Tulsa Football Signing Day Recap

The Golden Hurricane received 20 total letters of intent for the class of 2019, including nine in the early December signing period. The following is an in-depth recap of Tulsa's 2019 recruiting cycle, with focus on in-state and highly-rated prospects, battles with Power Five schools and AAC foes, and much more.

The Hurricane had quite a flurry of activity in the last few weeks, with a total of ten commitments since January 20, including several prospects that had previously been committed to other schools. A few Tulsa commits were getting late pushes from Power Five programs, one being Tulsa (OK) Washington running back Thomas Grayson, who committed to TU on January 27 but switched his commitment to Kansas State on February 4.

Mississippi Gulf Coast tight end Denzel Carter took an official visit to San Diego State last weekend after committing to Tulsa on January 21, and he picked up an offer from UCLA on Wednesday morning, but he stuck with TU and signed with the Hurricane on Wednesday.

For now, all the drama is gone. Tulsa held on to highly-recruited prospects such as Carter, Korey King, Cooper Laake, Lamar Mullins, Dorian Hopkins and Tyler Smith.

Philip Montgomery, like many past Tulsa coaches, emphasizes the priority of recruiting the state of Oklahoma's top talent. While he and his staff didn't sign a large number of in-state prospects this year, the ones TU did sign were some of the state's best.

“In the time I’ve been here, we’ve done a really good job of recruiting the state of Oklahoma,” said Montgomery. “We’ve gotten really good players out of the state of Oklahoma, and we’re going to continue to do that. There’s always years you’re going to have bigger numbers than others – I’d have loved to have signed a few more out of here, but you can’t control all of that. I’m really happy with the three guys we got this year.”

Although there are only three in-state signees, all of them are listed in the Top 25 of the Rivals.com Sooner State Rankings: #15 Chester Baah (Edison), #19 Ethan Hall (Bixby) and #21 Darrias Murdock (Union).

Rivals.com recruiting analyst Josh McCuiston was very impressed with all three players.

“In the case of Baah, you've got a player with elite athleticism and the desire to finish a block,” McCuiston said. “He may not be the biggest lineman in the state but his ability to pull around the end, pick up linebackers at the second level, and work in space makes for a really promising young offensive lineman. And at the Rivals Adidas camp, he put out the freakiest number of any recent offensive lineman...82-inch from his left finger trip to his right fingertip. That's a 6-foot-10 wingspan, something that can make up for being a bit on the shorter side.”

“For quite some time Hall has been discussed around Bixby, and his former program at Edmond Santa Fe, as a special talent that was, at times, dominant,” McCuiston said of Ethan Hall. “Hall was everywhere for the Spartans this year. He is a high-motor guy but has more bend and explosion at the corner than we'd previously believed possible.”

“Murdock is a player who has some interesting progression in front of him, and considering the move he has already made, there is plenty of reason to think that can happen,” McCuiston explained. “Seeing Murdock as a sophomore, he was a skinny defensive end with loads of development to come. Seeing him now Murdock is a physical defensive lineman who can hold his ground against a block and does a nice job winning at the point of attack.”

Two of Tulsa’s local signees also ended up on the Daily Oklahoman Super 30 (#21 Murdock, #23 Baah) and the OK Preps Top 50 (#25 Murdock, #32 Baah).

Baah and Hall both earned first-team All-State honors as seniors, and Baah was named to the All-USA Today Oklahoma first-team.Murdock and Hall were given second-team honors from USA Today.

There are many other impressive rankings up and down the list of Tulsa signees, and many come from the bevy of Lone Star State products. Montgomery and his staff used their deep connections to Texas in order to pull in 13 signatures from the fertile recruiting area.

Missouri City (TX) Marshall receiver Korey King was ranked at No. 83 in the Houston Chronicle Area Top 100 and No. 73 in the VYPE Houston Hot 100. Also in the Houston Hot 100 were Tomball (TX) Memorial running back Chris Lovick (No. 85) and Friendswood (TX) Clear Brook receiver La'Darrion Florez (No. 90).

Austin (TX) Bowie defensive tackle Cooper Laake was listed at No. 13 in the VYPE Austin Top 20; Ft. Worth (TX) North Crowley offensive lineman Tyler Smith was ranked No. 96 in the Dallas SportsDay Top 100; and Fairfield (TX) safety Jaise Oliver ended up No. 6 in the Waco Tribune Cen-Tex Top 25. Mesquite (TX) Poteet linebacker Bershard Glaspie was selected for the Blue-Grey All-American Bowl.

Outside of Texas and Oklahoma, linebacker Dorian Hopkins from Memphis (TX) was ranked as the No. 39 prospect overall in the state of Tennessee by Rivals.com.

Over the last 17 years, the University of Tulsa has made a habit out of beating Power Five programs for a few prospects. Philip Montgomery has extended that impressive run in a big way.

TU battled the most with Texas Tech of the Big 12, coming away with two prospects that held offers from the Red Raiders: Cooper Laake and Korey King. In fact, Laake was previously committed to Texas Tech in the fall, and he also had offers from Purdue and Oregon. King also had an offer from Colorado.

The Hurricane beat out UCLA for 3-star junior college TE Denzel Carter and plucked junior college safety Lamar Mullins away from Washington State. Overall, four Tulsa signees held scholarship offers from programs in the Big 12, Big Ten or Pac 12 conferences.

Extending that further, TU went head-to-head with American Athletic Conference mates for six of its signees, beating out Houston, SMU, Navy and Tulane.

Tulsa signed prospects from Tennessee, Mississippi and Florida this year, and it's the first time Montgomery's staff has signed players from those states.

Memphis linebacker Dorian Hopkins is the first Tennessee prospect to be signed by TU since 2014, when the Hurricane signed Petera Wilson and Ramadi Warren -- both from the Memphis area.

Denzel Carter is the first prospect in Mississippi to sign with Tulsa since 2011, when TU inked J.D. Ratliff of Southwest Mississippi Community College. Tulsa also signed Tyrunn Walker out of Jones County CC in 2010.

Carter is originally from Florida, where TU signed cornerback Stanley Wynn in the 2019 class. TU hadn't signed a Florida prospect since Jensen Beach kicker Kevin Fitzpatrick in 2008.

Stay tuned to Inside Tulsa Sports as we dissect this class and look ahead to Tulsa's 2020 targets. In the meantime, here are a few links to keep you busy...

• Complete look at 2019 Tulsa Football signees

• TU Signing Day in Pictures

• 2019 Tulsa Signing Day Primer

• Inside scoop in Hurricane Alley

• List of Tulsa Official Visitors

• Prospects that listed an offer from Tulsa

• National Team Recruiting Rankings

• AAC Recruiting Rankings

• Detailed look at Tulsa’s Feb. 1 Official Visitors

• Detailed look at Tulsa’s Jan. 25 Official Visitors

• Detailed look at Tulsa’s Jan. 18 Official Visitors

• TU Football offers – class of 2019

• TU Football offers – class of 2020

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