Big article in the Dallas Morning News about Chad Morris and his Texas high school connections.......they expect him to make an impact in the Texas recruiting wars......he'll go after anybody, no matter whose interested in the player. Between Morris and Monty's high school connections in Texas, I expect to see some of the better players coming our way or to SMU......could get very interesting!!!!

This is probably what BB should have done in the first place - get more Texas coaching ties on staff. I remember an article in Dave Campbells Texas Football Magazine that gave the numbers of how many players from the top states playing HS football and at the time Texas was by far the greatest. Something like 160,000. Then came Cal at 90,000, Florida 75,000 and I believe Ohio. At the time Oklahoma had about 12,500. This state lost out because of the numbers. There are more people living in the Dallas Metroplex than the entire state of OK. That gives schools like SMU an inherent advantage. In retrospect, we probably should have hired Morris when we could have.

Tulsa, SMU & Houston all hired coaches with Texas HS backgrounds. I agree Tulsa needs to hit Texas hard in recruiting, but we still need to keep mining Oklahoma as well.

I especially hope we keep hitting BTW, Central & McLain. Shawn Jackson, Bishop Louie, Derrick Alexander & DeAngelo Brewer are just a few recent examples of good local talent that can be overlooked.

(01-26-2015 10:34 PM)Tulsafanzz Wrote:  Tulsa, SMU & Houston all hired coaches with Texas HS backgrounds. I agree Tulsa needs to hit Texas hard in recruiting, but we still need to keep mining Oklahoma as well.

I especially hope we keep hitting BTW, Central & McLain. Shawn Jackson, Bishop Louie, Derrick Alexander & DeAngelo Brewer are just a few recent examples of good local talent that can be overlooked.

I agree 100% Oklahoma has some good hidden talents that many P5 schools over look and makes it easier to recruit without very much oppression. TX is the strong point like you said, but Louisiana is great for TU also.. Jordan James, Dexter McCoil, Damaris Johnson which all became playmakers.

You are right, it would be nice to have someone from La that does some recruiting there!!!

What I wish we'd do is make going to school at TU so enviting to local recruits that we'd never lose a local kid to another out of state school. There's no reason to lose an Oklahoma kid TU wants to an out of state program. An example is the Lockett pipeline to K-State. If TU were to take care of business, local kids like the Locketts would want to be here where they could play in front of their HS friends and their family. Not a criticism of K-State, but TU is a much better school, Tulsa a much better place and the degree much more important. If an Okla kid decides to go to K-State, KU or Iowa St or a Texas Tech over TU, then that needs to change. It happens too much.

This is a 23 yr old story, but in the spring of 1992, Kevin Lockett, wanted to go to OU or TU,(He grew up an OU fan & TU was "his other dream school ") but neither offered. OSU offered, but they were coming off their 0-10-1 season. Lockett chose KSU (they were coming off a 7-4 season) & the rest is sad TU history.

BTW, I remember reading that story in the Tulsa World many years ago. I just found similar info from a Oct. 11, 1995 article titled "Sorry State of Football no Longer" from Philly.com. Kevin Lockett himself tells that story. Unfortunately, that mistake cost TU multiple good players with the last name of Lockett.

Dave Rader was a good coach, but he failed to recruit North Tulsa. Al Humphrey (TU All-American) was very upset that TU didn't offer his son , Rod. Rod signed with Pitt, but Al was quoted in the paper as being upset that no in-state schools, including his alma mater, offered his son.

This is a new era, where more kids want to leave the state, but I agree Rabid. TU needs to find a way to keep more good ones here !

(01-29-2015 12:19 AM)Tulsafanzz Wrote:  This is a 23 yr old story, but in the spring of 1992, Kevin Lockett, wanted to go to OU or TU,(He grew up an OU fan & TU was "his other dream school ") but neither offered. OSU offered, but they were coming off their 0-10-1 season. Lockett chose KSU (they were coming off a 7-4 season) & the rest is sad TU history.

BTW, I remember reading that story in the Tulsa World many years ago. I just found similar info from a Oct. 11, 1995 article titled "Sorry State of Football no Longer" from Philly.com. Kevin Lockett himself tells that story. Unfortunately, that mistake cost TU multiple good players with the last name of Lockett.

Dave Rader was a good coach, but he failed to recruit North Tulsa. Al Humphrey (TU All-American) was very upset that TU didn't offer his son , Rod. Rod signed with Pitt, but Al was quoted in the paper as being upset that no in-state schools, including his alma mater, offered his son.

This is a new era, where more kids want to leave the state, but I agree Rabid. TU needs to find a way to keep more good ones here !

I just have to believe that it had something to do with the culture at TU at the time. The adm seemed to harden the academic standards so much they became a barrier to getting kids into school that we'd had before. But of course I don't know that for sure. And I remember it happened about the time of our Freedom Bowl win in San Diego. The rumor at the time was that Donaldson wanted to kill TU FB. Thank God he's no longer in control!

I knew a staff member was thinking Donaldson would increase the budget and give the coaches a pay increase, but instead announced he would cut programs and athletic budgets. You just don't do that unless there is a prejudice against athletics. Donaldsons name will always be dirt to some alums.

I also remember that the SMU football program was discontinued as well about that time - the Rader years. Lots of problems in college athletics and a lot of it was caused when the state schools created the unfair playing field we have today.


IMO

I agree Donaldson was a big part of the problem. However, in the case of Lockett, it all falls on Rader. Kevin Lockett was an honor roll student, good kid, good family. IMO, there was no excuse for not offering Lockett or Humphrey. I give Blankenship credit for recruiting North Tulsa. I hope Monty keeps it up.

I suspect Blankenship didn't recruit Texas anymore than he did because he and his staff didn't have the connections there already built. That really helps otherwise you are starting from scratch. He went with what he knew. As the recent history has shown though that wasn't necessarily the best decision though.

Bingo!

From the small amount of info I see from Rivals.com (I'm not a member) it seems like the coaching staff is starting to go after some '17 and '18 recruits down around the Houston area. I wonder if they're trying to do battle directly with UH for recruits down there. Anyone have any knowledge on that?

(01-29-2016 02:17 PM)Hurricane Drummer Wrote:  From the small amount of info I see from Rivals.com (I'm not a member) it seems like the coaching staff is starting to go after some '17 and '18 recruits down around the Houston area. I wonder if they're trying to do battle directly with UH for recruits down there. Anyone have any knowledge on that?

I don't so far. I assume th strategy for the program right now is to establish the staff first, then recruit who they can get rather than who they and everyone else want. i'm a little puzzled at the vast number of offensive linemen they have gone after because i thought that wasn't an immediate concern. i also assume thats because they look at the OL as the key to the offense - even moreso than the skill players. Defensively, as i expected, we are going after corners - our biggest area of concern.

I will say this, I think PM is pretty satisfied with the returning players in the program from last year and doesn't need to push the panic button in recruiting. I guess it'll really start big time next year when we graduate some very good skill kids from the offense - Atkinson, maybe Lucas, Evans etc and some of our good linemen and LBers.

I guess the question is "do the players fit the needs we have?"

I've watched the recruiting around here....North Texas.....for years and during the time when we were very good we were getting 10-12 of the Top 100 players from No Texas.......then BB pretty well ended that and our record showed it.......I'm a little surprised, this year, we only have 2 of the Top 100 players.......so I hope recruiting Oklahoma more pays off, but it hasn't in the recent past!!!!!

I think I can understand why recruiting for both Lines was concentrated on. Both offensively and defensively Tulsa was lacking in size, or just pure beef on hoof. Both lines got pretty well pushed around. If you don't have the size that will happen every time against teams that do have it. Also the offensive line wasn't stopping anyone all last season much. Every time you turned around there was 2 to four of the opposite teams defense in Tulsa's backfield making life tough for the QB's. You could tell by reading between the lines at Montgomery's news conference on the recruiting class, that he was not happy with the talent on the Lines left by Blankenship. But you have to smile and work what you have when you first get to Tulsa. He had no choice then. Now he has more options to work with. Speed is the next thing the coaches need to recruit next. Not that they don't know this.

We definitely got some beef up front this year........we could have a pretty good line in a year or two!!!

I was glad to see them add size to the lines. I believe it's more important to have good O and D lines than having great skill players.

(02-08-2016 04:41 PM)Hurricane Drummer Wrote:  I was glad to see them add size to the lines. I believe it's more important to have good O and D lines than having great skill players.

If your skilled players are just average. Having good and big Lines makes up for a lot of lacks behind the line.