Swing and miss on Clark. One of the first names that surfaced when Christian Westerman de-committed from Texas last week was Rockdale OL Le'Raven Clark, a big, raw athlete who has a ton of upside because of his athleticism and ability to play outside in college. After watching him against Giddings, he has a long way to go in terms of adding strength/mass, but he has a bit of the nastiness college coaches like in offensive linemen.
New Texas OL coach Stacy Searels stopped by Rockdale on Monday to check in on Clark and put out feelers to see if the big tackle would be interested in switching his commitment to Texas. Apparently not. Clark told the Texas Tech Rivals affiliate that he will be sticking with Texas Tech. So much for that.
The next name on the list is that of Shayvion Hatten, another big, raw type out of Daingerfield. Obviously, that makes him Steve Edmond's teammate and a former teammate of current Longhorn Chris Jones, which could help Texas is Searels decides to make the trip out to East Texas to kick the tires on Hatten. However, word out of College Station is that Hatten is solid to A&M, too and may not be willing to listen to Texas.
Alexander recruitment more promising. Defensive end is a major need for the Longhorns and the really good news is that Cedric Reed announced via Twitter that he's solid to Texas. The good news is that Texas is right in the mix for 2011 Brenham DE Brandon Alexander. If you missed the introduction to the athletic Alexander, be sure to check that out.
The Louisiana native seems to be moving away from earlier comments that he would like to play in the SEC, though he and his father are still determining whether Alexander's final official visit will be to Arkansas or Florida. Over the weekend, he was in Austin with a group of committed Texas players and has been rather silent about the visit over the last several days.
However, the word out of Brenham is that the visit went well and the Longhorns and Aggies look like the leaders coming down the stretch. The Aggies may have the advantage because they were one of the first major offers for Alexander way back in the fall and that often weighs heavily with recruits. Texas, on the other hand, was pretty late to get in on Alexander. TCU may be in the mix as well.
According to Hookem.com ($), Mack Brown will make an in-home visit on Wednesday, with Mike Sherman making the trip to Brenham on Tuesday and Bobby Petrino on Monday night, who is hoping to convince Alexander to visit Fayetteville this weekend.
Rasco falling off the radar. There's only one weekend left for official visits and Shreveport Evangel DE Jermauria Rasco hasn't yet made it to Texas, despite including the Longhorns in his final five at one point in recent weeks. Since he hasn't been on campus for some time, it's probably safe to assume that Texas is pretty much out of this one. Losing Muschamp was very nearly a death knell in this recruitment and that's disappointing considering the major need at the position.
Rasco will take his final official visit ($) to meet with Muschamp and Florida next weekend and visited LSU last weekend. His other official visits were to UCLA and Florida State. The Seminoles and Tigers are probably the leaders, with Texas on the fringes, though not officially eliminated. Rasco will announce his decision on Signing Day.
Texas commits made official over weekend. Along with Brandon Alexander, a handful of Texas commits took their official visit last weekend. Christian Westerman and his family weren't among those on campus, of course, but here's the list of players who did make it to campus:
- Brownwood WR Jaxon Shipley
- Cibolo Steele RB Malcolm Brown
- SA Stevens Mykkele Thompson
- Carthage LB Kendall Thompson
- Daingerfield LB Steve Edmond
- Lake Travis OL Taylor Doyle
- OKC Millwood CB Josh Turner
Of those commits, only Turner was wavering coming into the weekend. As expected, Turner got along well enough with Manny Diaz, who had visited Turner in Oklahoma City, and new DB coach Jerry Gray to remain committed to Texas.
All in all, the Longhorns are lucky in that it appears only one of the 23 commits will sign with another school, remarkable considering the turnover on the coaching staff -- six of nine assistants, as well as Bennie Wylie coming on board. As much as it hurts to lose Westerman, it's a relief that all the other kids stuck with their commitments. Whew.
Programming notes. GoHornsGo90 and I are working on Recruiting Spotlights this week and they should debut on Wednesday and continue up until Signing Day. For Signing Day, there's a class overview in the works, as well as the final edition of the Texas Top 25 for 2011, the GoBR awards for a second consecutive year, and a roundtable on the recruiting class.
After Signing Day, of course, recruiting season kicks into full swing with the two Texas Junior Days in February and Big Boards for each position should debut before the first Junior Day on February 13th. Tasty!