Happy Friday, friends and fans!

Now it may be summertime, but rest assured the future of Oklahoma football is still hard at work. Take Trejan Bridges, a four-star receiver commit for the class of 2019, for example. The man simply doesn’t take days off. Looks like all that extra work is paying off, too, with Bridges taking home WR MVP honors at the Rivals Five-Star Challenge.

Congratulations, Trejan! Way to represent your future school. I can hardly wait to see what you do for an encore at The Opening Finals this weekend and beyond! More on the Nike event in the links below (and later today from Jack).

Now onto this week’s Friday edition of Hot Links! The Oklahoma Sooners will be well represented at The Opening Finals, Steele Walker signs with the White Sox, LeBron James is an unrestricted free agent and more!

OU Links

• Nike’s The Opening Finals begins this Saturday, June 30th in Frisco, TX, and Oklahoma will be better represented than all other schools with a total of seven commitments in attendance, including the aforementioned Trejan Bridges, five-star WR Theo Wease Jr. and four-star QB Spencer Rattler.
• Speaking of Wease, check out the star receiver easily beating Derek Stingley, the nation’s No. 1-ranked cornerback. Boomer!

• OU Athletics had another monster year across a number of sports, and it has been reported that Oklahoma’s year ranks seventh in Division I, and second in the Big 12 (behind Texas, who came in at No. 1) for total revenue.
• After being selected in the second round of the 2018 MLB Draft, Steele Walker has officially signed a $2 million deal with the Chicago White Sox. That’s a whole lot of cheddar, Steele!

• The official preseason AP poll won’t be released for at least another month, but where do other publications that create their own rankings see Oklahoma starting out the 2018 season? I’d say top 10, for sure, but somewhere around No. 7 or 8 feels pretty fair.
• Sophomore outside hitter Sarah Sanders is in Detroit, Mich., representing her Sooners as she competes with the USA Collegiate National Team. Congrats, Sarah!

• Here is a Friday Bedlam fact from Blinkin Riley on Twitter:

Around the Sports World

• LeBron James is officially an unrestricted free agent. Let the NBA-wide courting games begin.

• The Oregon State Beavers walloped the Arkansas Razorbacks 5-0 in the deciding Game 3 of the College World Series to claim their third national title since 2006.
• College Football wouldn’t be quite the same without rankings. Some would argue it’d be better, but personally, I think it’d be a bit less fun. Still, rankings aren’t going away any time soon, so how about a ranking of all the rankings surrounding the greatest sport in the world?
• Duke has another good one waiting in the wings. Check out Zion Williamson, a dude that weighs over 270 pounds, dunk from the free-throw line. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that he’ll be a one-and-done lottery pick. My goodness.

• In 1976, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers debuted in the NFL as an expansion team, and to this day the ‘76-’77 Bucs are regarded as the worst team in NFL history. Yes, even worse than the Detroit Lions from a decade ago and the Cleveland Browns of the past few years. Yikes.
• Will David Carr’s 76-sacks taken during the 2002 season with the Houston Texans ever be topped? It’s hard to imagine, but hey, records are made to be broken, right?
• Tiger Woods may be past his prime, but he can still muster up some insane drives like this. He was otherwise a bit shaky with the driver yesterday. However, he basically covered six football fields in two swings right here. What the what?

Stick to Sports!

• Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran is being sued $100 million for allegedly copying parts of the melody and other musical aspects of Marvin Gaye’s classic ‘Let’s Get It On’ in his song ‘Thinking Out Loud’. The similarities are definitely there.

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