Oklahoma locked up a commitment from 2025 4-star receiver Jaden Nickens on Saturday. The Millwood (Oklahoma City) product became the third receiver in a 2025 class at OU that currently ranks #4 nationally. This puts the Sooners as the only program to have three receivers committed in 2025 and Oklahoma receivers coach Emmett Jones as the hottest recruiter on the trail right now.
Having only been on campus for seven months, Jones has secured eight commitments for the 2024 & 25 classes, six of which are ranked as 4-star recruits. That’s a little more than one commitment per month that he’s been on campus, in case you were wondering. “I didn’t come here to waste days,” Jones said last week. “I came here to help Coach Venables win championships and help these kids get to where they want to go to.”
With stops in Lawrence, Kansas and Lubbock, Texas before making his way to Norman, Jones had already built a reputation as a strong recruiter. “What I love about Emmett is he recognizes the University of Oklahoma’s brand and the stage we’re on, and wanted to be a part of it” Brent Venables said in January when Jones was introduced as Oklahoma’s new receivers coach. “He jumped at the opportunity to join this program and that means a lot.”
Jones has yet to coach in an actual game for the Sooners but his impact can already be seen on Oklahoma’s roster. If Nickens and Elijah Thomas (Checotah, OK) hold to their commitments then they’ll be the first receivers from the State of Oklahoma to sign with the Sooners since Dahu Green in 2015. Nickens received his Sooner offer right after Jones got to Norman but the immediate impact was the addition of Michigan transfers Andrel Anthony (Michigan) and Brenen Thompson (Texas).
The time is rapidly approaching for Emmett Jones to put all of the pieces together. What happens on the recruiting trail and what happens on the practice field are about to merge in Oklahoma Memorial Stadium for the entire world to see. That’s when we’ll see the other aspect of what Jones brings to the table as his experience, both as a receivers coach and passing game coordinator, is expected to immediate dividends, and the person most anticipating this moment may be Jones himself.
“It’ll be like a dream come true,” Jones said about coaching in his first game at Oklahoma. “The spring game, I was just chilled. Anytime I come through the tunnel with the team, it’s just different. I’m an emotional guy, passionate guy, and it doesn’t take anything for my eyes to get watery thinking about certain moments. I come here to win. I didn’t come here to coattail ride OU’s tradition and history, I come to add to it.”
Emmett Jones has lit the recruiting trail on fire and that’s not easy to do. He’s replacing a legacy coach at Oklahoma, and that won’t be easy. Cale Gundy had been a part of Oklahoma’s staff since 1999 and had been leading the receiver room since 2015. If the level of success we’ve seen in recruiting is any example of the X’s and O’s we’re going to see on Owen Field then we should expect all of that passion and fire to continue to spread.
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