Updated List of Current Commitments/Offers (Updated)
by Wescott Eberts (GoBR) on Feb 9, 2009 9:49 AM CST
in Texas Longhorns Recruiting
Email
PrintHere are the players who have given their commitments to the Texas coaching staff:
- Trey Hopkins, offensive lineman, Galena Park North Shore
- Taylor Bible, defensive tackle, Denton Guyer
- John Harris, wide receiver, Garland Naaman Forest
- De'Aires Cotton, defensive tackle, Alief Taylor
- Darius Terrell, wide receiver, DeSoto
- Tevin Jackson, linebacker, Garland
- Adrian Phillips, athlete, Garland
- Ahmad Dixon, safety, Waco Midway (committed Monday)
- Case McCoy, quarterback, Graham
- Aaron Benson, linebacker, Cedar Hill (committed Monday ($))
Here is the list of players offered yesterday:
- Corey Nelson, linebacker, Skyline
- Connor Wood, quarterback, Houston Second Baptist
- Darius White, wide receiver, Dunbar
- Trovon Reed, wide receiver, Thibodaux
- Lache Seastrunk, running back, Temple
- Jackson Jeffcoat, defensive end, Plano West
- Reggie Wilson, defensive end, Haltom (offer unconfirmed)
- Adrian White, cornerback, DeSoto
- Carrington Byndom, cornerback, Lufkin
Consider this your Monday Open Thread for recruiting. I'll have more on the commitments in Morning Coffee Tuesday morning. As a reminder, here is my breakdown of the first three commitments and other miscellany from the weekend, including attendees.
79 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
hmm
OB hasnt updated yet.
http://texas.rivals.com/commitlist.asp
That would be a big one though. First top 10 Texas kid.
I don't know...
but I went to the home of that link..Inside Texas and that was the headline..hopefully it’s true
by vy til i die on Feb 9, 2009 10:12 AM CST up reply actions
I would much rather have these glorious Junior Day's
than have success with NSD commitments (if forced to choose, of course). We should have half of this class locked down by the end of February.
I think the two biggest concerns with this class have to be Seastrunk and Jeffcoat. With those two, this class is elite. Without them, it should still be top 10, but it would be nice lock down arguably the best DE and RB in the nation (especially when the RB is a Cen-Tex guy). Unfortunately, neither of them seems like the kind of player that we get.
Really like the Bible kid. If either Howell or Johnson pan out, we should be DEEP at DT for the next few years.
Agree about Bible
along with the commitment today from Dixon, I think those two are the biggest commitments so far.
by Wescott Eberts (GoBR) on Feb 9, 2009 10:44 AM CST up reply actions
We'll have half this class
locked down by the end of the week. If 9 is a correct number now, it’s almost there already . . . max class size I see for 51 weeks from now is 21 or 22.
agreed
I think it will end up at 21. I think we’ll see the dust settle in a couple weeks and we’ll be sitting at about 14 commits. I expect Benson, both Whites, and Jordan Hicks to all verbal in the near future.
Great Junior Day
Hopefully some of these big name guys will pull the trigger this week after giving it some thought.
Blazz
Note on Case McCoy
Don’t know how reliable this is but here’s an excerpt from an article on BOB.com. Interesting that UF was going after him hard if true.
QB – Case McCoy – Graham
Holds offers from Texas A&M, Florida, Florida State, Auburn, Arizona, Colorado State
Strengths: Has the desired instincts for the position. McCoy is 6-2, and around 175 pounds with good feet and the ability to change arm angles and release points to make throws under pressure with accuracy. Has a knack for playing the position and is a rapidly improving prospect. Florida Gators head coach Urban Meyer has been making a strong push as of late. Like his older brother, also plays varsity basketball and will be a member of a likely 3A playoff team.
Case McCoy received a scholarship offer.
Quick question to the more knowledgeable
How many other schools push to wrap up their classes super-early like this?
I really like the approach and think it does well to motivate the players (while also taking the edge off to perform), coalesce the group, and start to get them mentally focused and prepared to step up at the next level.
My hat’s off to Mack & co. for this prescient approach.
This is something that Mack does very well
When he gets those kids in his office and gives them his little speech it has to be hard to say no.
I am sure that there are a lot of teams that would like to get kids to commit early like this, but when you are USC, Florida or Ohio St. and you are going after 5 star kids a lot of them like to wait to commit. I just think that Mack does the best job with this.
I am not that informed, how I think it works.
Blazz
So far we've offered 19 'ships
How many more do we have to give out? Are some of these offers going to get a timeline. I think we’re still looking to offer Cobbs from Tulsa and Hicks from Ohio. Could the WR position be one where the first four to commit are the ones who get a spot? Same with LB?
thats not how it works
you offer more kids than you have spots for because you know you wont get committments from them all. Texas doesnt do this to the extent of most programs, because we often have very little problem securing committments from the in state kids.
there wont be a timeline put on any of the offers to the top kids in the state. You probably wont see any more OL offers go out for a while. Evan Washington may have to wait a while to see how the numbers shake out on some of these other committments before the staff decides they want to offer another OL spot.
Theres a reason they didnt offer every kid that they brought in this weekend, and that they wont offer many of the kids they bring in for the next JD. 19 offers is really quite a low number comparatively.
and
heres the situation at LB. Texas expects committments from Benson and Jordan Hicks. Those 2 are pretty much as close to a sure thing as you can get. They also will hold a spot open for Corey Nelson as long as is necessary. They will likely take 1 more LB. There are options in state, but they will probably look OOS and try to see if there are any other big time recruits with interest in UT and worth spending time and resources on. If not, they will wait and evaluate the remaining kids in Texas before deciding who else to offer.
At WR, they also will likely take 4, with 2 already in and at least one more expected this week. That leaves no more than 2 spots open. They like Demarco Cobbs and Travon Reed, but expect both to be difficult battles. So I think they hold spots open for both of them at least for the time being. There is no rush right now to put ultimatums on these kids for spots open, especially the OOS kids with lots of offers to consider.
The flipside to the early commitment push by Mack...
As I see it, there’s a potential downside to this, especially when it comes to big-name, OOS recruits.
If a recruit knows he’s the new hotness at his position and that he’s going to be courted by all the big names, wouldn’t he be turned off by the fact that it appears that UT is wrapping up their recruiting a year in advance? “Well, looks like they’ve got most of what they want already, I’ll look elsewhere where I’m more desired.” Granted, that plays against Mack’s preference for players who KNOW they want to be at Texas, but it’s something to be considered.
Also, for recruits whose main factor in deciding is getting immediate playing time, seeing a school fill up it’s “question” areas a year ahead of time would certainly make them feel like there’ll be a lot more competition to get that playing time, further turning off big-name recruits.
Just my thoughts
Link?
I see that Dixon is now confirmed on Rivals, but nothing about White. Unless i’m missing something?
by Not Now Chief on Feb 9, 2009 11:44 AM CST up reply actions
I think its just a misprint,
Dixon committed today, Mon, no info on Adrian White that I can find.
Where are you seeing this?
Its expected, but havent seen confirmation anywhere. I expect both Whites to commit this week along with Benson.
In this very post
“Adrian White, cornerback, DeSoto (committed Monday)”
with the committed part linking to the story of Dixon committing.
We Need 2 Pronged Approach
Mack “wrote the book” on the way to early recruit and deserves all the credit in the world for the way he runs the recruiting business on the 40 acres. However, don’t delude yourself over the following 3 facts:
1. We need to do a better job of grabbing 1-2 impact OOS athletes to Texas. This is done routinely at Oklahoma and Ohio State and we have significantly more to offer.
2. We cannot bask ourselves in the thought that if they don’t commit to Texas right away they are a prima donna and we don’t need them. (read Lache). The fact is we have to cater to 17-18 year old kids with egos – and we need to deal with that effectively. If Lache wants to be pampered until Army day or NSD – do it. You can readjust the attitude while you have him! If he doesn’t adjust – you can decide to sit him – which is much easier than tackling him.
3. We need to craft a flexible approach that allows to bring the vast majority of our class early – but still hit homers late. Is it me – or does it seem that we commit a little early to 2-3 athletes that are head scratchers? (I know this may be a reach as several 3 stars have turned into just fantastic players)
I dont understand the perceived "need" to get an OOS recruit, just for the sake of getting an out of state recruit.
If theres a specific kid we need, then lets go after him. But Texas has so many more quality high school football programs than either Oklahoma or Ohio. Of course OU and tOSU have to go out of state, their states arent big enough. We are over twice the size of Ohio, and almost 7x as big population wise than Oklahoma.
by BoddickerIsClutch on Feb 9, 2009 12:20 PM CST up reply actions
you missed the point
His point was ability, not need.
And no one that I am aware of has argued for signing OOS recruits just for the point of signing them. The point is to upgrade the overall talent level of the team. We do quite well right now, but we can do better if we don’t artificially limit our recruiting base. If we could supplement our usual in-state excellence with 2-3 choice OOS recruits each year, that would only be a good thing. Perhaps then we could win more than 1 conference title each decade.
come on.
not recruiting OOS kids has not been the reason for the 1 conference title this decade. thats just absurd and hyperbole and you know it.
There has been more than enough talent on the team, from in state kids, for us to have been more successful in Macks tenure. Injuries, poor coaching decisions, and just plain bad luck bear most of the blame.
If you want to argue for more OOS recruiting, thats fine. there are plenty of good arguments for doing so. But claiming its the reason that we havent been more successful is absurd.
by 6th street on Feb 9, 2009 1:22 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
We have recruited out of state
So we have the ability. See Simms, Derek Johnson II, Blaine Irby, Lamarr Houston, Kasey Studdard, Lyle Sendilen etc..
We don’t have the need, so we don’t do it. Having a class full of TX kids does not mean we fail at recruiting out of state, its a perception that people get when we dont get the hat pulling fools on NSD.
And which out of state recruit would have won us the conference championship in 2001, 2004, 2006, and 2008? Years that we could have (should have maybe) won it, but fell short for some reason or another, and very doubtfully due to out of state personnel missing. How many of those would we have to have won
Look Im not happy with the championship record either, but it needs commenting that OU is a freaking good team as well. Its not like we are running through the Pac-10 or the Big 10 here in the South.
by BoddickerIsClutch on Feb 9, 2009 1:41 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
no
I want more hat-pulling fools! (Sarcasm)
An’ unda’ dis hat i gots anotha hat! An’ unda’ dat one i gots ANOTHA Hat! An’ unda the table i gots me a duffabag full o’ bags o’ hats but the real hat is in ma mama’s back pocket!
haha dre kirkpatrick: “open it” open it yourself you douche lol
Dude - You Are DEAD WRONG
Texas talent is fantastic and a great asset – but the problem is that the High School talent is not linked to your University like middle schools that feed a high school, or minor leagues that come together to fill out a major league roster. Therefore natural variation of the style of High School ball that are played will leave you with talent voids at certain positions. The way we do it now is great – but we only win a national championship like once every 15-20 years or so.
If you look at the programs that are more successful than Texas (defined as more Nat’l championship titles + appearances over the last 10-12 years), – USC, OU, OSU, LSU, and Florida – they do not rely on the “200 mile radius” to attract 90% of their talent. OSU will be in a MNC title game with Terelle Pryor in the next 2-3 years. There is not a single QB in that state or in their 200 mile radius that could deliver that. In addition, they have pulled 5 stars out of Texas and Florida in the last 2 years, getting someone to make the switch to that weather has to be immeasurably harder than us raiding Ohio, Colorado etc.
OU routinely draws from Las Vegas, Michigan, DC to attract key talent that they can’t pull from Texas. Mack has done a good job of increasing the UT edge in Texas and DFW. But Stoops will offset that pain by pulling in some OOS talent.
What would LSU prospects be without Loston, Shepard, and Guadhere? Not good.
So to me, if you want to position yourself for back to back titles, or 2 in 4-5 years – we will need to drop our weakest 1-2 in state recruits and find a way to pull in some 5 stars from other states.
this is such a garbage argument
that im not going to even waste my time refuting it. Blaming our lack of OOS recruiting success on our lack of conference championships and/or national titles is ridiculous. See my post above for why.
a top 5 class is a top 5 class, whether it includes kids from Texas or Alaska.
There are many reasons why we havent won more titles in Mack’s tenure. a lack of OOS recruits is down at the bottom of the list, though.
You can make arguments for a greater increase in OOS recruiting. But this is not one of them.
alaska is an untapped resource
whether the discussion is about football players or energy that statement rings true
You are comparing apples and oranges.
And even at that, you say there are only 5 programs that are doing it better? You realize how close we were to being in the national championship game in 2006 and 2008?
Forget that though, what happened happend, no excuses right? Then whats our record against those 5 ’better" teams in the past 10 years? Are we really that much of losers compared to them?
Or maybe, winning (or even getting to) the Natty Champ Game is not all about recruiting. Maybe its not even about having the best team. Maybe the teams you play and the teams they play factor into it, maybe theres a bit of luck, avoiding injuries, getting help from other teams who arent even in your conference.
by BoddickerIsClutch on Feb 9, 2009 4:32 PM CST up reply actions
and coaching.
honestly, with the talent we’ve had, its been a shame that we’ve made some of the mistakes we have. and some of that comes back on the coaches. we’ve had some poor strategy and bad decisions. But ill take the bad with the good.
Yes coaching too
Point is, there’s like 20 things more influential than in what state a kid went to high school.
And its not like we are sitting at 8-4 9-3 seasons rotting in the Alamo Bowl…
by BoddickerIsClutch on Feb 9, 2009 4:46 PM CST up reply actions
Not Knocking Where/Who We Are
UT has great program and tradition. We are just do not win as many conference titles and MNC titles as those other schools. I was looking at what the schools do that have multiple national championships/and or appearances in the last 10-12 years. They just would not have won those titles without 5 stars from other states. Period. Now if we win the MNC next year – then my whole argument is chit.
I think you miss the point
on out of state recruits when comparing Texas to the likes of USC, Ohio State and OU . . .
Trojans get a walk through their conference, play on New Year’s Day every year, beat the dog out of the outclassed Big Ten — and sit there next to Hollywood . . . it’s much closer to neighboring states from Columbus than Austin (see the 200-mile concept, discussed at length in recent weeks) . . . Oklahoma is too small a state to produce enough high-level D-1 prospects for a national power (Nebraska, West Virginia, Oregon face the same problems). Those schools MUST cross state lines; if you recruit Texas, you don’t have to do that.
200 mile concept has been overstated here
It’s just an average that doesn’t tell us anything about any given recruit.
I just ran through the Rivals 250 while in class and counted 46 recruits that signed with a school in a non-neighboring state over 500 miles away. That’s over 18%. So while most recruits do stay close to home (just like most college kids do), plenty don’t. It’s quite possible for a school like Texas to recruit nationally.
yes
it is quite possible, but it may not always be the best use of resources.
Its a risk/reward scenario. Right now, we dominate the top 20 kids in Texas. We typically have every chance to secure a committment from any of these kids we want, save for a few. To devote more resources to focus on out of state kids means we have to take some away from the time and effort put forth into recruiting the in state kids. It opens the door for a school like OU to step in and begin snagging a few more of those top kids. By making it very well known that in state kids are our priority, and that we value Texas kids, we’ve made securing this top talent much easier than it has ever been in the past.
While I agree that it will be important to begin focusing on a couple big OOS kids, and I believe Will Muschamp will be leading that charge, its important to not lose sight of what we have been able to accomplish here in our home state, at ground zero. Sometimes I think Texas fans are so spoiled with how good we have it recruiting wise that they develop a “grass is always greener” mentality. Such is life though.
you have a point about optimal allocation of resources
Which is why I advocate taking 19-21 Texas kids each class out of a class of 23, and then filling the remaining 2-3 slots with OOS kids. That would be the optimal mix of ease of recruitment combined with talent maximization. Recruiting only in-state falls short of being the optimal strategy because talent is being left on the table.
It’s an interesting bit of game theory.
i think we have some common ground here
i agree about optimization, and that there is possibly some elite talent out there OOS that we could bring in. I dont think that it is so much we’re missing on that it is costing our program wins, however, as you pointed out above. The class we just reeled in was a top 5 class, comprised of all Texas kids. A top 5 class every year should guarantee the opportunity for the program to compete for championships every year. And it has. Im fine with missing on OOS kids as long as the overall talent in the class is at that top 5 level. I could give a shit where the kids are from. If they’re all from the city of Houston, thats fine by me, as long as there is some national concensus that they are talented.
I just dont find OOS recruiting to be a necessity as some people do. Its not going to make or break us, like it does for other programs. It shouldnt be a focal point for our staff as far as Im concerned.
by 6th street on Feb 9, 2009 1:34 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
DT Surprise
I was under the impression that Bible was a much bigger get than Cotton – but I noticed that only Cotton is on the ESPN top 150. Did I have this backward?
Bible thicker, Cotton taller
And as far as ESPN rankings go, they’re probably the worst because they dont actually go and watch the kids play. Cotton was the early favorite to be #1 DT in Texas but after the season was over I think Bible claimed that title. The rankings should adjust accordingly in a few days but either way I think we got the top 2 in Texas.
man this class is filling up in a hurry!
faster than last year?
by Not Now Chief on Feb 9, 2009 12:33 PM CST up reply actions
yes
we had 7 commits after 1st Jr Day last year. 10 the year before.
I think we’ll be at 13 by the end of this week.
Woods
According to this link, Connor Woods is considering OU and Texas. He is expected to committ within the next two weeks.
would love to have him
just dont see it happening. not with Gilbert and Case to compete with. he’ll have a much better chance at playing time at OU.
He'll have separation if he redshirts
I think Gilbert is going to assert himself as the #2 QB pretty quickly when he gets on campus. I bet he plays as the primary backup next year, and we may see Chiles transfer. Harris could too, but if he was transferring because of playing time he would have done it already. Therefore, if Gilbert plays next year, he’ll start as a sophomore with Harris backing him up. Wood and McCoy can both redshirt and have 2 years of separation from Gilbert.
possible, but not likely
GG has already publicly said he has no problem redshirting and playing immediately was not an issue for him.
And the rumors of Chiles/Harris transferring have been all but shot down. Nothing is for sure until Spring practice wraps up. But even then, I would bet the farm on GG shirting next year.
I know he has no problem with redshirting,
but do you really think he won’t beat out Chiles? I have a feeling he will assert himself this summer as the better QB. If that’s the case, I don’t see how the coaches don’t prefer him to start in 2010 as a sophomore with some game experience rather then as a true freshman.
I like Chiles, but I think he may leave this spring or summer. I just don’t see how he ever starts a game at UT without some kind of injury.
yes, that is my assumption
If he had enrolled early this semester and had a spring practice under his belt, I think I would be inclined to agree with you. As it is, I dont believe a summer is going to be sufficient for him to come in and grasp all the nuances of the college game to where the coaching staff would feel comfortable as him as the primary back-up if Colt went down with an injury. Not in a year where we have national championship expectations.
Chiles/Harris will need every practice rep possible to prepare them for an unlikely injury to Colt. They already know all the plays, they are familiar with the offense, and Chiles has real game experience. I think Greg and Mack will prefer the experience to rushing Gilbert in for the sake of a few back-up snaps in a blowout win over Wyoming.
But, its just speculation on anyones part right now. Im not claiming to know anything that noone else knows.
True, spring work would have helped.
But this young man is light years ahead of other frosh QBs . . . high, high level HS program with an offense like he’ll be running in college. Contact (believe it) between the top HS programs in the Austin area and the program that has the big tower. Dad with NFL experience.
If you can play, being 18 doesn’t matter. If you can’t, being 22 won’t help. Pryor was pretty good STARTING for a Top 10 team and he didn’t get to Columbus until June.
not disagreeing with any of your points
I just still believe a redshirt is best. we can agree to disagree on this.
Obviously the age doesn’t matter, but experience does. And Chiles, for better or for worse, has much, much more experience practicing and playing with the team and coaches.
by burntorangehorn on Feb 9, 2009 8:40 PM CST up reply actions
I think you are underestimating the learning curve
This is not a knock on Gilbert at all, but in the 3-4 games I saw him play, he had tons of time and was throwing to alot of wide open receivers. The game changes when you have to make decisions in 1/10th the time, are being chased by DL/LB bigger and faster than any you have faced, and you are throwing against Div. 1 DB’s.
I hope that gives Texas the edge
McCoy will be a good player but I am just not sold on the fact that he will be what Colt has been.
Blazz
hopefully though,
he is as good as they say he is and we can redshirt him to save him for four good years
ZZZZZZ....
it’s been at least 5 hours since news of a committment broke – what is with the lul in signings?
Lol it is kind of boring
Ketchum on Orangebloods said there was a silent commit that would not announce for a while. There is a little news
Blazz
"We want to make sure that we do really well at home." -Mack Brown
There has been a lot of spirited debate on this thread about whether we should be recruiting Out of State players more heavily than we do. However, Mack talked about this very thing in his Signing Day presser…
About half way through, he’s got some interesting comments about recruiting nationally and getting about 20% of those kids that you pursue (which we do… we tend to get 1 or 2 out of the 4 or 5 OOS players we recruit). He goes on to talk about how Texas high schools are the life-blood of The University and that if you don’t get the players from in-state, how do you convince someone from out of state to come? Another thing he talks about is players with ties to the school and/or coaches on the staff.
I remember reading something about when Mack was hired, he consulted with D Royal about how to succeed. One of the first things Royal talked about was taking care of your own (Texas high schools, coaches and players). Mack has been steadfast and true to that piece of advice and doesn’t plan on changing. I, for one, am glad he has stuck to it. It’s been working beautifully so far.
by the usual suspects on Feb 9, 2009 8:48 PM CST reply actions
Must haves
With Bible and Cotton already committed to Texas, the two most important recruits to nail down are Seastruck and Jeffcoat. At RB you have to consider 2009 and 2010 together for the “thunder and lightening” in Whaley and Seastruck. If it helps locking down Seastruck, it’d be fine if he was “promised” to be the only RB in this class depending on what the 2011 class looks like. Jeffcoat and Okafor at ends and solidify the DT’s will be a nightmare for opposing QB’s.
The pride and winning tradition of The University of Texas will not be entrusted to the weak or the timid.
Hook'em
How many 'ships?
How many scholarships do you think Texas will offer? 17-20? depending on attrition, particularly those rumored in regard to the WR’s.
On a related note, how can schools like Alabama, NC, SC, A&M, etc have 27 or 29 scholarships for 2009 class when the limit is 25 in any given year with 85 total over the entire team? Do they know something about the attrition rate that will occur between February and August? Are they just trying to create buzz, knowing full well that some of them won’t qualify academically? I thought I saw somewhere that Butch Davis purposely offers more ‘ships than available at NC…a carry over from his Miami stint. This isn’t like overbooking planes or hotels. If you’re the odd man out recruit come August, you’re pretty much SOL trying to find a ’ship at another prominent program. Seems like the NCAA should shut this practice down cold.
The pride and winning tradition of The University of Texas will not be entrusted to the weak or the timid.
Hook'em
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
