FanPost

Phase One

Winter workouts were underway as the staff and players worked together to land a top ten recruiting class. 5:00 AM workouts followed by watching the fruits of hard labor and the message #believe make its way into the hearts and minds of future Longhorns. One commit after another, then another, then another, two flips from the SEC and by the end of the day Texas has exactly what Coach Strong, staff, and players had hoped for late last year, entering the home stretch of the recruiting process. As we collectively held our breaths with each signing day announcement, it was more than most fans expected to say the least. The talk of finishing recruiting outside the top 20 for a program as storied as Texas seemed likely. Radio talk shows were taking dead aim at Texas, ESECPN's RN (Recruiting Nation) weighed in as well about the Longhorns losing ground in the Big12 to neighboring programs, coupled with the emergence of A&M's move to the SEC pillaging Texas' ability to land coveted players within its borders, much less their own backyard. As doubt rose to some levels of disbelief amongst the BON, the cry of can Charlie recruit began to surface, everyone began weighing in on Twitter, Snapchat, etc with real concerns of will Texas have to settle on getting 2 and 3 star recruits as the foundation for the 2016 class?

Then something happened, amidst all the drama surrounding the program about Strong and the staffs ability to get'r done, the message #believe began to resonate inside of Moncrief to the outside. Fans, one by one began to #believe, recruits one by one began to #believe, as a result of their #belief recruits began to commit. Players once beyond the reach of Texas, for any number of reasons, began pledging their commitment to the vision of the 2nd year Head Coach and a desire to see Texas return to National Respectability and Relevance in College Football. 24 commitments later, with LOI's (Letter Of Intent) not only had Texas stole all storylines of the day, but the faithful began returning to the fold as well. The faithful began to #believe. What once was considered by some, another pitch for hope, without the wins, by a coach in over his head, an anemic offense to boot, was never the focus of the staff or players entrenched in the recruiting process. Why not sell a vision of being a part of the class or classes that returned Texas to prominence? Why not sell parents on the vision of while your kids are bringing the program to standards, they'll be working as hard, for their degrees, ultimately graduating. A Big12 Title in one hand, and a Bachelor's degree in the other, all driven by the Five Core Values of the program. Yeah, why not sell the Stanford University, or Harvard of the South, a prestigious academic institution right here in the Capitol of the Lone Star? Are you IN or what? BON we have our answer and it is a resounding YES.

The BON wouldn't be the BON if we all agreed on everything. Here each thought and comments are vigorously scrutinized and challenged with passion and desire whether right, wrong, indifferent, senile, disallusioned, disconnected, informed, uninformed, just joined to comment, committed to commenting, relevant, irrelevant, or just outright feel like raising hell today, for personal reasons or institutional loyalties.

Fanposts from now, we'll all forget or have moved on to other issues regarding Texas, but for now you gotta #believe somewhere or at some point, someone is thinking where do we go from here? I'll tell where we go, back to finishing phase one of the winter workouts. Back to where program is currently. As the foundation of the rebuild is now in place. Now that the previous classes know collectively the 16' class is the best class recruited under Head Coach Strong, should make for great spirited workouts leading up to the spring game, phase two and summer workouts, phase three.

While the rest are contemplating when to #believe or just sitting on the fence until after the home opener, which is several months away, to #believe, it begs the inevitable question, where were you when you #believed?

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