OU football: Lincoln Riley sees 'end in sight' on NCAA recruiting dead period
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Mar. 18—Oklahoma's spring camp won't include hosting recruits for the second consecutive year.
The NCAA has yet to lift its dead period, which has been in place since last March due to COVID-19 and prevents coaches from both bringing prospective student-athletes to campus and visiting their homes.
The NCAA Division I Council announced Wednesday it will discuss reinstating some, if not all, recruiting activities at its meeting next month. The dead period is scheduled to end after May 31, barring another extension.
OU coach Lincoln Riley said there is optimism within the program the recruiting calendar will return to normal, which has rarely been the mood since the start of the pandemic.
"I think the thing we have right now, that we haven't had this entire time, is there's an end in sight as far as the dead period," Riley said. "I do think there's a real effort to be able to end the dead period in June and resume visits. We'll see how it goes."
Riley noted the summer has never been a busy recruiting period at OU but the staff is planning for the possibility to host recruits and to put a bigger emphasis on the period.
OU, which is currently allowed to contact high school players via phone and video chats, appears to already have at least one recruit scheduled to visit Norman.
While Riley isn't allowed to publicly comment on unsigned student-athletes, Jaylen Lewis, a three-star safety from Brownsville, Tennessee, posted a video to his Twitter account announcing an official visit to OU on June 11-13.
The NCAA Division I Council will ultimately decide if Lewis, and others, can make trips this summer when it votes on the issue in April.
"The return-to-recruiting discussion is an extremely complex one. We had a lengthy discussion [Wednesday], weighing the feedback from standing committees, as well as the wealth of feedback we've received from all stakeholders," said Council chair M. Grace Calhoun in a release. "We will continue to assess the impact on each sport as we work toward final decisions in April."
—Fields to miss most of spring camp: Riley expects to have the majority of his roster available for spring practices, which begin Monday.
OU senior safety Pat Fields is notably expected to miss a majority, and possibly all, of the Sooners' 15 practices.
Fields recently underwent a procedure for an undisclosed injury, Riley shared on Thursday.
"Something that's pretty minor," he said, "but we'll go ahead and get that cleaned up and if we get him some for the end of spring ball, great, if not, then he'll be certainly full go, ready to go as we jump into our summer period."
Fields is a two-year starter with 122 tackles, seven tackles for loss, two sacks and one interception over 30 appearances.
The Tulsa native is set to be the program's most experienced defensive back, next to Delarrin Turner-Yell and Justin Broiles, following the departures of Tre Brown and Tre Norwood.
—Back in business: OU running back Kennedy Brooks, defensive lineman Jalen Redmond and offensive lineman Stacey Wilkins have returned to the program after opting out of the 2020 season.
"We got 'em back and honestly now it's kind of like it never happened," Riley said. "You almost kind of forgot about it. Just back to business as usual."
Wilkins has been limited in his two-year career as a reserve but Brooks and Redmond have played major roles for the Sooners.
Brooks rushed for more than 1,000 yards in both 2018 and 2019 and scored 18 touchdowns. Following Rhamondre Stevenson's decision to leave for the NFL draft, Brooks figures to be one of OU's go-to options at tailback come fall.
While Redmond has yet to emerge as a full-time starter, the hulking defensive lineman had 11 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks in 13 games in 2019.
Joe Buettner
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