The Cody Jackson Interview: 'We've Got the Pieces' to Win a National Championship
NORMAN — Caleb Williams has made it known over and over again he’s coming to Oklahoma to win a national championship. So, he’s putting the hard sell on several top-end recruits in the 2021 class who he think can help him accomplish that.
He’s hardly the only one.
“Well, I’m with Caleb, too,” said wide receiver Cody Jackson. “That’s what it takes to win a national championship, and that’s our ultimate goal at the end.”
Jackson is the No. 9 wide receiver in the nation, according to SI All-American. He committed to OU in April from Richmond, TX — the same school that produced CeeDee Lamb.
Jackson looks around at the Sooners’ 2021 class and he sees the potential to bring Oklahoma its eighth national championship.
“I think we’ve got the pieces to do it,” Jackson told SI Sooners last week at Sooner Summit. “It’s gonna take really just being together as a family. And execution.”
That last part — execution — is what kept Baker Mayfield and the Sooners out of the national title game in 2017-18. OU had a lead in the second quarter and again late, but couldn’t convert enough offensive opportunities to extend it. Then, the defense couldn’t hold off Georgia. Special teams also failed to execute two important plays.
If OU better executes any one of those elements, it’s the Sooners playing Alabama in the National Championship Game — a game that went to overtime — and not the Bulldogs.
Jackson and his future teammates know this. That’s why they’re pushing so hard to add to the class.
Jackson said he will enroll at OU in January and wants to get started as quickly as possible. There’s obviously a lot to do between now and then — playing his senior year at Richmond, for starters — but that shouldn’t be too complicated after the summer he’s had.
“I know, right?” he said. “It’s really tough.”
Jackson said he and his father have been working out whenever possible at a nearby school. Everyone did the best they could to get to this point.
“We call my quarterback up, we’ll go throw there,” he said. “And that’s how we really do it. The weight rooms, none of them are really open, so I haven’t gotten in the weight room a lot. Just really pushups, and we’ve got dumbbells at home, so I use those.”
Another challenge has been building a relationship with Lincoln Riley and receivers coach Dennis Simmons during a time when they can’t actually meet face-to-face.
“My relationship with coach Simmons is real close,” Jackson said. “We’ll text every single day. We’ll get on FaceTime call any time we want to. I FaceTime call him at night and he’ll answer. He’ll FaceTime me and I’ll answer.”
Jackson said the goal has been “Just to have them feeling like family to me, and then that makes my parents even more secure to send me down here with him in their hands. … I feel like it builds just from talking every day, and really getting the coaches on the phone with your parents — not just me, but with my parents, too — and them just building a relationship, I think it builds trust too.”
Building trust with his future quarterback will just take time. They’ll get their personal interaction. They’ll get their work in, too.
But Sooner Summit was actually the first time Jackson had met Williams in person.
“We really just shook hands and just hugged each other really,” he said. “Because we’re gonna be seeing each other a lot now.”
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