Oklahoma State Stays In-State for a Lot of Its 2020 Class

Oklahoma State’s roster is littered with players from DFW, Houston and San Antonio. Such is life when you recruit out of Stillwater, USA and the Hennesseys and Enids and Choctaws of the world aren’t producing talent by the truckload like Texas towns are.

However, some of that flipped in 2020 as OSU signed six players from the state of Oklahoma, headlined by the No. 5 recruit in the state, offensive lineman Eli Russ.

So how does that number compare to numbers in the past? Here are the players from the state of Oklahoma OSU signed, according to 247’s Oklahoma rankings lists.

2020: 6
2019: 4
2018: 6
2017: 4
2016: 5
2015: 1

Shout out to that 2015 class that only included John Kolar (who was somehow ranked ahead of Joe Burrow nationally).

Anyway, six is a lot for the Pokes, and it’s especially a lot when you consider they only signed four from the state of Texas, which is where they normally get their biggest haul. To me, this is less about a Texas-Oklahoma thing than it is about OSU looking elsewhere nationally (which is a good thing!).

Here’s a breakdown by state.

Oklahoma: 6
Texas: 4
Utah: 2
Arizona: 2
California: 1
Kansas: 1
Missouri: 1
Mississippi: 1

“I think this is the first time (we’ve had more from Oklahoma than Texas),” said Mike Gundy on Wednesday. “We had discussions, recruiting meetings the last few years, and I’ve said that in here on media days that we feel like the level of football in Oklahoma has gotten better and better and better.

“We went back and did a study on the players that we’ve brought in from the state of Oklahoma compared to other states. You really have to look at Texas one way, Oklahoma one way and then the rest of them. Per capita, if you build the formula that way, we’ve had a higher rate of success with Oklahoma kids than we have any other state just based on total numbers. Now, the larger number is going to come from Texas because we keep about 70 guys on our team from the state of Texas. We’ve looked really, really hard at players from the state of Oklahoma.”

Not sure if I trust Gundy doing per-capita formulas, but it’s a good point. He loves the Malcolm Rodriguezes, Dillon Stoners and Trace Fords of the world, and all three of those guys have been super productive players.

Which is what makes OSU’s inability to land more in-state talent so perplexing. Look at the top 10 guys in the state. OSU only nabbed one of them after Isaiah Jacobs committed to Maryland.

It’s perplexing and maybe a bit frustrating (maybe a lot frustrating!) that they would let two top-six tailbacks leave the state when they currently have zero committed. Especially when Gundy just got done saying that they actually statistically crave keeping those guys at home.

Regardless, OSU’s haul of Eli Russ, Jeff Roberson, Jordan Reagan, Cole Thompson, Brennan Presley and Zach Middleton is a nice one that will almost certainly result in the next Dillon Stoner, Malcolm Rodriguez and (hopefully) Trace Ford in the very near future.