Hot Links: In the Wake of National Signing Day

Good afternoon! Hungry for some hot links in the wake of National Signing Day? We gotcha covered.

OU Links

• Samaje Perine and Joe Mixon were a huge part of OU’s dynamic attack last season. Stoops teams have always displayed a ‘next man up’ mentality, and effective play out of the back field will have to be maintained if OU wants a shot at a title. Luckily, as the Tulsa World’s Eric Bailey writes, Trey Sermon, Kennedy Brooks, and Marcelias Sutton could hit the ground running.
• Another key cog to replace next season will be DeDe Westbrook. Brooke Pryor goes into detail on why CeeDee Lamb could take the torch from DeDe and run with it.
• Derek Peterson of the OU Daily writes that, despite missing out on linebackers Jacob Phillips and Tyler Taylor, the Sooners have a pretty promising linebacker corps going forward.
• John E. Hoover broke the story yesterday that former OU Baseball coach Sunny Golloway—fired at Auburn because of alleged NCAA violations—has been totally cleared of wrongdoing. Auburn was let out of paying the remainder of his rather large existing contract, so this could get messy. Best of luck to Golloway in the future.
• Joe Mixon was not invited to participate in the NFL combine along with Baylor WR Ishmael Zamora.
• You’ve heard for a while now just how awesome the Sooners’ signing class is this season. It seems to be light years ahead of other schools in the Big XII. Read a national perspective on what Stoops and his staff were able to achieve.

National Links

• ESPN’s Jake Trotter and Max Olson reached out to dozens of Big XII coaches and staffers to talk about their favorite recruits of the ‘17 class. Oklahoma WR Marquise Brown gets a glowing review.
• SB Nation’s Bill Connelly has published his preliminary rankings for next college football season. They take into account recruiting, returning talent, and recent success. No surprise as to who tops the list.
• For a little perspective on national signing day and recruit rankings, this year’s Super Bowl has only two former five-stars and a bunch of three-stars.
• What a time to be alive. One Michigan State recruit learned to play football by playing Madden. As somebody who learned to appreciate the sport of football soccer after playing the video game FIFA, I love this. Video games can be productive, after all!
• Atlanta’s mayor is ready for the big weekend. Kasim Reed signed an executive order compelling bars to stay open two-and-a-half hours past the usual time of midnight. God bless him.

‘Stick to sports!’

• One of my favorite bands, BADBADNOTGOOD, gave an excellent addition to NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series. Listen if you enjoy slinky, groovy jazz with hip-hop influences:

• Our sincere congratulations go out to Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and his team for creating the world’s largest 7-layer dip in advance of the Super Bowl. In case you were wondering, the 540 lbs. monstrosity was donated to the Midnight Mission Homeless Shelter of Los Angeles.
• A group of people in a small English town have banded together to build a statue memorializing Brutus, a cat who made his home in a local supermarket. The cat was so beloved that nearly $3000 USD have been raised so far. I’m not crying, you are. Okay, it’s just dusty in here.