Three Reasons Why Odaefe Orunu Commitment is Important to Oklahoma State

Just a couple of days after recruiting experts started seeing Oklahoma State make a move for a committed offensive lineman, the Cowboys flipped him.

Per 247Sports (subscription required), the Cowboys flipped four-star offensive lineman Odaefe Orunu of Jenks (Okla.), who committed to Arkansas earlier this year. He’s the 12th player to commit to the Cowboys and head coach Eric Morris for the Class of 2027.

The 6-6, 285-pound lineman is an important get for the Cowboys in three ways.

Boosting the Offensive Line

Go Pokes 🧡🖤 pic.twitter.com/woG6imjhKo
— Odaefe Oruru (@odaefeoruru2027) August 26, 2026

Before Orunu, the only two offensive linemen committed to the Cowboys were Sonny Mullen of Troy, Texas, and Jake Baker of Ensworth in Nashville, Tenn. Both are considered three-star players and among the Top 160 players at the tackle position. From a recruiting standpoint, they’re three-stars that Morris and his staff hope can be coached up into four- and five-star players.

Orunu is projected as a guard, which gives the Cowboys their first offensive guard of the cycle. He’s a much higher-rated player than Mullen or Baker. Recruiting site 247Sports sees him as the No. 8 player in Oklahoma and the No. 22 interior lineman in the country. That gives the Cowboys better raw material to work with a huge boost to building their offensive line of the future. OSU recruited five offensive linemen last cycle and hope to have at least that many this cycle.

Building a Fence Around Oklahoma

Orunu is the fourth Oklahoma high school player to commit to the Cowboys this cycle, joining and wide receiver Cooper Hooker from Pryor High School (Quapaw, Okla.), linebacker Israel Hammonds (Choctaw, Okla) and defensive back Bryson Brown (Broken Bow, Okla.). Morris and his coaching staff have prioritized landing more Oklahoma-based recruits, and he talked about how they were doing that earlier this week.

“Just like anything else communication is key,” he said. “I think for us [we need to] be out there and be seen, be visible in these high schools for the kids, the coaches and start building those relationships. Picking up the phone is an easy thing to do. We have to recruit these guys really hard.”

Morris and his staff applied that to Orunu and it paid off.

Boosting the Class Rating

Orunu is the second four-star player the Cowboys have landed this cycle. The other is Hammonds, who committed earlier this summer. While star ratings aren’t everything, the Cowboys did not land a four-star player during the 2026 recruiting cycle, during which Morris had to quickly put together a class when he took over the job in December.

This is what a full recruiting cycle can do for a head coach and his staff. There’s more time to build relationships with both players and coaches. The Cowboys had a relationship with Orunu before he committed to Arkansas, and they clearly felt comfortable continuing to engage even though he said he was going to be a Razorback. This should boost OSU’s overall class rating and be a signal to other recruits that the Cowboys are worth reconsidering.

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