A busy day on the recruiting front for the Texas Longhorns continued on Tuesday afternoon with the news that the staff has extended an offer to 2016 Cibolo Steele defensive end/linebacker Mark Jackson, according to Jason Higdon of Scout.
The 6'3, 215-pounder is consensus four-star prospect rated as the No. 13 weak-side defensive end in the 2016 class and the No. 27 player in Texas, good enough to sit at No. 204 nationally in the 247Sports Composite rankings.
Jackson also holds offers from Baylor, Oklahoma, and Texas Tech. The Sooners were the first to offer, at least according to his 247Sports timeline, leading to three Crystal Ball predictions for Oklahoma in the following weeks and months.
However, since it is still so early in the process for 2016, the Horns shouldn't be too far behind with Jackson at the moment and currently have two Cibolo Steele alums on the roster in senior running back Malcolm Brown and redshirt freshman safety Erik Huhn.
The flipside of that is that former Steele head coach Mike Jinks is now in his second season as the running backs coach at Texas Tech.
Whether Jackson ends up as a linebacker or defensive end will be determined by his ability to gain weight and the legitimacy of his current listings for height and weight. The film for the Steele product is somewhat limited, but the second play shows elite short-area burst by Jackson as he slow plays what looks like the back side of a running play before closing on the quarterback quickly when he reads the play-action pass.
Jackson also shoots his hands remarkably violently for a young player. It doesn't quite look like he knows exactly what to do with them all the time or what move he's trying to use, but he's active with what he's doing and there is evidence that it works. The advanced technique will come with time since the tools are there and already being utilized.
So right now whether Jackson ends up playing linebacker or defensive end in college, even his limited film suggests that he's a take for the Horns at a need position and one that may be difficult to fill in 2015 past Burton athlete Louis Brown, who is expected to play weak-side defensive end at Texas.