Oklahoma Early Enrollees: How QB Jackson Arnold Changed the Face of the Sooners' Class

OU's top prospect was committed for a year, remained loyal throughout and became one of the program's most important recruiters along the way.

Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 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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For almost a year, Jackson Arnold was one of Oklahoma’s best recruiters.

It’s one thing for a recruit to hear how wonderful a college football program is from a coach. It’s another to hear it from a fellow recruit.

But when the pitch comes from a quarterback — and a 5-star quarterback at that, arguably the best quarterback in the nation — it carries an entirely different kind of gravitas.

Arnold, a 5-star recruit at Denton (TX) Guyer High School, made a lasting impression on several of the Sooners’ class of 2023 — even on the other side of the football.

Jackson Arnold :: John E. Hoover / AllSooners

“With the quarterback — you know, with Jackson being as highly ranked and with all his accolades — for him to reach out to somebody and just to get them, just to talk to them and explain why they should explore a certain school, with him being a leader on the team, that definitely brings a lot of attention to them,” 4-star safety Makari Vickers told AllSooners. “And that really makes a person really, like, ponder and wonder, like, ‘Should I really consider this school?’ Because, you know, he's the quarterback, he's the leader of the team. And so when a leader on the team — when any leader tells you to do something, then you really sit down and think on whether you should do it.”

“He just told me he fell in love with the program and fell in love with the coaching staff,” junior college cornerback Kendel Dolby told AllSooners. “He told me that’s why he committed — not trying to pressure me to commit or nothing like that, but just he gave me every reason in the world why he felt like OU was the best spot for him. I was really taking it in.”

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QB Jackson Arnold

• 6-2, 210
• Denton, TX
• 247 Sports: 5-star, No. 6 overall, No. 4 QB
• Rivals: 5-star, No. 13 overall, No. 5 QB
• On3: 5-star, No. 6 overall, No. 3 QB
• ESPN: 5-star, No. 8 overall, No. 1 QB

Background: Arnold won the Elite 11 MVP, the Tom Landry Award, started in the Under Armour All-America Game and eventually was named the Gatorade National Player of the Year, among other accolades. But competition is what drives Arnold as he led Denton Guyer to the state championship game in 2021 and then went 14-1 in 2022. The Wildcats were 28-3 in his two years as the starter as he threw for more than 7,000 yards and 67 touchdowns (eight interceptions) and ran for 1,580 yards and 36 touchdowns.

2023 Projection: It’s hard to see Arnold as anything but Dillon Gabriel’s backup in 2023. He says he’ll come in humble and hungry to learn from all the QBs, but Arnold is the quarterback of the future, so he needs to get as many snaps as he can now. Arnold’s talent should back that up: His ultra-quick snap release is on an elite level, his accuracy is very good, he has a good capacity to learn quickly and his athletic ability as a runner sets him apart. Physically, he’s probably the most gifted quarterback on campus right now, but he’ll still have to grow into the job.

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Oklahoma’s coaching staff, fans and players feel lucky that Arnold chose OU for his quarterback skills, of course. He’s one of the elites, the Sooners’ fourth-highest rated overall prospect of all time, according to 247 Sports.

“One of the best quarterbacks if not the best quarterback in the country,” 4-star offensive lineman Joshua Bates told AllSooners.

But Arnold clearly has a gift as a recruiter, too. Arnold said he’d probably be rooming with Bates this semester if he and the Sooners hadn’t been able to land his best friend and Guyer teammate Peyton Bowen.

Bowen, a 5-star safety, had been committed to Notre Dame for as long as Arnold had been committed to OU. From just across the state line, Arnold and Bowen made frequent trips to Norman. Bowen knew the coaches and the players and the campus and the town. He had formed his own opinions about OU.

But while many insiders reasoned that Bowen would eventually flip to the Sooners — which he did, a day after flipping to Oregon on National Signing Day — Arnold continued to play it cool.

There was no reason, Arnold said, to put the hard sell on Bowen. In fact, he chose the opposite strategy.

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Oklahoma’s 2023 early enrollees

• Jan. 19: DE P.J. Adebawore
• Jan. 20: QB Jackson Arnold
• Jan. 21: C Joshua Bates
• Jan. 22: Peyton Bowen
• Jan. 23: CB Kendel Dolby
• Jan. 24: OT Cayden Green
• Jan. 25: RB Kalib Hicks
• Jan. 26: DE Derrick LeBlanc
• Jan. 27: DB Erik McCarty
• Jan. 28: LB Phil Picciotti
• Jan. 29: DT Ashton Sanders
• Jan. 30: RB Daylan Smothers
• Jan. 31: DB Makari Vickers
• Feb. 1: CB Jasiah Wagoner

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“Yeah, definitely after recruiting a kid like that for a year, I mean, he was my best friend,” Arnold said. “Like, you don't push it too much. Like the other night, I'm hanging out with him, I don't ask him where he's going to school or why he should go to Oklahoma and stuff like that. You know, after a while, it gets old. So I try not to, you know, push his buttons all the time.

“But, definitely get the message across. Every so often. … At that point, it was up to Peyton, and we said all we could. We showed him all we could. We laid out the foundation for him, he just had to make a choice.”

That nuanced ability to reach other recruits on a variety of levels has helped Oklahoma land the No. 6 class in the country, per 247 Sports. And all this despite heavy overtures coming at Arnold from college football’s bluest of blue bloods.

“Somehow, some way he continues to stay loyal to you,” said OU coach Brent Venables, “because he sees a vision. He sees a track record. He has dreams to have this amazing opportunity at your school, and he's developed these relationships that mean something to him.”

Jackson Arnold  :: John E. Hoover / AllSooners

One of the most important relationships Arnold developed was with offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Jeff Lebby.

“There's a couple coaches that I knew I wanted to play for,” Arnold said, “and Lebby was at the top of the list.”

Arnold said his relationship with Lebby goes back before he was a big-time recruit, and before Lebby was an OU assistant. He called it “almost like an extension of family at that point.”

“He’s been so strong, so good, so loyal,” Lebby said. “Been about his business. At some point, he’s going to be the face of Oklahoma, which is exciting.”

Said Arnold, “I’ve never been so comfortable around a coach as I've been around Coach Lebby. Ever since the first time I met him at Ole Miss, it was my first visit where I was, you know, treated like — I guess like royalty. It's something my parents love to joke about because they were so good to me and my family. And I think that first impression was so good that, you know, it made me want to keep on talking to Coach Lebby. Kept that relationship going on for about a year and I'm just super happy that I chose to ride with Coach Lebby.”

Arnold has officially been in the OU playbook since he signed on Dec. 21, but he’s been looking it over longer than that. When the time comes — whether that’s 2024, as expected, or this year if Dillon Gabriel snaps a shoelace — Arnold thinks he’ll be ready.

“A little nervous, as expected,” Arnold said, “but not scared to go in. You know, I think that's a big thing for me is just kind of going in with confidence knowing that I belong in a place like that and just going in and learning as much as I can.”

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