| 09 January 2010
So it looks like Pete Carroll is heading out of town right before the NCAA arrives in town to hit the Men of Troy where it hurts most (remember any football penalty will be amplified due to the Basketball program's indiscretions).
Everyone is wondering the obvious since it's January, what does this mean for recruiting?
Let's review the possible kids for this year that it might impact
Kyle Prater WR 6-5, 210 Illinois. Prater could decide that he no longer wants to be a Trojan. If he opens his recruiting back up, OU could be a possible school of interest, but far more likely is that Brian Kelly at ND will get a very early present. Prater is a mid term so any change will have to be quick. Now, I have been told that the Prater family continues to talk to OU. So things could get interesting, remember OU has one mid term ship left so OU could take Prater while leaving 2 ships still out there.
Xavier Grimble TE 6-5, 250 Las Vegas. Grimble appeared to be a Sooner continuing OU's Bishop Gorman pipeline when he changed course suddenly and chose the USC. This decision sent OU's TE recruiting into a tail spin that was only saved by the amazing emergence of Austin Haywood in state. Now Grimble is clearly the best TE prospect in the country, so if he reopened his recruiting (and I think the odds are very small on that) would OU still be interested in Grimble? I'm not sure OU has another scholarship for a TE to be honest, and Haywood is an elite TE prospect in his own right. With only two ships left, and two ships already dedicated (Haywood and Millard) to that position and only two ships left, unless OU opens up a ship some way I don't see them taking Grimble. A wildcard in all this would be OU believing that Haywood's academic progress is still in doubt.
Jackson Jeffcoat DE 6-5, 230 Plano, TX. If there's one recruit who could be impacted by this change positively for OU it's Jackson Jeffcoat. If Carroll takes Ken Norton Jr with him to the NFL, then the reasons for Jeffcoat's interest in USC diminish greatly. Conventional wisdom has UT first, USC second, and OU third. But Jeffcoat has an official visit to OU coming up, and if USC were to be eliminated perhaps that would open a window for OU to draw much closer to UT.
Perhaps the biggest recruiting impact might be next year. OU already added 3 elite players from SoCal this year, and with Pete gone OU might be able to extend their presence in California while USC is rebuilding.
