Oklahoma’s 2027 recruiting run, which looked like it might turn historic, has hit a rough patch at the worst possible time.
The Sooners spent much of the cycle riding high after an early wave of commitments pushed them to the top of the national rankings. But July has brought a different kind of momentum. While the rest of college football keeps stacking pledges, Oklahoma has cooled off, and the result is a drop from the top three to No. 6 in both the Rivals and 247Sports team rankings.
That slide matters because it puts Brent Venables on the edge of a milestone the program has never reached in the modern recruiting era. Oklahoma is now in danger of missing out on its first top-5 recruiting class since 247Sports began publishing team rankings in 2010. Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley never got the Sooners there, either.
As of Monday morning, the teams sitting ahead of Oklahoma in 247Sports’ rankings were Texas A&M, Oregon, Notre Dame, Texas and Miami. Rivals has the same five programs in front of OU, just in a different order.
The Sooners built their class the old-fashioned way: early and often. Of their 26 total commitments, eight were in the fold before the 2025 season even ended, and that number does not include several flips that helped strengthen the group.
Then came a huge weekend in March, when Oklahoma landed five commitments during its Future Freaks Junior Day event. That surge pushed the Sooners past Ohio State and into the No. 1 spot nationally across recruiting outlets, with 19 commitments at the time.
Jim Nagy and his staff kept pushing through official visit season and added six more commits in June. That group included five-star cornerback Gabriel Osborne Jr., four-star safety Bode Sparrow, three-star corner Trenton Blaylock, three-star interior offensive lineman Jaxon Lawler, three-star wide receiver Malahn Green and unrated quarterback Noah Smith.
Still, the recent additions have not all carried the same weight in the eyes of recruiting analysts. Osborne and Sparrow helped the most.
Green effectively stepped in after fellow three-star receiver Tra-Von Hall flipped to Ole Miss, but Oklahoma still has not fully replaced the loss of four-star Demare Dezeurn. That gap could be enough to keep the Sooners just outside the top five.
Then came the start of July, and it went 0-for-2.
On the first day of the month, four-star cornerback Brandon Sherrard picked Texas over Oklahoma. That decision also lifted the Longhorns into the top five and bumped the Sooners out. The next day, four-star edge rusher Uhila Wolfgramm chose BYU in one of the tightest recruiting battles of the cycle, again leaving Oklahoma empty-handed.
The only new addition for OU in that stretch came in the 2028 class, where four-star quarterback Trey Tagliaferri flipped from Notre Dame after being committed there for just six days.
There is still one more chance this month for Oklahoma to land a 2027 win. Three-star athlete Jaiden Fields is set to announce Tuesday, and multiple recruiting experts are projecting him to choose the Sooners. Even so, Fields probably would not be enough to change the bigger picture.
For now, Oklahoma still has a shot at finishing with an all-time class under Venables and Nagy. Even if the Sooners stay at No. 6, it would still stand as the best signing class in the modern recruiting era for the program, topping Venables’ 2023 class, which finished No. 7.
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Sooners Fans Still Can't Agree On These Costly Portal Misses
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Dasan McCullough and Jaydn Ott are the names that keep coming up for all the wrong reasons, while Austin Stogners return offered familiarity without a true return to his earlier impact. For a fan base that has watched the Sooners chase roster upgrades through the portal, those misses have become part of the larger debate over how much certainty there really is in this era of college football roster building. [Read more 🡒]
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Oklahomas offensive line took a real step forward in 2025, especially in pass protection, after the mess that defined the previous year. The run game still lagged behind, but there was enough improvement to give Brent Venables some reason to believe the group could keep building, particularly with the continuity and experience that had started to settle in.
Now the Sooners have to answer their biggest personnel question of the offseason without one of the units most dependable voices. Febechi Nwaiwu is gone, and with him goes a veteran presence Venables viewed as part of the lines leadership backbone, leaving Oklahoma to sort out which returning blocker can fill that glue-guy role as the 2026 season approaches. [Read more 🡒]