Sooners continue recruiting evolution
NORMAN — The reaction came quickly last week after Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley announced the hiring of Chip Viney as a recruiting analyst.
“The REAL IS BACK IN NORMAN,” former Sooners cornerback Zack Sanchez tweeted. “I’m telling y’all now this is the biggest addition to OU this year.”
Sanchez said called Viney one of the biggest influences in his career.
Similar sentiments poured in from players current and former like Jordan Evans, Joe Mixon, Jalen Saunders, and Chanse Sylvie.
Viney’s hiring is the latest tangible sign of the changes Lincoln Riley has made in recruiting and the importance the second-year Sooners coach has placed on bringing in talent.
When Riley was brought aboard by Bob Stoops before the 2015 season — with fellow assistants Kerry Cooks and Dennis Simmons following a few weeks later — recruiting was made a point of emphasis.
Less than 14 months ago when Riley was elevated to head coach when Stoops abruptly retired, recruiting was an area
where Riley quickly put his stamp on the program.
“I think we’re close,” Riley said not long before the announcement of Viney’s hiring. “We just have to continue to evolve. We’ve come a long ways, even in the last couple years. We needed to add people in recruiting. We were behind in that area, frankly. We’ve been able to add a few new positions.
“We’re a lot closer to where we need to be. I think you also have to have an open mind to be able to evolve and stay ahead of the curve.”
While Oklahoma’s recruiting had taken off for much of Bob Stoops’ time in Norman, it had slipped a bit from 200916.
From 2002-06, the Sooners were in the top 10 of Rivals.com’s team recruiting rankings every year. From 2007-16,
Oklahoma was in the top 10 just twice and never after 2010.
While recruiting rankings aren’t everything, a team’s overall ranking does play a part in future success.
Every program to win a national title over the last decade has done so with big-time recruiting classes. Of the last 10 winners, only Clemson in 2016 had three classes in the previous five that finished outside the top 10 in Rivals’ team rankings.
Half of those champions had five top-10 classes in the five classes before their title.
The Sooners finished No. 7 in the team rankings for 2017, tied for eighth this year, stand sixth in the 2019 class and fourth in 2020.
About two months into his time as head coach, Riley hired Annie Hanson as the executive director of recruiting to work with Director of Player Personnel Drew Hill and then recruiting analyst Eric Striker.
Things have come a
long way from the days when one of the assistants spearheaded the recruiting effort across the board.
For a long time that coach was Cale Gundy.
“I just think the total effort of everybody and people on our recruiting staff, some people we’ve hired and some subtle changes we’ve made,” Gundy said of the reasons behind the uptick in recruiting. “It’s just like anything else, the harder you work the better your chance to achieve something. We put a lot of time in it.”
And then Gundy touched on another element of OU’s recent success.
“It’s a younger staff,” Gundy said. “I’m the oldest guy on our side of the ball and I don’t feel old. I recruit and do a pretty good job. These guys, they stay after it.”
Riley is 34 years old. Viney is still shy of 30, having wrapped up his playing career at New Mexico State in 2011.
The youth movement has gone beyond that, including employing graphic artists to help with the recruiting push.
“Just strictly manpower to do all the things that we want to do and I think just from a pure organization standpoint that can really see the whole picture of it because it’s all going to complement each other,” Riley said.
“You’re trying to show off the OU brand, the same messages through so many different areas whether it’s how you treat them on official visits, or what game day’s like or whatever a junior day’s like or just to see the one official visit. They’ve all got to fall kind of within the same scope. You’ve got to have somebody with vision to do that and then you’ve got to have people in different areas to have expertise to execute that so we’ve brung in some new people that have done a tremendous job with it.
“I think we’re really cutting edge in a lot of areas right now. I think the results have spoken for themselves so far.”