The new online program implemented this month by OU, which has required background checks of all prospective student athletes since 2005, may be able to uncover more information than was revealed in previous checks.

“Because of the Serious Misconduct Policy with the Big 12 and all of the pushes from all of the different conferences, we needed to pull it more in-house to be able to have the ability to do more when we needed to do more,” said Jason Leonard, executive director of athletics compliance. “In the past, it's been outside of the compliance operations in terms of the background check.”

Before a commit can sign a National Letter of Intent, he or she is asked to fill out a form with personal information including date of birth, social security number and driver's license number. That information is then passed to the compliance office, an entity that directly reports to the general counsel's office and not the athletic department.

“You have to make sure the system that you're operating under is free of any type of bias,” Leonard said. “You don't want to have a situation where if I reported to the athletic department or the AD, it could create an article such as, ‘Hey, he works for the athletic department, he's going to let these kids in regardless of their history because he wants the team to be successful too.' The separation of that where I don't -- I work for the president, I work for the general counsel -- takes away that argument.”