By JOHN E. HOOVER Sports Columnist on Dec 6, 2012, at 5:26 PM Updated on 12/06 at 5:34 PM
Justin Manning picked Texas A&M over Oklahoma.
And this is surprising how?
Sooner Nation recruitniks have taken to the message boards and talk radio in the wake of Manning’s verbal commitment to the Aggies Thursday afternoon, decrying everything from Manning’s actual football acumen to the supposedly diminished recruiting skills of defensive tackles coach Jackie Shipp.
We’ll have to wait and see if Manning is as great as his press clippings (he’s a Rivals four-star prospect at Dallas Kimball and is the nation’s No. 6 high school defensive tackle prospect; No. 7 by Scout, No. 8 by ESPN).
And we’ll have to wait to see if Shipp does rebound by landing any other promising players (three junior college prospects reportedly have scholarship offers from OU, and so do two high schoolers in Miami, Fla., and another in Ohio, according to Rivals network website SoonerScoop.com).
But the real reason Manning picked Texas A&M is all too familiar and, for Sooner fans, painfully obvious.
OU doesn’t play in the Southeastern Conference. OU plays in the Big 12 Conference.
That’s it. That’s all there is to it.
Manning is the Aggies’ fourth verbal commitment at defensive tackle. The Sooners have zero.
The SEC stockpiles big-time defensive tackles and linebackers. The Big 12 prefers quarterbacks and receivers.
If you’re a defensive tackle or linebacker and you think you have the potential to play in the National Football League and you like smashmouth football and you want to win a national championship, you’re probably going to sign up with Alabama or LSU or Georgia or Florida. Or, now, Texas A&M.
In 2010 and 2011, then-OU defensive coordinator Brent Venables frequently removed one or both defensive tackles from the field, replacing them with either one defensive end, two defensive ends or an additional defensive back. The reason was simple: replacing bulk and power with speed and quickness is the Sooners’ best option to combat the Big 12’s wide-open passing offenses.
This season, after Mike Stoops twice realigned his defense with no linebackers and seven defensive backs, I asked Bob Stoops if it would become more difficult to recruit linebackers and defensive tackles to play against Big 12 offenses where wide receivers, like West Virginia’s Tavon Austin, can move to running back for a week and hang 344 rushing yards on the Sooners.
Stoops, of course, said no, “because we’re still playing a good number of people that don’t do that (type of offense).”
I don’t buy it.
What blue-chip defensive tackle or linebacker wants to play football at a place where he may play half the defensive snaps or less, strictly because of the style of offense the opponent plays?
Other factors are at play here.
The Sooners would appear to have a major, major need for good defensive tackles to play immediately. Three three-year starters — Jamarkus McFarland, Stacy McGee and Casey Walker — are seniors. Jordan Phillips showed several times this season he can be a monstrous terror for opposing offensive linemen, but he’s still just a redshirt freshman. Others behind him, perhaps less physically talented, also are grossly inexperienced.
Despite the likelihood of immediate playing time, Manning chose A&M.
The fact is that if McFarland, McGee and Walker were better players, they’d probably be playing more, no matter what offense they’re facing. McFarland was the No. 1 defensive tackle in the nation when he signed with the Sooners out of Lufkin, Texas. The year before, McGee was the top defensive prospect in Oklahoma when he signed out of Muskogee. And Walker, who’s frequently (but not always) the best of the three, wasn’t a high-profile recruit at all out of Garland, Texas.
McFarland, way back in the 2009 class, was Shipp’s last major signee, but hasn’t come close to living up to his recruiting hype. Before that, DeMarcus Granger in 2005 was the No. 1 defensive tackle in the country at Kimball but also fell short of expectations. Neither McFarland nor Granger became more than a role player who battled weight problems and rotated into the lineup.
Tommie Harris (2001) and Gerald McCoy (2006) were also No. 1 nationally at their position, and each player secured his legacy with All-American play at OU and Pro Bowl-level play in the NFL.
McCoy was the No. 3 pick in the 2010 draft after a stellar junior season in 2009. But even that seems like ancient history now. The evolution of the Big 12 into a 7-on-7 passing league lights up scoreboards and sells tickets and makes coaches rich, but it hasn’t produced a national championship, not since Vince Young led a talented Texas team — rife with linebackers and defensive tackles, don’t forget — to a dramatic Rose Bowl triumph over USC at the end of the 2005 season.
Barry Switzer told me back in September, after the Sooner defense couldn’t stop a one-dimensional Kansas State team in Norman, that OU won’t win national championships again until it can sign some big-time defensive tackles.
Justin Manning showed us again today why that’s probably true. And as long as Big 12 teams throw the football around like they do, those big-time defensive tackles will continue to line up in the SEC.
Only active print or digital subscribers of the Tulsa World are allowed to post comments on stories posted to Tulsaworld.com. After you fill out the form below and click submit, your comment will be published instantly online along with your screen name.
By clicking "Submit" you are agreeing to our terms and conditions.
