- I know there was some degree of confidence with Michael Fasusi from various people in Austin at various times, but that one just always felt a bit off to me. He initially chose OU for a reason, part of that being he loved the staff there. His mom not accompanying him on the trip to Austin was a definite red flag. His comments to me the day after visiting Austin about being locked back in with Oklahoma probably should have been taken more seriously.
Texas did make a strong run at him, which is why it was somewhat easy to brush those other signs under the rug and think maybe NIL/program trajectory might win out, but he stuck with his gut. Missing on Fasusi was a big blow, no doubt about it. Landing John Turntine and some other true studs next year now becomes a bigger priority.
- I heard today that Texas was kicking the tires on other offensive linemen in the state as recently as this week (and an in-state running back too). Those guys decided to stick with their long-time commitments.
- It's easy to lament the losses of someone like Fasusi or even LB Kellen Wiley, but there were way more positives today than negatives. Landing Michael Terry was a huge win. So was the Kade Phillips flip yesterday. Holding onto guys like Jaime Ffrench, Josiah Sharma, Zelus Hicks, Myron Charles and Graceson Littleton were big wins for Texas.
- The Josiah Sharma one was interesting. All week there was talk of USC, but there was a lot of thought by people that he might be using USC as leverage for more NIL dollars. Around lunchtime today, there was talk out of Austin that UT's NIL package might have come up short, and talk out of Folsom that it was looking like USC. Shortly after that, he was locked in for Texas. I'm not sure exactly, but I think Texas may have upped its offer but still came in below USC, but Sharma wound up going with his heart and sticking with Texas. Hat tip to his agent if he got Sharma more money and he still got to go to the school he really desired.
- All in all, the day went about as we expected. The only real surprise was Kellen Wiley committing to Miami. Not sure what the backstory is there (don't really care at this point) but he literally had a UT commitment edit made up and canceled his Miami OV a couple of weeks ago so I did not see that one coming.
- Now we wait for Justus Terry. As we've been saying, Texas is in the mix there but getting him out of Georgia won't be easy, even if the Longhorns do have the most attractive NIL offer. We'll see.
Texas did make a strong run at him, which is why it was somewhat easy to brush those other signs under the rug and think maybe NIL/program trajectory might win out, but he stuck with his gut. Missing on Fasusi was a big blow, no doubt about it. Landing John Turntine and some other true studs next year now becomes a bigger priority.
- I heard today that Texas was kicking the tires on other offensive linemen in the state as recently as this week (and an in-state running back too). Those guys decided to stick with their long-time commitments.
- It's easy to lament the losses of someone like Fasusi or even LB Kellen Wiley, but there were way more positives today than negatives. Landing Michael Terry was a huge win. So was the Kade Phillips flip yesterday. Holding onto guys like Jaime Ffrench, Josiah Sharma, Zelus Hicks, Myron Charles and Graceson Littleton were big wins for Texas.
- The Josiah Sharma one was interesting. All week there was talk of USC, but there was a lot of thought by people that he might be using USC as leverage for more NIL dollars. Around lunchtime today, there was talk out of Austin that UT's NIL package might have come up short, and talk out of Folsom that it was looking like USC. Shortly after that, he was locked in for Texas. I'm not sure exactly, but I think Texas may have upped its offer but still came in below USC, but Sharma wound up going with his heart and sticking with Texas. Hat tip to his agent if he got Sharma more money and he still got to go to the school he really desired.
- All in all, the day went about as we expected. The only real surprise was Kellen Wiley committing to Miami. Not sure what the backstory is there (don't really care at this point) but he literally had a UT commitment edit made up and canceled his Miami OV a couple of weeks ago so I did not see that one coming.
- Now we wait for Justus Terry. As we've been saying, Texas is in the mix there but getting him out of Georgia won't be easy, even if the Longhorns do have the most attractive NIL offer. We'll see.
