California pipeline still paying off for Sooners
NORMAN — Some Sooners were predestined to be Pac12 players, yet nine California kids will be on the home sideline when UCLA visits Oklahoma on Saturday.
As several of them looked back at their recruitment, their younger versions could more easily see themselves in the blue and gold of UCLA than their current crimson and cream gear.
“Even now, when I turned on the Cincinnati game last week I wanted to see (UCLA) win,” linebacker Curtis Bolton said. “A lot of those guys grew up in the same situation I did.”
Bolton, from Murrieta, California., isn’t alone on OU's roster.
“Sophomore year, I remember I wanted to go to UCLA,” linebacker Caleb Kelly, from Fresno, California, said. “That was my pick. That was my school. A bunch of coaching changes happened and it just didn’t really work out.”
Kelly’s mom cried when her son told her he’d be moving out of state for school.
Growing up as a prized football prospect in California eventually meant going to a Pac-12 school.
“It was always the expectation, and at the beginning of my career, that was always the plan,” Bolton said. “I was always going to the Pac12.”
The same goes for Sacramento native Dru Samia.
“People thought I was crazy for going to Oklahoma over UCLA,” Samia said.
But in every case, as their recruitment evolved, their boundaries expanded.
Samia, Kelly and Bolton all call California home, as does OU tight end Grant Calcaterra, defensive tackle Dillon
Faamatau, safety Jordan Parker, running back T.J. Pledger, defensive back Brendan Radley-Hiles and offensive lineman David Swaby.
Calcaterra didn’t have the in-state options most of his California teammates did. He has noon Saturday circled for another reason.
“No schools from California really showed much interest in me,” Calcaterra said, “so that's also in the back of my head a little bit.”
This is far from the first Oklahoma roster with several Californians on it.
Recruiting coordinator Cale Gundy said there were “tons” of California products playing for Oklahoma in the 1980s and 90s.
But a more recent pipeline from the west coast to the plains flowed at the beginning of the decade. After not signing any California prospects in 2009, the Sooners landed San Diego-area stars Tony Jefferson, Kenny Stills and Brennan Clay in the 2010 class.
Jefferson and Stills are entering their sixth NFL seasons.
“When I seen those guys, man, they were legends where we from,” Bolton said. “To see them come out here and do what they did, I always wanted to do the same. It’s a little late, but I’m trying to get there.”
The #CaliSooners hashtag is always circulated when Oklahoma is involved with a California prospect. Three-star outside linebacker Jonathan Perkins is the only
Californian committed to OU’s 2019 class, but a matchup with UCLA is a natural way for OU to enhance its reach out west.
“UCLA is a major brand,” Gundy said. “They’ve had a lot of success, a great tradition. Anytime you can go out and compete against a Power Five school that’s got the history and tradition like UCLA does, it helps across the country. Not just in California, but everywhere.”
Oklahoma plays UCLA at the Rose Bowl in Week 3 next season. It’ll be OU’s first regular-season game in the Pacific
time zone since playing at Washington in 2008.
Bolton said the only thing that weighed on him when choosing Oklahoma was how his mom could afford to travel that much. He’d like to see schools in Big 12 country venture westward more.
But Bolton said it’s a two-way street.
“If the whole thing me growing up is I’m supposed to go to the Pac-12 and I come out to the Big 12 and I’m unsuccessful, what does that tell other people?” he said. “It’s a sense of duty on me that I have to go hard, I have to get here and be successful.”