Check out Texas' recruiting class so far for 2010.
They have ten recruits so far!! TEN!! And it's not even Valentine's Day yet. These kids won't sign their letter of intents for another year. Wow. They don't call Mack Brown "Mr. February" for nothing.
Just did a quick glance at some of the other "heavweights" out there, and I didn't see any other school with more than four recruits. Even a school like Florida with all that in-state talent only has four guys so far.
Every one of the kids already committed to Texas is from the state of Texas. Heck, three of the kids are from the town of Garland, Texas. That is amazing. One of these years, Mack Brown is going to have his entire recruiting class filled by the end of February.
I would say that Texas is the easiest recruiting job in the country with all that talent in their backyard, but I'll hand it to Mack Brown for taking advantage of what he has to work with. He certainly doesn't goof around. He identifies the kids that he wants, and he locks them up. And he has a top 5 class every year. In his eyes, he wants the kids who really want to go to Texas, and those are the early commits.
I always knew that Texas had a lot of Texas kids, but I never realized the extent of it. They are ENTIRELY a team of Texas kids. Texas brought in 20 players in this 2009 recruiting class. Every one of those kids was from the state of Texas. In 2008, Texas brought in 19 players. 18 of the 19 were from Texas. 2007 was more of the same. Only one out of state kid. You could probably count the number of out of state kids on that roster on one hand. Even a school like Florida gets some kids from New Jersey and Ohio and Indiana and Georgia. Mack Brown basically made the decision to put a fence around Texas, and it seems like he doesn't even have an interest in making a play for national guys.
One downside is that his style of recruiting doesn't really leave any room for some late bloomers or undecideds. If Mack Brown has already taken 3 DL in April, he's not getting that 5 star stud DL that might want to wait until January at the Army All-American game to make his decision. That probably works to the advantage of Bob Stoops and some of these other coaches that come down to Texas to poach kids from out of state. If Mack has his whole class locked up by April, Stoops and company can come down to Texas all fall and zero in on the late bloomers and the kids who have a tough time making their mind up. USC and Florida always seem to hold out space in their classes to get 5 star types late in the process, but Texas is all about locking up the early commits. If anything, that helps to explain why OU always seems to have just as much talent as Texas. They are more flexible in recruiting, so they can swoop in and get players when Mack's classes are already filled up. It's not a criticism of Mack Brown, but I think it's a reality of what is going on.
Not sure which way is the best to go, but it's not like Mack Brown is hurting for talent. I can't get over the fact that they already have 10 verbal commits.
Anyway, thought that was really interesting.
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3 comments:
Interesting. Mack has definitely shut down the borders to ND. It seems like in the mid to late 90's, Davie was bringing in 10 Texas guys a year. There must have been a 10 year stretch where there was at least one guy from The Woodlands on our roster. No more. Do we even have a Texas native on the roster? Can't think of one off the top of my head.
Maybe that game in San Antonio will be good program exposure for high school kids in Texas. I'm not too familiar with Texas geography, but there have to be a ton of good high school prospects within driving distance of that game. Would be great to get something positive out of playing Wazzu there.
Forgot that Nick Tausch, our kicker recruit is from Texas. We also stole KLM from A&M. Chris Stewart is from Spring, Texas and Kevin Washington is from Sugar Land, Texas. I've never been to Texas but there is no denying that their towns have great names.
The one kid that wasn't from Texas you referenced actually played 1/2 of his HS career in Texas. So that doesn't really count.
Also, Sugar Land is where I'm from. Don't recruit there. A lot of good high schools, not a lot of football talent.
As far as the geography of Texas goes, East Texas (Dallas) is where you want to be. Football is life there. They bleed it. Houston (Sugar Land is a suburb of Houston) is also a resource-rich area. But, that area has three schools that have a total lock down on it: UH, LSU, and UT. For example, past Houstonians of note have been VInce Young (Texas, duh) Brian Orakpo (Texas, again)....you get the picture.
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