Brent Venables and the Oklahoma Sooners aren’t letting poor football on the field affect their recruiting, not yet anyway
The Oklahoma Sooners haven’t played well this year, but they’re still recruiting well, as they landed in Kamieon Compton-Nero’s top-five.
The Oklahoma Sooners are going through a rough patch right now. The offense looks pretty poor, maybe the worst it has looked in a very long time. Players look like they don’t know what they’re doing; the coaching staff is under fire, and it’s just a huge mess. When that happens, recruiting usually takes a hit.
But despite all of that, the Sooners are still landing in the top five for elite prospects in the 2028 recruiting class. One of those prospects is Kamieon Compton-Nero, a 6-3, 187-pound athlete out of Owasso, Oklahoma, and one of the best players in the country.
Compton-Nero’s recruiting profile
Compton-Nero is a four-star prospect with a 93.04 composite rating. He’s a top-50 player nationally according to 247Sports, a top-35 player according to ESPN, and the No. 1 player in Oklahoma. He’s ranked as the No. 1 athlete by both 247Sports and ESPN, and the No. 3 athlete by Rivals.
This is the kind of recruit Sooners coach Brent Venables has been prioritizing. Venables wants to lock down the in-state talent, and he wants them badly. We all remember what it was like when Lincoln Riley coached at Oklahoma. The Sooners didn’t get many in-state guys during that era, and plenty of talent was available. Venables has changed that. The 2027 class had four of the top five in-state players, and Venables wants to carry that momentum into 2028.
Compton-Nero is down to five schools. He’s already taken 23 total visits, with five to Oklahoma (the most of any school), five to Ole Miss, three to Arkansas, two to SMU, two to Alabama, and one to Arizona State. According to Rivals, he’s projected to land with Oklahoma at 94%.
But that can change, especially with everything going on right now with the Sooners on the field. If they keep losing games, it could get ugly. Recruiting could take a massive hit, and that would be the last thing anybody at OU would want. It happens to schools every year.
Compton-Nero is only about 100 miles from Norman, so proximity works in Oklahoma’s favor. However, Arkansas is only 105 miles away, too. If the Razorbacks get in the fight, they could have a real say in this recruitment.
Oklahoma landing in his top five is certainly something, but things can change overnight, especially in this era of NIL. The Sooners need to clean things up on the field if they want a player of this caliber to stay home.
