Texas Football: Casey Thompson was close to playing for OU

It was almost two years ago at this point when the 2018 Texas football recruiting class was battling the Oklahoma Sooners to keep Casey Thompson’s interest.

A usual battle that transpires on the recruiting trail in this region of the country is the Texas Football program competing with the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas A&M Aggies. Barring maybe the LSU Tigers, those are the two biggest recruiting rivals for head coach Tom Herman and his staff. But most of the recruiting battles for Texas come down to other rival schools in the Big 12 or the state of Texas. The SEC can jump in there every once in a while, though.

One of the bigger pieces to the quarterback room of the Texas Longhorns football program, to be redshirt sophomore Casey Thompson, apparently almost landed with one of those two recruiting rivals.

On the Young & Drumm podcast on 247Sports, the recruiting situation behind Thompson with head coach Lincoln Riley and the Sooners was discussed at large. Here’s what that conversation largely amounted to on 247Sports between RJ Young and Brandon Drumm.

"“I knew this when it happened,” Drumm said. “I wasn’t allowed to report any of it. During that Cam Rising-Casey Thompson situation, Casey Thompson was on the fence. Casey Thompson was Oklahoma’s No. 1 quarterback—by far. Cam Rising came in. He was offered after Casey, and Cam Rising committed. Casey wasn’t ready. They (OU) even called Casey and said Cam Rising is coming in and committing. We’re not going to accept it if you’ll commit, and Casey was on honest with Coach Riley and said I’m not ready … So they had to take what they can get.”"

Apparently Oklahoma looked to have an inside track to land Thompson, but he got cold feet before announcing his commitment decision. Oklahoma was focusing a lot of its recruiting resources on the former four-star dual-threat quarterback recruit and native of that state.

Two former Longhorn commits were heavily locked into this recruiting battle between Texas and Oklahoma. Former four-star recruit Cameron Rising committed to Oklahoma before eventually decommitting and signing his National Letter of Intent to play for Texas. Just one year after landing on the Forty Acres, Rising would then transfer to the Utah Utes.

Thompson put his name into the NCAA Transfer Portal last year, but came back to Austin shortly thereafter. He is the most experienced quarterback for Texas behind to-be senior starter Sam Ehlinger. Thompson could compete to win the starting job next year.

However, the Sooners nearly landed Thompson at one time. He just wasn’t ready to announce his commitment to Oklahoma when Riley and that coaching staff was ready to take him in. That led to Spencer Rattler and Tanner Mordecai becoming the two quarterbacks Oklahoma signed during that time.

Rattler was one of the nation’s top prospects for that recruiting cycle, and the former five-star dual-threat quarterback could be Oklahoma’s starting quarterback this fall. Now that former Alabama Crimson Tide graduate transfer Jalen Hurts has his eligibility up, Riley needs to find his next solution behind center.

Thompson sits in a quarterback room on the Forty Acres in which he could be battling sophomore Roschon Johnson, and a pair of incoming freshmen in Hudson Card and Ja’Quinden Jackson, to be the next starter. Ehlinger’s eligibility is up following the 2020 season, so Herman and the Longhorns need to find their next face of the program soon.