Oklahoma Sooners Hot Links: The Current State of the Big 12

If you were to ask four different people about the future of the Big 12, you might get four different answers.

Ask the same four people about their perception of the league now, though, and you’ll probably get similar answers. Something like, “it’s not where it used to be.” Probably put a little more derogatorily, though.

And that’s probably true: as Dennis Dodd of CBS points out, Western Kentucky put as many players into the first 72 picks than the Big 12 did.

Dodd places some of the blame on the fact that, in the words of one scouting director, there is a recruiting “hole in the fence” in Texas. In other words: conferences like the SEC and the Pac-12 are taking a sizable share of the state’s talent.

It’s not an easy problem to solve, but the apparent resurgence of Texas will help the perception of the Big 12. The conference is not going anywhere for the time being, so it’s important that it puts some talent into the NFL.

Without further ado, today’s edition of Hot Links:

OU Links:

• It’s good to be Sam Bradford, who has done something uncommon in the NFL: he’s managed to win the business side of football.
• Bob Stoops, a vocal proponent of the newly-instituted early signing day, made an official statement on the matter.
• PennLive ranks college football’s richest programs. OU predictably makes a top 10 appearance.
• The #TraeYoungChallenge is catching on — even in Japan:

• John Rohde writes about OU baseball’s second chance senior, Renae Martinez.

National Links:

• Bud Elliott (who does a great job writing about all things recruiting) updated his piece on the winners and losers of the early signing day.
• David Beaty’s Kansas Jayhawks just might be competitive in 2017. Bill Connelly takes a deep dive into the Jayhawks’ chances.
• Florida head coach Jim McElwain was asked about a photograph of a nude man on top of a shark that bore no small resemblance to him. It was as awkward as you might expect.
• Manu Ginobili outsmarted James Harden to lead the Spurs to a victory over the Rockets, and it was glorious.
• Frank Clark of the Seattle Seahawks — arrested and prosecuted for domestic violence in 2014 — went after a female reporter on Twitter who wrote a story about him right after he was drafted.

‘STICK TO SPORTS!’

• File this under ‘insanely awesome’: Deadpool is getting an animated show and Donald Glover is running it.
• Mac DeMarco recently released his new album This Old Dog. He’s a goofy dude, so it’s pretty fun to watch him goof around and play music in a Paris park: