Sooners are Cantwell’s ‘Best Visit So Far’
As one of the nation’s elite young offensive tackles Jackson Cantwell of Nixa, Mo. has seen plenty already early on his recruitment. The big man already holds offers from Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas State, Texas A&M, Miami, Tennessee, Oregon, and Florida State amongst many others. He has taken numerous campus visits already and early on, one sticks out.
“(Oklahoma is) my favorite visit I’ve taken so far,” Cantwell said of his June 2 trip to Norman. “They are definitely a very solid school. I like their staff a lot, they seem to have a good system in place, and they have been recruiting quite well.”
Cantwell, who made the trip to Norman with his parents, says that the Sooners put together an impressively coordinated visit.
“The coaches were great and the presentation of their program looked really good,” he said. “Coach (Brent) Venables has a very good attitude towards leadership and I can see myself playing under a coach like him. And coach (Bill) Bedenbaugh and the rest of the offensive line crew develop guys to the NFL incredibly well.”
Nixa is just four hours from Norman and Cantwell has been to Norman twice since the start of his sophomore season. But in spite of that relatively close proximity to Norman, it’s not a program he grew up overly familiar with.
“Honestly, until I visited them for a game day visit in the fall I had never watched a single OU game. I grew up on Mizzou football for the most part,” he said.
“I definitely knew there was a point where (Oklahoma was) good but I just never followed them much.”
Are the In-state Tigers the Team to Beat for Sooners Offer?
Talking to Cantwell it’s clear that he grew up with some degree of fandom for the Tigers but he’s also clear that staff turnover is a concern for him.
“Honestly I’m not sure yet,” he said of what role being a fan might play in his recruitment. “Staying close to home would be ideal, but staying in state isn’t my No. 1 priority.
“I definitely do still like Mizzou as a school but in some situations it’s difficult to tell how long a coaching staff will be there for. All of the people I know at Mizzou the first time I went there left [Marcus Johnson now at Purdue, Kevin Pendleton now at Tennessee].”
A True Two-Sport Star
Cantwell is a player that comes from two parents who were olympians, including his father, Christian, who took home a silver medal in the shot put at the 2008 Beijing summer olympics. Not surprisingly with this impressive background, Cantwell himself is an outstanding thrower as well.
In fact, he won the Missouri class 5 state title as a freshman in late May. And yes, he plans to do both in college.
“That will be a big part of my recruitment, as I plan on doing two sports at the next level as of currently,” Cantwell explained.
An interesting side note about his state title winning throw is that it broke the class record by over two and a half feet. And the state record that he broke? Belonged to Adetomiwa Adebawore – the older brother of current Sooner freshman P.J. Adebawore.
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