Riley pilots changes to recruiting calendar
NORMAN — Sometime after 8:30 Wednesday morning, Lincoln Riley breathed a sigh of relief.
Since the official contact period opened on Nov. 26, it’s been a whirlwind for Riley and his staff as they simultaneously handled the Big 12 Championship Game, awards circuit, Rose Bowl preparation and recruiting for the newest crop of Sooners before the new early signing period.
With 17 signed National Letters of Intent in hand just an hour and a half into college football’s inaugural early signing period, Riley finally checked one major thing off his post-
season to-do list.
“It did create some challenges in the last couple weeks, scheduling wise,” Riley said. “Our group did a great job organizing and getting out and seeing these guys. I felt like we started off a little behind but we made up all the ground we needed to.”
The time-crunched schedule wasn’t the only thing new about this signing day.
Unlike in years past, letters of intent came to Norman through text messages and emails instead of by fax machine.
Ronnie Perkins, a fourstar defensive lineman from St. Louis, tried to submit his letter via fax, but the Sooners’ staff quickly sent him different directions.
“Ronnie Perkins’ coach tried to fax it and we didn’t know where the fax would come through, so we said you’ve got to text it to us,” Riley said with a laugh.
“It was strange that in between doing that, we were trying to watch Georgia and prepare. It felt a little weird to have multiple things going on, different than the others. Other than that, it was a normal signing day.”
Riley didn’t get through his first signing day by himself.
Efforts by OU’s recruiting staff, led by Drew Hill, the director of player personnel, and Annie Hanson, OU’s new executive director of recruiting, made a huge impression on the newest crop of Sooners.
“We’re not gonna be the one following the trends of recruiting or our program in general,” Riley said. “We want to be the one setting the trends. I think we’re doing that right now with our recruiting department.”
In addition to customized cereal boxes featuring each OU signee present at signing ceremonies, the recruiting team developed a series of videos for Twitter.
As each letter was received Wednesday, Riley tweeted out a video for that specific signee. Every video opened with a Sooner coach, current player or former player opening a deck of playing cards that contained pictures of Sooner greats.
From that stack, the OU coach or player pulled out a card featuring the newest signee, praising him and welcoming him to the team.
The Sooners called up to the big leagues for some announcements, including the one for four-star running back T.J. Pledger, using former running back Adrian Peterson and wide receiver Kenny Stills in a couple videos.
“One of the nice things with this rule change is we’re able to use those guys and they want to help us,” Riley said. “They should be. They’ve lived this life. They’ve taken the path that a lot of these young guys want to take. It doesn’t make sense that a player wouldn’t be able to access them and visit with them about it or to be able to use them in something like this.
“Can you imagine T.J. Pledger? He’ll have it for the rest of his life that Adrian Peterson — one of the greatest running backs ever — is announcing his commitment to OU. How cool is that?”
Riley has been building to this day since the week he took over for Bob Stoops.
Just a couple of days after being named head coach, Riley flipped thenTexas commit and Putnam City product Ron Tatum to the Sooners.
“Every time I see him, I always tell him, ‘You’re my first, you’re my first born,’” Riley said. “I think he took pride in that too.”
Though the Sooners’ 2018 class, which includes six Oklahomans and nine early enrollees, isn’t complete quite yet, it ranks as Rivals’ No. 7 recruiting class nationally.