himself into the unemployment line as a head coach. He talks bout trust, but seems to be sparing in how he doles it out to his coaching staff. Iron Fist Monty
