Sperry was visiting Texas and watching the Longhorns practice when Jeff Lebby called with the offer, and Sperry wasted no time pledging to the Sooners.
BROKEN ARROW, OK — The fact that Oklahoma’s newest quarterback commit’s dad played a game against the Sooners long ago is interesting.
But for Sooner fans, the most compelling part about Kevin Sperry is his willingness to outwork the competition.
Sperry committed to play for OU and Jeff Lebby late Monday night. Sperry, currently a sophomore at Rock Wall High School in Texas is one of the most promising college football recruits in the 2025 class.
For perspective, Oklahoma still doesn’t have anyone committed in the 2024 class, and now the Sooners have their 2025 quarterback.
Sperry chose OU over offers from Baylor, Florida State, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, Oregon, TCU, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and others, including his dad’s alma mater, Washington State.
He told 247 Sports he was “thankful for all the coaches that recruited me, but I feel like OU’s the right spot for me.”
The 6-foot-1, 200-pound Sperry just turned 16 last fall, but he’s already showing leadership qualities that put him on the path to Norman.
Sperry’s dad, Kevin Sr., played college football in Pullman in 2002. He was a 6-2, 225-pound linebacker for the Cougars who played on the WSU Rose Bowl squad — the same squad that squared off against Bob Stoops and Oklahoma in the Sooners’ very first Rose Bowl appearance in 2002-03. He made one tackle in OU’s 34-14 victory.
Sperry had joined the Cougars out of Los Angeles Harbor Community College, where he had 12 sacks and set a team record with 17 tackles in one game.
After his football career ended, Sperry raised a family, relocated to the DFW Metroplex and even took up some of the football and athletic training of his sons, Kevin and Rozzi.
Now it’s young Kevin Jr. who’s the big-time athlete, although Rozzi is an up-and-coming eighth-grader who’s creating his own buzz.
“He’s gonna be a top dude too,” Cooper said.
Cooper owns and operates C4 Sports Performance in Durant, OK, and now has a long list of local and regional athletes he’s helped place on Division I football rosters.
Cooper explained a number of ways that Sperry’s dedication to the training process have made him a Division I quarterback.
“He’s a worker,” Cooper said. “That’s the thing. He’s a worker, he’s a thinker. I think I’m a very deep and accurate observer of humans, and he’s a worker.”
Sperry drives the 90 minutes or so from Prosper to Durant two or three times a week to work out with Cooper’s other athletes. A lot of C4 athletes come in from small town Oklahoma because there aren’t many training options in their towns, but Sperry makes the drive from DFW, where big-name trainers are just about everywhere.
“That speaks volumes about who he is as a person and his character,” Cooper said.
There’s another element at play here for Sperry. He quarterbacks Cooper’s elite 7-on-7 team, which is full of 2024 and 2025 prospects — including a handful of OU offers. But just playing touch football wasn’t what he wanted out of his C4 experience. He wanted to be part of a team. That means offseason workouts — hard, grinding, strength and fitness workouts.
“Initially I thought they were just gonna play 7- on-7, right?” Cooper said “Well, he told his dad, ‘No, I need to be in there training with those guys. If I’m the leader, I need to be in there training with them for that camaraderie.’
“That was him, 15 at the time, making that decision.”
According to MaxPreps, Sperry’s first year as the Blue Hawks’ varsity starter last season went OK: in 10 games, he completed 55 percent percent of his passes for 1,527 yards with nine touchdowns and nine interceptions. He also rushed for 657 yards and three touchdowns. This was on a team that had just three skill-position seniors.
Expect those numbers to explode in 2023.
When Lebby called Sperry with the scholarship offer last Thursday, Sperry was taking an unofficial visit to the University of Texas and was in the middle of watching the Longhorns practice.
Lebby’s timing was evidently perfect.
“It’s probably been in the making for a year or so,” Cooper said. “He went to camp (at OU), had great a camp, and he started to develop a relationship with Lebby. … OU was gonna be patient with their process. They didn’t want to offer a quarterback too early, which I can’t blame them on that. It just kind of kept going, he went to camp, and then we went back for the elite underclassmen day in July.
“It was relationship-based, and they wanted to see him play a whole season. They said he was one of the top guys on their board and they weren’t offering a ’25 quarterback that early, and now they stuck with their word and when it came to it, he was their guy.”
Cooper has trained Sperry for two years now, and he’s come to know Sperry and his family well. Cooper is supremely confident that Sperry won’t flirt with other schools, won’t take any substantive visits, and won’t flip.
“When that family gives their word, that is their word,” Cooper said. “There is no going back. None of that. No. When that family says they do, that’s what they do. They’re committed, they’re very well thought out, very loyal, very driven and then very, very, very family-based.
“If OU got his word, or anybody got his word, they’re gonna get a family that is locked in, that is committed. They’re definitely not in it for the show.”
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