NORMAN — All those holes in Oklahoma's 2008 recruiting class are beginning to fill up.
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Five days after adding much-needed depth at wide receiver and defensive end with the commitment of Muskogee standouts Jameel Owens and Stacy McGee, the Sooners landed a pair of plug-and-play junior college transfers at safety and linebacker.
Mike Balogun and David Sims committed to Oklahoma on Sunday, hours after wrapping up official visits to Norman.
"I just liked how all the players and coaches were down to earth,” said Sims, a safety at Butte College in Oroville, Calif. "I played air hockey with (Brent) Venables. I played pool with (Bob) Stoops. It was cool. I felt like I made the right choice.”
Sims said he's preparing to start at safety, possibly filling the role of outgoing senior D.J. Wolfe, who enjoyed a career year in 2007.
"It looks like I'm going to start at free safety, return kickoffs and also punts next year,” Sims told the Chico Enterprise Record. "They told me they definitely want me on special teams, too.”
Balogun could be an even more important get for the Sooners.
The 6-foot-2, 250-pound linebacker from Scranton, Pa.'s Lackawanna College runs a 4.6-second 40-yard dash and is better in pass coverage than the Sooners' lone returning starter at linebacker, Ryan Reynolds.
"You don't go out and recruit a juco kid as a project,” said Rivals.com recruiting editor Jeremy Crabtree. "It's apparent that Oklahoma wanted to add depth and Mike's a good one to start with.”
Should Balogun transition smoothly from the juco to NCAA level — no small task — his addition on the outside would allow OU to move Reynolds to middle linebacker, to suit his skill there.
"On film, (Balogun) flies around to the football,” Crabtree said. "If they get his weight down a little, he'll be even faster.”
Balogun's commitment gives Oklahoma a backup plan in case its other coveted juco linebacker prospect, Garden City (Kan.) Community College's J.R. Bryant, spurns the Sooners in favor of Oklahoma State or Texas Tech.
It also provides insurance on Mike Reed, Oklahoma's highly-lauded juco signee from a year ago. Due to personal issues, Reed spent much of the Sooners' 2007 campaign ineligible and away from the team.
"OU's still had a pretty darn good track record with juco kids,” Crabtree said. Torrance Marshall, Lance Mitchell and Pasha Jackson were all junior-college transfers who found success in Norman.
"When OU goes out and recruits juco players they do their due diligence. OU doesn't miss on too many, and a lot of that points to Brent Venables.”
Must be his air hockey skills.
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Every story I read about OU, Ron from McCloud has a negative comment about OU and the Oklahoman. If the paper is so bad, why do you still read it Ron. Also, Venables might not be that good a coordinator, but no one can question his ability to put out an awesome linebacking crew. His record with LB's speaks for itself.
It's called journalism. ALL sports writers do something of this nature many times in their career. It's a sad day when a high school kid starts telling someone who has a college degree how to write. I'm sure he wouldn't be where he is if his grammar was a problem. Don't tell a journalist how to do his job.
Wouldn't it be easier to name the one coach or player at Agnes State that isn't abusing something/someone than try to name them all? Did Jenny drop the "L" in her last name so she could slam this Rivals guy????
Is this Rival's Crabtree guy smoking buddies with Venebles or something?? I guess he realizes that Venebles is taking some heat and wanted to lend a journalistic hand. Maybe Venebles is a good recruiter; but the best measure of a good coach is what he does with the talent that comes in. In this category, the defense consistently busting and playing below its capability points, ever more forcefully, to Venebles.
Hey Ron (from Mcloud) did you hear about an "assault charge" being filed in Stoolwater? Looks like Pettigrew is "hitting the sause" again....You should concentrate on the OSU problems and not worry about OU...Was Pettigrew running around with Eddie Sutton?
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Did you mean to start that sentence, "It must be..."
When professional writers start aping bloggers and dropping subjects from sentences, it looks bad.