Recruiting Matchup: How OSU Stacks Up With TCU in the Talent Department

Oklahoma State’s most known for its offense, and TCU’s most known for its defense. So what a surprise it was doing my weekly recruiting matchup and finding out that TCU has more talent (based off of high school recruiting rankings) on offense than OSU, yet the opposite is true of the defensive side of the ball.

It’s almost like scheme, fit and coaching is equally, if not more, important than the caliber of player you recruit. ?

As we do each week, let’s take a look at how the two squads stack up looking strictly at high school recruiting rankings of starters going into the game. (Note: As I do each week, unranked prospects have been given a grade of 70 to avoid completely torpedoing the overall average ranking of each unit.)

First up: the OSU offense, which ranks 82.94 overall.

TCU, meanwhile, averages out to 86.14 (!) per player on average. Of course, OSU’s three unranked players brings down its overall average down on offense, but TCU does have one unranked player of its own in starting TE/FB Cole Novak.

The Horned Frogs offense is plenty lethal at the skill positions that brings up its overall average, notably with WR Jalen Reagor, a former four-star prospect, as well as borderline four-star tackle Anthony McKinney and running back Darius Anderson. (Note: depth chart filled out based off last update found at the end of October.

OSU’s defense, meanwhile, is the higher-rated of the two teams based off an analysis of the two teams’ starting units and their 247 high school rankings. The defense ranks 85.67 overall (with zero unranked players.) TCU’s defense ranks 81.66.

Injuries may play a small role in TCU’s down number on defense, as the Horned Frogs have been ravaged on the defensive side of the ball. But overall 81.66 is respectable, and features no former unranked players. It does, however, have four (!) former two-star talents, most notably DE Ben Banogu who could start for a number of Big 12 programs off the edge.

After doing breakdowns of every Big 12 team and how each matches up against OSU, I have to say, the results have been pretty mixed (which is par for the course for this confounding 2018 team.) Of all of them, I think the OSU-TCU matchup could go down as the most confusing — if only because I’d take OSU’s offense over TCU’s all day and TCU’s defense over OSU’s, yet the recruiting rankings say I should do the opposite.