Sooners close well on signing day

By John Shinn

Oklahoma fans had been waiting breathlessly for Wednesday to arrive. National Signing Day has that effect on college football fans and the recruiting process isn’t complete until those national letters of intent arrive through the fax machine.

And two in-state blue chippers — Southeast defensive tackle Gerald McCoy and Ardmore tight end Jermaine Gresham — decided to keep their college intentions a secret until Wednesday.

McCoy, USA Today’s defensive player of the year, and Gresham, considered by several publications to be the top tight end recruit in the nation, are the kind of players that can make or break a recruiting class.

The wait could have been enough to make Sooner coach Bob Stoops a nervous wreck, but he remained calm.

“We felt like, in the end, we had done everything we could do,” he said. “We communicated with them well and had built strong relationships. We did our work and they did theirs … So I felt good about our opportunities, our chances, to get them.”

It turned out to be the right feeling.

Both signed with the Sooners and helped them haul in another banner recruiting class and a large one, too. OU signed 28 players and addressed its biggest concern with the addition of seven offensive linemen.

“That’s where he had the fewest number of returning scholarship players of any position on the team,” Stoops said. “So that was a critical area to bolster and I felt like we did it.”

Three of them — Sherrone Moore from Butler (Kan.) County Community College, Brandon Walker from Coffeyville (Kan.) Community College and Chad Roark, who graduated a semester early from Ada High School — are already on campus and will go through spring practices.

Stoops expects all seven to compete for playing time next season.

They’re joined by a class that’s heavy on in-state talent. Besides McCoy, Gresham and Roark, six other signees are from Oklahoma, including Norman High running back Mossis Madu.

“That’s where we start our recruiting every year,” Stoops said of the in-state haul.

But the Sooners also ventured to Nevada to sign DeMarco Murray, ESPN.com’s top running back and brought in its usual haul from Texas. Irving High School wide receiver Adron Tennell leads a group of 10 from the Lone Star State’s fertile recruiting grounds. Most recruiting publications rank him as one of the top five receivers in the nation.

Two quarterbacks were also added for next season with Joey Hazle from Golden West (Calif.) Junior College and Putnam City North’s Sam Bradford.

Hazle is already on campus and will be able to compete when spring practice begins March 20.

“We thought it was important that we get another player in here that could be here in the spring,” Stoops said, “a player that has some experience, to free Paul Thompson up, number one, to be totally and solely a wide receiver.”

The class was already considered among the best in the nation, but Wednesday’s addition of McCoy and Gresham made it a consensus top 10 class.

Rivals.com had the Sooners No. 9 and Scout.com had them at No. 8.

Stoops said the rankings didn’t matter. What mattered was filling voids OU needed filled and acquiring the talent to bolster the Sooners for the coming years.

“We feel like we met our needs,” Stoops said. “We recruit the kind of players that we feel can play early in their careers and we hope we have some in this class that can do that.”

John Shinn366-3536jshinn@normantranscript.com