‘Turn Over Every Leaf’: Oklahoma State Offensive Coordinator Sean Brophy Breaks Down New Staff’s Recruiting Philosophy

Already with guys on his North Texas staff with connections in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth areas, Eric Morris sent Sean Brophy, an Arizona native, out to West Texas in 2023 to recruit.

Brophy had spent time as a quality control assistant and graduate assistant under Morris the previous two seasons at Incarnate Word and Washington State, but the move to UNT was Brophy’s first full-time college coaching job as the Mean Green’s QBs coach.

Back when he was recruiting West Texas for the Mean Green, Brophy would fly into Amarillo and would go out to high schools in Bushland, Amarillo, Plainview, Lubbock, Odessa, Midland and even made a trip out to Crane, a town of about 3,000.

“We’re not a lazy recruiting staff,” Brophy said. “We’re not just gonna go and circle 45 minutes on the airport and hit those schools. And that’s not to call anybody out specifically, but we’re gonna go and turn over every leaf that we can.”

Brophy was on The Left Hash Call podcast on Monday, where he discussed myriad things about his new job as Oklahoma State’s offensive coordinator. One of the things that got brought up was the new OSU’s staff’s views on high school recruiting, an element of the sport that has seen its role diminished with the implementation of the transfer portal. But — in lockstep with Morris — Brophy said the Cowboys are still going to take recruiting high schoolers seriously.

“I don’t think we ever want to be in a situation where we sign 60 or 70 transfers — however many it was,” Brophy said. “I don’t think that that’s sustainable. I don’t think it’s the way you want to build your program, but it was necessary. I think Coach Morris has made that pretty evident. …

“I think the blueprint going forward is going to be to continue to recruit high school kids. And you hear a lot of people say it. I think the method of you really just want to utilize the portal to add the pieces that leave, the older guys that leave. Maybe some place you have a deficiency, but the foundation needs to be laid through high school recruiting and bringing these kids in and developing them from the start.”

Texas has always been and will always be an important place as it pertains to the Oklahoma State football roster. There are 35 players on OSU’s current roster who played their high school ball in the Lone Star State. Morris and his staff have deep ties to that state, but the group also has ties to the state of Oklahoma.

“We’re not gonna not do our due diligence on every part of (Texas), and then the same thing goes in Oklahoma, as well,” Brophy said. “There’s a lot of really good football in Oklahoma, and there’s a buncha guys on our staff with Oklahoma connections — Coach (Patrick) Cobbs, our running back’s coach, is from Oklahoma, Robbie Gordon, our assistant linebackers coach, Julian Wilson, who played at OU, is from Oklahoma, G-Rich (Greg Richmond), who played at OSU, is from OKC — so we’re gonna go to all these schools and knock on all these doors and evaluate all these kids and just truly find the kids who love ball.

“We’ve gotta find the kids that want to be here and love football and want to compete and they’ve got a high competitive character and competitive drive to want to be the best because the guys that aren’t like that, they’re just not gonna fit here. That’s just not who we are. That’s not who our program’s about.”

Brophy said the plan is to take 20 to 25 high schoolers each year, saying it’s something Morris believes in. Brophy recalls that the staff might’ve overdone high school recruiting a bit early at North Texas.

The Mean Green started the 2024 season hot at 5-1 with their only loss coming to Texas Tech, but when a season’s natural attrition started to set in, a lot of UNT’s depth were freshmen after signing 31 high schoolers in the 2024 recruiting class (all but two of whom were from Texas). Those growing pains saw UNT finish the season at 6-7, but those growing pains also provided … well, growth. Guys like Wyatt Young and Miles Coleman were freshmen that year and used the 2024 season as a jumping off point to a big 2025.

Although the OSU staff seems to value high school recruiting more than what might be considered normal in 2026, that doesn’t mean the coaches are anti-portal. But OSU’s portal strategy might also be a bit unique.

Morris has harped since he arrived in Stillwater how much he values in-game experience — no matter the level.

“I think that we’re more of a production over potential kind of crew when it comes to attacking the portal,” Brophy said. “So we’re gonna try to go out there and find those kids that were productive, whether it’s D-II, D-III, FCS, whatever it is, lower level G5, over the potential of a kid who’s maybe coming from a place with a big logo on his chest.

“Because the reality is, unless you’re a quarterback or a kicker is that if you can’t play at a lot of those big schools, you can’t play for us or here or North Texas or wherever. A couple positions are different, but if you can’t even make it on the field in special teams, what’s to say you could play for us? And there’s always circumstances and one-offs, but we’re gonna attack production over potential and continue to build through the high school ranks.”

Listen to Brophy’s full interview here