Recruiting Report – January 14th

<em><strong>Get 25% off your subscription by entering Knight25 in the coupon code area. Enjoy!</strong></em> We are less than three weeks away from the second signing period beginning. Oklahoma still has some very talented players that are going through the recruiting process and narrowing down their decisions. We’ll have several Recruiting Reports between now and Signing Day to get you caught up on all of the top stories and the latest in recruiting across Oklahoma. And as always, we suggest to follow us on Twitter for up to the minute recruiting coverage. @PrepRedzoneOK <span style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="38533" first="Owen" last="Ostroski"] Commits To Tulsa</strong></span> This one should be a surprise to nobody as Holland Hall defensive lineman [player_tooltip player_id="38533" first="Owen" last="Ostroski"] has committed to Tulsa. As soon as Ostroski announced he was reopening his recruitment within the last two weeks, the writing was on the wall for this commitment to be following soon. For those unaware, Ostroski is the son of former TU All American Jerry Ostroski. When Tulsa offered the Dutch standout in October, the clock began to tick on what would end up being an easy decision. While Ostroski had already committed to Army, the opportunity to stay home and play for the school that his dad played for was too much to pass up. One of the biggest stories to come out of the first signing period was the Holland Hall defensive standout not signing on the dotted line with Army. Ostroski, a finalist for our Player Of The Year award, had been committed to Army for most of the fall and decided to not sign in December. At that point, it was apparent to us that Tulsa had a great shot to land the in-town product. Then Ostroski would reopen his recruitment, then a new commitment to Tulsa. The Golden Hurricane signed zero in-state prospects back in December and that certainly raised some eyebrows. They’ll have at least one in-state prospect signing in February and he’s one of the best defensive prospects in this state’s senior class. <strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">[player_tooltip player_id="38558" first="Cade" last="Stephenson"] Nearing Decision</span></strong> Another top available prospect is getting close to a decision on his college future. Kingfisher standout [player_tooltip player_id="38558" first="Cade" last="Stephenson"] announced his top three and his commitment should be coming soon. The top three included Iowa State, Oklahoma State and Southern Illinois. Stephenson made the transition from quarterback to running back this season for the Yellowjackets and turned into an All State performer. He ran for 20 touchdowns and also caught 10 touchdowns for the Yellowjackets. Stephenson is without a doubt one of the best athletes in the 2021 class and one of the top available offensive weapons remaining on the board. When it comes down to making a decision, Stephenson has his opportunities in front of him. As far as where Stephenson ends up committing? We’ll predict Iowa State. <span style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong>UCO Raking In Again</strong></span> In the last 18 months, UCO has completely turned around their recruiting philosophy and it has paid off in a big way. UCO has always recruited and signed Oklahoma kids. But what they started with the 2020 class and what is continuing with the 2021 class is very impressive. UCO is going after the Oklahoma prospects that might accepted preferred walk on spots at P5 schools or offers from small FBS or FCS programs. And this week they continued to rake in commits from all over the state. On offense they got a commitment from Westmoore offensive lineman [player_tooltip player_id="38515" first="Garret" last="Humann"]. They got two of the better WR’s in the group with Booker T Washington’s [player_tooltip player_id="38574" first="Jalen" last="Teague"] and Choctaw’s [player_tooltip player_id="63288" first="Terill" last="Davis"]. On defense, they received a commitment from Verdigris defensive lineman [player_tooltip player_id="38651" first="Evan" last="Raines"] and got one of the state’s best punters in Piedmont’s [player_tooltip player_id="51862" first="Bo" last="Phelps"]. That doesn’t include the commitments they already have from in-state prospects. And they aren’t finished! By the time signing day is in the books, don’t be surprised if UCO’s signing class is littered with Top 50 prospects from Oklahoma’s 2021 class. After the first signing period, we put out our top ten available prospects on both sides of the ball. We’ve already seen several of those prospects commit to UCO. Just a few years ago, NEO was bringing in some fantastic in-state talent. Fast forward to today and that program is now UCO.