Texas Longhorns finish Signing Day 11th nationally, 1st in Big 12

The NLIs are in and the smoke has cleared enough to say Texas finished its recruiting class ranked 11th nationally in 2015 per the 247Sports Composite rankings. This is the Horns' best class since 2012 and one that will hopefully produce more contributors to boost long-term depth.

Texas also led the way in the Big 12 rankings for the first time since 2012 in addition to the solid national finish.

Then there's this fun fact courtesy of the Longhorn Network:

Texas currently has 14 ESPN 300 signees. Rest of Big 12 has 20 combined.

— Longhorn Network (@LonghornNetwork) February 4, 2015

Those rankings are a bit different in the 247Sports Composite used above, but it still illustrates the extent to which the Horns dominated the recruiting landscape across the conference in 2015.

Congrats to Charlie Strong and the rest of the Texas staff on an excellent recruiting haul. It may not have closed quite as impressively as some of us dreamed but it was an excellent finish considering the head start our former in-state rival had entering the season. Taking the two-year trend into account Texas is on pace to finish top five in recruiting in 2016 and should be first nationally by 2017 as highlighted by the chart below.

Of course, it's doing to be difficult to sustain that trend, but nonetheless, it's worth noting. And Texas is coming off a long period of sub-par seasons, so it's not hard to imagine recruiting momentum continuing to pick up as the program starts to experience more success as a result of Strong's ability to develop players and the ability of he and his staff to hit the recruiting trail hard and effectively.