OU coaches thrilled with raw athleticism of Jordan Mukes, Nathan Rawlins-Kibonge

Neither played varsity football before last season, but both are long, athletic prospects with elite potential on the Oklahoma defense

Lincoln Riley and Alex Grinch weren’t going to let a little thing like a pandemic stand in their way.

Can’t evaluate a prospect in person? Missing video from a prospect’s senior year? So what?

They played basketball, didn’t they?

“That was one of the evaluation tools,” Grinch said, “that we did have this winter.”

Oklahoma signed two high-level athletes on Wednesday that, in another universe, might be dreaming of playing college basketball.

Instead, Nathan Rawlins-Kibonge and Jordan Mukes will play football for the Sooners — and their basketball highlights show why.

RAWLINS-KIBONGE PROFILE / VIDEO EVAL

MUKES PROFILE / VIDEO EVAL

OU’s head coach and defensive coordinator watched Mukes play basketball at nearby Choctaw “before everything shut down,” Grinch said, and they were blown away.

“I remember going to watch Mukes practice basketball and was like watching a dunk contest,” Riley said. “We see guys that can play ball and can dunk. It’s not a big deal. But this was a little bit different.”

Mukes is a 6-foot-4, 193-pound cornerback. He’s raw in the sport of football — he played from ages 4-12, then broke his arm and skipped his formative years, favoring basketball instead. Mukes picked up football again at the start of his junior year, and by the time he was a senior, he’d clearly figured it out.

“The explosion, the violence to be able to play DB was very exciting,” Riley said. “And, very excited about the way he performed here during his senior year.”

Rawlins-Kibonge is a 6-7, 250-pound defensive end from Portland, OR. He had never played competitive football before 2019, but after showing natural ability in high school, received plenty of football offers.

“NRK – a lot of the same things,” Riley said. “Obviously, a tremendous basketball player. The length coming off the edge and athleticism.”

He picked OU over Arizona State and Stanford, and said he intends to play both football and basketball in Norman.

“I echo, again: the speed potential, size potential,” Grinch said. “You’ve got to be able to check the boxes. Because the development aspect of things is so critical in all sports, but in ours in particular, because from 18-22 is where guys take off from a physical standpoint, athletic standpoint. But we do use multiple-sport athletes, that’s an evaluation tool.”

OU’s offer to Mukes was based on his raw junior year (he weighed around 170 pounds) and basketball. And that’s it — potential. Since then, however, Grinch really likes what he’s seen.

“The response, specific to Jordan, quite frankly, was he had to have his best year this year,” Grinch said. “I give him an immense amount of credit. It’s one thing to say, ‘OK, I’m an Oklahoma Sooner, I’ll get good when I get there.’ But (he) really made tremendous progress in kind of his second year of varsity football and (became) a guy that we’re awfully excited about.”

Riley said the evaluation process for both Mukes and Rawlins-Kibonge was similar even though they play different positions.

“In that we saw, relative to their position, jaw-dropping length and athleticism,” Riley said. “As we got to know them and their personalities, how driven they were about what they could be on the football field, we saw that upward trajectory: two guys with a very similar path that we certainly think can develop into great players here.”

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