Sad New: Sooners Both Office Are In Serious Crisis Including Issue With….

Sooners Illustrated’s Josh Callaway, James D. Jackson and Tom Green break down the Oklahoma wide receiver and tight end rooms ahead of spring practice, analyze the latest staff changes and size up the path to the NCAA Tournament for both OU men’s and women’s hoops.

As the college basketball season winds down and football spring camp approaches, the Sooners Illustrated Podcast is back with a brand new episode.

Host Josh Callaway and analysts James D. Jackson and Tom Green open the show by continuing their position status reports series with the Oklahoma wide receivers and tight ends.

“I think you feel better, at least going into the season, than you did a year ago (about the wide receivers),” Green said. “It was a big question mark last year. You didn’t know who was going to be that No. 1 guy, who was going to step up, how some of these guys were going to develop. But you look at the production of that room, obviously losing Drake Stoops is difficult…but you’re returning everybody else basically.”

“The tight end position, I think, becomes more valuable now with Joe Jon Finley stepping up to that role (as co-offensive coordinator,” Jackson said. “A lot of the times last year, when (OU) was in a sticky situation in the red zone, it was a Drake Stoops screen pass or something like that instead of going to the tight end position…I really feel a lot better about (the tight ends).”

The guys then dive into the latest staff movement with the departure of J.R. Sandlin and the hire of Jolie Ale before turning their attention to the hardwood and both men’s and women’s basketball’s hopes for reaching the NCAA Tournament.

“(Oklahoma) is still in a pretty good position,” Green said. “Right now they’re 18-8, they’re 6-7 in the conference, sitting in eighth place. Most bracket experts think that the Big 12 is going to get nine teams in. So, Oklahoma is still right there in the thick of things.”

“I think two more wins probably gets you there,” Callaway said. “Three and I think they’re a lock. (Oklahoma) is pretty firmly in (the field) now…Now, all wins aren’t created equal. You go beat Houston and that’s a little different than beating (Oklahoma State) this weekend.”

Talent acquisition becomes an increasingly crucial element of college football coaching by the year, and in this era, those who dominate the transfer portal and strike gold on the recruiting trail are among the most successful on game days. As such, the months of December through February are imperative in building a program as the winter transfer window and recruiting signing periods dominate coaches’ attention in the early part of the offseason.

It is no longer uncommon to see half of a team’s scholarships allocated to newcomers in a given year. Take, for example, the 2023 Colorado Buffaloes, who utilized the portal to a historic extent to rebuild their roster in the first year under coach Deion Sanders. Texas A&M and Ole Miss followed similar blueprints over the last couple of months.

Not all roster overhauls are quite as dramatic as the one that unfolded in Boulder last offseason, but many of the nation’s top teams underwent significant changes at the beginning of the year. With every departure from the previous campaign’s roster comes an addition for the next season.