A Look at the Top 25 Recruits at Oklahoma State in the Last 20 Years

When Spencer Sanders and CJ Moore signed with Oklahoma State last week, one of my first thoughts was if only there was a way to compare these signees to the recent 247/Rivals era signees in Stillwater to see just how excited about them I should be.

Oh, there is.

I went back and looked at the 247 Sports database before pulling out the top 25 recruits in Oklahoma State history based on 247’s composite ranking.

The 247Sports Composite Rating is a proprietary algorithm that compiles prospect “rankings” and “ratings” listed in the public domain by the major media recruiting services. It converts average industry ranks and ratings into a linear composite index capping at 1.0000, which indicates a consensus No. 1 prospect across all services.

The 247Sports Composite Rating is the industry’s most comprehensive and unbiased prospect ranking and is also used to generate 247Sports Team Recruiting Rankings.

This includes current commits as well as players who never even showed up on campus and goes all the way back to 2000. There are some names on this list, people. Here they are, the top 25.

It’s astonishing to me that Gundy has never recruited a 5-star player. The closest he got was Richetti Jones in 2007 (that class was legit, by the way). And it’s easy to see why he doesn’t chase them. Look at all the players who didn’t pan out. About half of the top 25 either ended their careers at other schools or didn’t pan out in Stillwater.

There are others that hit and hit big, though. Dez, Bell, Cox, Walsh, Peterson, Lewis and Jones were all either stars or superstars in Stillwater. Throw in production from Staley, Akem, Reid and XLK (sort of), and it’s not just a run of busts.

I disagree with Gundy’s philosophy of not chasing 4- and 5-star guys. I understand why he does it, and I know that single cases don’t always pan out. But the CFB Playoffs this year will be littered with those kinds of players, and you can’t hold up Dexter Pratt as a reason to not try and fill your roster with them. Right or wrong, this will be one of the legacies of Gundy’s career in Stillwater.

It was pretty fascinating to look back on some of these names and faces nearly 20 years after 247 started keeping track. Just outside the top 25 were players like Jeremy Smith, Justin Gilbert, Daytawion Lowe, Darrion Daniels, Mason Rudolph, Marcell Ateman and Blake Jackson.