Oklahoma tackle Jacob Sexton intrigued by Stanford offer

The last Oklahoma lineman to play for Stanford transferred to The Farm after a year in Norman. Stanford hopes its offer to Jacob Sexton will win him over to take a more direct route than former All-American center Chase Beeler.

Beeler's reasons for picking Oklahoma in 2006 were similar to why many talented kids in the area sign with the Sooners: It offers elite football and is close to family. Many people have already made the same assumption about where Sexton will go to school but he pushes back against that.

"I'm sure it is a lot easier for most people to go to the school that is in their state or nearby," he told Cardinal Sports Report in a phone call. "I think that as long as I can trust people I'm around that I don't think distance is an issue at all."

Stanford offered July 15, and so has Notre Dame, Alabama, Texas, Texas A&M, TCU, Michigan, Oklahoma State and others.

Cardinal offensive line coach Kevin Carberry is off to a good start the past couple months establishing the level of trust and relationship that Sexton says are key factors to win him over. They talk "at least once a week:.

"He has been a great dude to talk with so far. I always look forward to speaking with him. He's always in a good mood. It's just awesome that a school like Stanford is interested in me."

Sexton has done a virtual visit of Stanford and plans to do another one in the next week or so.

"I thought everything was really cool there. It was awesome."

Stanford integrates videos of professors, alumni and staff members who aren't on the visit into the tour.

"It was great to hear from some impressive people who graduated from Stanford. They had videos of them speaking about their experience. I thought it was really cool for them to take time out of their busy life to say something for the university."

There also was a version of a player panel. That Q&A is usually an important part of an unofficial visit when recruits and their families get to ask questions on their own with current players. On the virtual tour there is a list of prepared questions that a recruit can choose from and then the coaches play the pre-recorded answer from the panel members.

"It was awesome," Sexton said. "They were really well spoken and excited to talk about something like that. I thought it was really cool that they would do that."

As expected, academics are also very important to Sexton. He is signed up for two AP courses and is interested in studying something in the agriculture field because of the influence being surrounded by farms has had on his upbringing. (His family has raised cows, pigs and other farm animals on their property.)

"It's student-athlete, not athlete-student, so the academic part is bigger to me."