Football Recruiting Rivalries: Oklahoma

Welcome back to our deep dive series on Irish football recruiting rivalries. There are a few key schools who make you go all Captain Kirk when they sign a Notre Dame target, because DAMMIT THEY DID IT AGAIN. We’re talking about those schools. We kicked off the series with a review of the Stanford recruiting rivalry, and continued by poking the Wolverine(s). Both of those stories were more pleasant than the casual fan might have imagined. This story, unfortunately, is going to be (almost) as gory as you would imagine. Recent history has been kinder to the Irish, but even so Oklahoma is still clearly on the long side for the time being. Boomer Sooner, indeed.

Methodology

I’m going to include every commit who had offers from the other team in the win/loss counts, even if I know those offers weren’t really committable in some cases. This is because while I know that in some cases, I’m aware that neither I nor anyone else truly knows the status of all offers. Plus I have much more intimate knowledge of Notre Dame recruiting than opponents’ recruiting, of course, and it would be intellectually dishonest of me to say “they got recruit X because we didn’t push” and ignore the potential for that to happen in the other direction as well.

I broke the Kelly Epoch down into three distinct chunks to compare these rivalries: the 2011-14 classes, which we’ll call the Diaco Era, the 2015-17 classes, which we’ll call the BVG Era, and the 2018-20 classes, which we’ll call the Revival Era. Notre Dame’s on-field record in those three eras are, in order, 37-15, 22-16, and 22-4. Keep those in mind as you consume the other info here, as they’re obviously major factors in themselves. Note that while I’m using the DC’s names, we’re still looking at recruits on both sides of the ball in those eras. It’s just a convenient nomenclature.

Finally, we’ll cap each review with a quick look at the 2018-2020 cycles. Those are the ones that coincide with a better on-field product and a more recruiting-focused coaching staff, which should give us more of a sense of what is possible when things are going well.

The Scoreboard

As noted above, Oklahoma has done very well against Notre Dame in the Kelly Epoch; of the rivals identified in this series, only Ohio State and USC have taken a bigger share of contested recruits from the Irish. We did pretty well against them early on and then completely tanked. There’s one obvious reason for the dip, which rhymes with CBT, and for those of you who might not follow recruiting too closely, one less obvious reason.

Wins and Losses

You can see here that in the Diaco Era, Notre Dame actually did very well against Oklahoma and exceptionally well on defense. That all turned in a huge way in the BVG Era, when the Irish dipped eight percentage points on offense and a whopping 55 percentage points on defense. The much-maligned erstwhile Irish DC was a big part of this effect, both directly and indirectly. Former Irish secondary coach Kerry Cooks, who wanted the DC job that VanGorder got, moved to Oklahoma after one season under VanGorder and proceeded to savage Notre Dame on the recruiting trail every chance he got. Combine that with VanGorder’s own deficiencies as a recruiter, and the effect was dramatic.

So that’s the obvious reason. The less obvious reason relates to the fact that, perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively, Notre Dame has gone head-to-head with Oklahoma on a number of Fresno recruits. You might puzzle as to why that would matter; Oklahoma, as it turned out, had a Fresno ace up their sleeve in Courtney Viney. Viney played his high school ball for the late Tony Perry, the self-styled “DB Guru” who was a major figure on the Fresno high school and 7-on-7 coaching scene through his death in 2017. Oklahoma hired Viney as a grad assistant in 2013; his relationship with Perry was a huge reason why the Sooners signed two of Perry’s 7-on-7 players that year, four-star DBs LJ Moore and Hatari Byrd. Moore and Byrd both had Notre Dame offers.

The Sooners would return to Fresno to sign WR Miciah Quick the next year, also a Notre Dame target, and five-star LB Caleb Kelly, also a Notre Dame target, two years after that. Kelly’s signing came in 2016, Viney’s last semester as a grad assistant; he spent that fall in Norman as a special teams analyst, left to coach CBs at Nevada in 2017, and returned to Oklahoma in 2018 when Lincoln Riley wisely hired him as a recruiting analyst. They haven’t pulled a kid from Fresno proper since Kelly, but they were in it for 2020 Fresnoan Jalen McMillan (a key Irish target who committed to Washington) and have pulled other kids from northern California.

Clearly the Fresno connection doesn’t explain everything – even if all four Fresno kids had picked Notre Dame, Oklahoma would’ve easily won the total count. But it’s definitely a contributing factor. Speaking of contributing, by the way, a small consolation for Irish fans perhaps is that three of those guys never panned out:

• Hatari Byrd had 49 tackles and 3 PBUs through three seasons before being dismissed from the team for disciplinary reasons. He finished at Texas A&M.
• LJ Moore had a single tackle in his freshman season and transferred to Contra Costa CC, where he lasted a week before dropping out after a lost fistfight (allegedly). He was later arrested in Oklahoma for pimping out a former Sooner cheerleader, but missed his trial date because he was in jail in California awaiting trial on domestic violence charges. I’m not sure he would’ve made it to one month in South Bend.
• Miciah Quick moved to CB as a junior and then transferred to Fresno State. After sitting out a year, he played in six games for the Bulldogs and posted 16 receptions for 144 yards. Yawn.
• Caleb Kelly had some maturity issues early but then started to hit his stride and was expected to start this season. Unfortunately he suffered an undisclosed injury in the spring that required surgery and will likely result in him missing most of this year; he’ll probably come back for his fifth year and be in the mix to start then, assuming he recovers fully.

Quality Control

It’s interesting that, despite the disparity in raw numbers, in terms of individual quality the Irish have done OK. The Diaco Era defense score includes Tee Shepard and Eddie Vanderdoes, but even if you take them out the score only drops to 0.9363, still comfortably ahead of Oklahoma’s 0.8915. I’m honestly not sure what to make of this; I lean towards saying it doesn’t really add any color to the picture we’re painting here. We’ve taken better individuals from them on average, but there’s no question that they’ve taken a lot of guys we really wanted regardless of what their Composite score was. The top end of our list might be very slightly better than theirs, but their average is pulled down by taking a number of lower-ranked guys we pursued.

Highlights/Lowlights

Lemon juice on your paper cut in the form of some of the more notable Oklahoma wins:

• Five-star QB Spencer Rattler, 2019: Never had Notre Dame on his radar, which is a shame, because he would’ve been a shoo-in for the All-Time All-Name Team.
• Five-star RB Joe Mixon, 2014: Not that it probably would’ve mattered, but reportedly the Irish staff backed off Mixon over character concerns. They, uh, were correct.
• Five-star RB Keith Ford, 2013: I have no recollection at all of his recruitment and he never visited. So. Transferred to Texas A&M after a disciplinary suspension and getting passed by underclassman Samaje Perrine.
• Five-star LB Caleb Kelly, 2016: Kelly reportedly had either silently committed to Notre Dame or intended to before changing his mind at the last moment. Shortly after an in-home visit from Bob Stoops and Cooks. KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!
• Top 50 CB Bookie Radley-Hiles, 2018: Showed some marginal interest in Notre Dame early but that was about it; committed to Nebraska before flipping to Oklahoma in the midst of Mike Riley’s disastrous final year in Lincoln. He’s the projected starter at nickel this year.
• Top 100 WR Miciah Quick, 2014: By all reports a “Notre Dame kid” and probably the one that really set off Irish Nation’s Fresnophobia; Moore and Byrd before him never really seemed like Notre Dame fits, but Quick definitely did.
• Top 100 WR Durron Neal, 2012: Like Ford, Notre Dame was never remotely in the picture, which Irish fans probably didn’t care about since we landed another top 100 WR named Neal in this class (no relation, although I heard he’s Mo Stovall’s cousin). Davonte, we hardly knew ye.
• Top 100 DE Ronnie Perkins, 2018: Again, showed some brief interest in Notre Dame early in the cycle but never visited.
• Top 100 DT Neville Gallimore, 2015: The Irish offered the Canadian when he was a three-star but never pushed (common theme of the BVG Era), and weren’t a consideration when he blew up later. Both he and Perkins are projected starters for the Sooners this year. Ouch.
• Top 100 OG Andrew Raym, 2020: Raym committed to the hometown Sooners almost two years ago, then decommitted six months later. He picked up a flurry of offers then, including Notre Dame, and dallied with a few schools but ultimately returned to the Oklahoma fold recently.
• Top 100 RB TJ Pledger, 2018: A summer visit led to hopeful thoughts here, but ultimately the talented Californian came down to Nebraska and Oklahoma and landed with the Sooners.
• Top 100 WR Sterling Shepard, 2012: In a repeating theme here, Shepard had a Notre Dame offer early in the cycle and the staff visited his school a couple of times, but he never really displayed any interest.
• Top 100 S Robert Barnes, 2016: Barnes actually visited Notre Dame in the spring before his senior year, but it never went further than that.
• Top 100 QB Cody Thomas, 2013: Hey, guess what? Thomas never visited and the Irish were never a factor.

That’s a lot of dudes. It’s also two guys (Kelly and Quick) who seriously considered Notre Dame and maybe three more (Gallimore, Pledger, and Barnes) who would’ve given Notre Dame a closer look with a better recruiter chasing them. Raym is a bit of a tough one to count as a loss; he only got a Notre Dame offer because he decommitted from Oklahoma, so he’s not the same as the garden-variety recruiting loss. But he did visit Notre Dame and ultimately re-commit to Oklahoma, so he’s here.

And now some Neosporin in the form of the most notable Notre Dame wins:

• Five-star LB Jaylon Smith, 2013
• Five-star DT Eddie Vanderdoes, 2013
• Five-star QB Gunner Kiel, 2012
• Five-star S Max Redfield, 2013
• Five-star RB Chris Tyree, 2020
• Top 100 RB Greg Bryant, 2013
• Top 100 CB Tee Shepard, 2012
• Top 100 WR Davonte Neal, 2012
• Top 100 LB Nyles Morgan, 2014
• Top 100 TE Alize Mack, 2015
• Top 100 OT Quenton Nelson, 2014
• Top 100 OT Tosh Baker, 2020
• Top 100 TE Brock Wright, 2017
• Top 100 DB Houston Griffith, 2018
• Top 100 S Elijah Shumate,
• Top 100 LB Jack Lamb, 2018
• Top 100 OT Hunter Bivin, 2013

As noted above, the top end of the take for each school is not bad at all for Notre Dame – 17 top 100 Irish wins (or 15 if you leave out you-know-who) vs. 14 top 100 Sooner wins, five five-star Irish wins (or four) vs. four five-star Sooner wins. The disparity comes below the top guys, where Oklahoma has obliterated Notre Dame 48-27. Eleven of those losses came in the four-year Diaco Era, a whopping 18 in the three-year BVG Era, and another 14 in the three-year Revival Era. The ubiquitous BVG-related dip was certainly part of why we lost out on some of those guys. Cooks’s antipathy towards (or, if you have a different perspective, effectiveness as a recruiter against) Notre Dame is another part. Academics, geography, fit are all a part of it too.

It also struck me in putting this together that the top end of our win list has been, shall we say, rather spotty on the field; six of our top seven wins who have matriculated didn’t complete their eligibility at Notre Dame. Is that a coincidence? Is it because when we find ourselves in the same aisle as Oklahoma, there’s a greater chance we’re shopping for ingredients that don’t work once you throw them in the pot? Am I straining that metaphor too far? Probably.

Recent History

Oklahoma clobbered Notre Dame in the 2018 cycle. The Irish staff didn’t chase Fields given their position with Griffith and Allen. I believe they chased everyone else that landed with the Sooners; to varying degrees, of course, but they were true targets. On the flip side, I’m not sure how hard Oklahoma pursued Boykin, who never visited, or Keys, whose runners-up list included Texas and SMU, but they would’ve happily taken Griffith, Lamb, or Allen. That’s a 2:1 advantage for Oklahoma in true targets.

The raw numbers in 2019 seem to be another clobbering, but I think context here gives us a very different picture. At safety the Irish again did just fine, pulling top 100 Kyle Hamilton and four-star Litchfield Ajavon, so Criddell and especially Morris, who the staff didn’t chase much if at all, weren’t true losses. Similarly, while Notre Dame really liked Wete, it’s hard to say they lost the DE position here given that they landed Isaiah Foskey and Osafo-Mensah. Washington would’ve been a really nice addition for a cornerback group that needs some talent, but then we also pulled Rutherford and KJ Wallace in this cycle. Notre Dame did earnestly recruit Stogner, but sandwiched between George Takacs and Tommy Tremble in 2018 and Michael Mayer and Kevin Bauman in 2020, he’s a luxury. I like QB Brendon Clark but there’s no question the Irish staff would’ve taken Rattler if they could’ve, so that’s a straight loss.

From Oklahoma’s perspective, they definitely wanted Quinn Carroll – he would’ve been by far their highest ranked OL and the fourth highest ranked recruit in 2019. And similar to Notre Dame, they’re probably happy with the guys they got but did legitimately target Rutherford and Osafo-Mensah. When you add everything together, I think the context defines 2019 as a wash.

In 2020, we see that the worm has perhaps turned: If signing day was tomorrow, Notre Dame would beat Oklahoma head-to-head on the trail in raw numbers for the first time since 2014. That’s hard to imagine, but it’s true. Things could change down the stretch, of course, but I think there’s a good chance we’ll end up at least even with them, which also hasn’t happened since 2014. The big story in the 2020 class is, of course, Chris Tyree; he reportedly was ready to commit Oklahoma after an official visit there in April, but new Irish RB coach Lance Taylor convinced him to slow it down and swung him back to Notre Dame. Tyree is the highest-ranked back of the Kelly Epoch and one of the highest-ranked backs ever to pledge to Notre Dame. Adding to the sweetness of that is that Taylor and OC Chip Long had to go head-to-head with Oklahoma and Alabama to get him. It really is impossible to overstate the significance of landing Tyree.

One brief context note on Offord: he just picked up his Oklahoma offer in the past week. Obviously he didn’t have that offer when he committed so he’s not a true head-to-head win, but that’s probably true of a lot of other prospects on both sides throughout this series of articles. I’m highly confident that Offord will still sign with the Irish, if you’re concerned about that.