Does anyone else think it's strange that Leach is focusing part of his recruiting efforts in Oklahoma rather than in Texas? Depending upon who he targets, I see nothing wrong with the strategy, but think he's onto something. It seems to me that Leach is going after players who are pretty talented, but haven't necessarily felt the love from OU and OSU. They pick Tech because Tech is showing the most interest in the player, as it seems that OU and OSU are focusing most of their time in Texas.
One disclaimer, I am not a recruiting expert. In fact, I know very little about these players. I haven't seen a high school game in 10 years and I'm not a subscriber to any website (because I'm cheap). I'm more or less talking about what appears to be a small trend. Granted, we have a very small sample size, but it's April and I've got nothing else to do.
What's different about how Leach is recruiting players this year? Well, the thing that jumps out at me is that there are 2 Oklahoma players who have committed to Tech. Scratch that, what appears to be two talented Oklahoma players. Rivals.com now has a note that Muskogee defensive tackle ($), Stacey McGee is considering Tech and now Midwest City ($) running back David Oku (a junior next year) is also considering Tech.
Okay, so lets' look at the commitment list for OU from Rivals.com. What's interesting here is that there are no Oklahoma players who have committed early to OU. OSU's commitment page from Rivals.com only has two commitments, but of those 2, neither are from Oklahoma.
I think I've always assumed that Tech really didn't have a chance to recruit the more talented players in Oklahoma because OU and OSU were such a big presence in Oklahoma**, but if neither OU or OSU are actively recruiting those players then why not Tech? Maybe OU and OSU have gotten a little lazy, or perhaps OU and OSU just didn't need or want the players, but what I think has happened is that maybe Leach saw that few Oklahoma kids committed to the Oklahoma schools and thought that he could take advantage of a situation. Leach then hand-pick a couple of kids and he's focusing heavily on those kids.
I personally like this trend and see some real benefit in making offers to good kids, who aren't getting offers from OU or OSU because those schools may have their sights set on other players. I don't know that Leach will always do this, but he's hand-picked at least two very talented players from Oklahoma and now after seeing so many Oklahoma high school kids mentioning Tech as an option I think that qualifies as an actual trend.
Stay tuned Texas Tech fans, stay tuned.
**Just for reference purposes, OSU only had 3 of their 23 2007 commitments from Oklahoma and OU had 8 of their 21 from Oklahoma.