Editor’s Note: This is Part 10 of a 14-part series on Oklahoma’s early enrollees in the 2023 recruiting class.
Many times, graduating high school early and launching one’s college football career pays off. Many times, it doesn’t.
While early enrollees are navigating new realms of pain and commitment, a lot of their friends are back home — playing basketball, running track or just hanging out and taking full advantage of the affliction known as “senioritis.”
In Oklahoma’s case, 14 newcomers have chosen to make that sudden transition from boys to men. Jerry Schmidt’s winter workouts might seem impossible at first, and then the summer grind is even harder. In between, the coaching staff takes over, and spring football practice puts them ahead of their summer counterparts.
In this series, AllSooners examines each of the 14 newcomers and projects their impact on Brent Venables’ football team in 2023.
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Brent Venables helped build Clemson into a college football machine feared throughout the South. Jay Valai last coached at Alabama. Makari Vickers grew up in Tallahassee.
And soon, Oklahoma will be in the Southeastern Conference.
None of that is coincidence.
Vickers is a byproduct of OU’s renewed efforts to fortify the program with talent from the region so the Sooners can compete with teams from the region.
Vickers, a multifaceted defensive back from the Tallahassee suburb of Quincy, is a 4-star prospect who wears the his SEC footprint on his sleeve. He was offered by Alabama in November of his sophomore season, 2020.
LSU, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina had offered him prior to the Crimson Tide. He soon got an offer from hometown Florida State, but within a few months, Arkansas, Texas A&M and Florida had offered.
Oklahoma offered last January, just a couple weeks after Texas. The Sooners had a secret weapon.
“I was locked in with Coach (Jay) Valai when he was at Alabama,” Vickers told AllSooners. “And I’ve always heard that Oklahoma was one of the most winningest programs in all of college football. So when Coach Valai went up there — and I know his defensive mind, along with Coach Venables — I knew that they would change the defensive culture up there at Oklahoma.”
Vickers described the moment he met Venables — a moment that changed his life — on a video call with Valai.
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“So he texts me off his new number and told me to call him,” Vickers said, “and so I FaceTimed him and he was actually in the meeting room with Coach Venables. That was the first time I spoke to Coach Venables was the day he offered me. … I got a chance to chop it up with Coach Venables; Coach Valai ended up getting the phone back, he was telling me how excited he was for me when he was at Bama, but now he’s over here and … he gets to start over with a new system and a lot of new guys. He was definitely excited. He extended the offer.”
Vickers is on campus now and will begin his college football career in the Big 12 Conference. He, for one, can’t wait to someday play in the SEC.
“Yeah, it’s definitely a cherry on top,” Vickers said. “Because you know what they say about the SEC: a lot of the faster, talented guys come from the SEC. So with us moving to the SEC, that definitely is gonna give me a challenge each and every game I play a team that’s from that conference. So it’s definitely a cherry on top.”
Vickers played in the All-American Bowl in San Antonio earlier this month, but not before enjoying the Cheez-It Bowl in Orlando — most of it, anyway. His hometown Seminoles eked out a 35-32 victory over his future Sooner teammates in a game where both teams seemed to come away feeling good about themselves.
“At one point in recruiting, I was (on FSU),” Vickers said. “Being from Tallahassee, I loved Florida State growing up. But being from Tallahassee, there was only so much they could show me. So it was kind of one of those things where I loved it, but I knew I had to get away because it wasn’t in my best interests.”
Makari Vickers
John Garcia / SI All-American
At 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds, Vickers is a big, physical defensive back. He told AllSooners he’s had more training as a safety, but he would prefer to start out at corner, where he can use his size and strength to disrupt receivers off the line.
He’ll be even bigger and stronger when training camp starts in August thanks to the work he’s putting in now with strength coach Jerry Schmidt and his staff — as well as the work he began last month at home.
“As soon as the (high school) season ended, I got right back on the grind,” Vickers said. “Because there’s a lot of talk about those Schmidty workouts. So I’ve been trying to just work out and get my body and my mind prepared for getting ready for the next — for college. Because everything is gonna be 10 times stronger, 10 times faster, to do a lot more thinking with less time. So definitely hopped back on the grind as soon as the season ended, just to get myself prepared for that.”
That’s the SEC mindset that Venables and the OU staff are trying to build, a mindset that projects well to the recruits — especially the ones from SEC country.
“At Oklahoma, with the new staff, everybody’s genuine,” Vickers said. “So all the love you feel up there is real. All the fan love that you feel up there is real. All the love that you get from everybody on campus is up there is real, you know, nothing’s fake. Everything is genuine and authentic.”
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