Sooners’ five-star receivers share a bond beyond football
CARROLLTON, TEXAS — The Dallas area has been some of the most fertile recruiting grounds for Oklahoma through the years.
But never has it been quite as kind to the Sooners when it comes to receiver talent as it was this signing period.
Wednesday morning, Oklahoma signed a pair of five-star wide receivers from the metroplex — Theo Wease Jr. from Allen and Carrollton Hebron’s Trejan Bridges.
The Sooners also added a four-star tight end from Plano’s Prestonwood Christian — which is about a mile from Hebron — in Austin Stogner.
The three weren’t strangers either, even before they became big-time recruits.
“Me and Theo, we’ve known each other since third grade — same basketball
team, same football team and everything,” Bridges said. “It’s a dream come true that we’re living the same dream and chasing the same dream. Austin is the same way. I’ve known him since I don’t even know how long ago, really young.
“We were small talking when we first started getting offers and stuff like that and we’d always compare. Then signing day comes senior year and come to find out we’re going to the same school, it’s crazy.”
Bridges and Wease played together on the same basketball team in fourth grade. Bridges and Stogner played basketball together the next year.
“Around here if you played basketball, you played with everyone,” Stogner said.
Bridges said he always believed he could be a bigtime football player ever since he first started playing football at 4.
“I’ve always had a dream of going to the league or going to play
college football,” Bridges said.
It took Wease a little bit longer to start thinking that playing bigtime college football was realistic.
“Probably like this summer, after the FiveStar Challenge and The Opening,” Wease said. “That’s when people started recognizing me in public.”
Bridges and Wease have already decided to room together when they arrive at OU in January.
Since Rivals started its current rankings framework in 2002, the Sooners have only twice signed a
five-star receiver. Those were both the same person — Trey Metoyer in 2011 out of high school and in 2012 out of prep school.
Saturday, they signed two by 8 a.m. when Bridges and Wease made their commitments official.
Oklahoma signing fivestar quarterback Spencer Rattler played a big part in both players’ recruitments, as did the success the Sooners have had recently with receivers.
“Spencer Rattler is the No. 1 quarterback in my class of course, so you
know that’s just going to work out perfectly,” Wease said. “You’ve got Dede (Westbrook), Sterling Shepard (and) just a lot of great names that I just want to put my name upon.”