Sooners landing five-star linebacker Cooper Witten isn’t just another case of nepotism we see way too often
The Sooners should be back at No. 1 for their 2027 recruiting class.
The Oklahoma Sooners landed No. 1 linebacker Cooper Witten to help bring their 2027 recruiting class back to No. 1. And, of course, there is a crowd with this one, a crowd that is screaming “nepotism.” In other words, some think Witten only committed to OU because his father, Jason Witten, is a coach. Some think Cooper is a five-star because his dad is a Hall of Fame tight end.
Both of those couldn’t be further from the truth. Oklahoma did the work it needed to do to land Cooper and was actually the first team to send an offer to Cooper back in 2024. It had almost nothing to do with Jason Witten, who is the new tight ends coach at Oklahoma, and a former Tennessee Volunteers, Dallas Cowboys, and Las Vegas Raiders tight end.
The Sooners are getting a good football player in Cooper Witten
This is not what everyone thinks it is—you may hear Texas Longhorns fans call it nepotism in terms of his ranking, saying he’s small, can’t play at the next level, or whatever it is they’re saying. But that’s just not true. We saw similar things with their quarterback, Arch Manning. Unfortunately, that kind of slander and narrative comes with the territory of having famous athletes in your family.
There’s a reason why Cooper is the No. 1 linebacker in the country, and it has almost nothing to do with how hard he hits, how many tackles he gets, or those sorts of things that linebackers do. Instead, it’s actually because of his IQ and his coverage. Witten is a former safety, and he’s carried that over to linebacker, having more than several pick-sixes in his high school career. Playing safety and a bit of corner as a freshman really helped him become great in coverage. He’s grown in size every year, and now that he’s big enough to be a linebacker, he’s been able to carry those skills over.
Witten can be an on-ball or off-ball linebacker. The on-ball guys are usually the ones who blitz the most, play the run, and make all the very hard hits in the backfield. He can do that well. He reads run gaps very well, knows how to read screens, and his pursuit and IQ for which angles to take are very good. Not to mention, if your father is a former football player, you’d better be able to tackle.
Witten is a very good football player. I’m not sure he is a guy who will play right away as a freshman, but this recruiting win is much bigger than most are making it out to be.
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