I nearly always know what I want to write about each week but I had a devil of a time coming up with a subject for this week’s column.
I am fresh off a Vegas vacation with my family that was a lot of fun … until the end.
The second to last day, I came down with a cold (which always sucks), but I soldiered on and drove the family out to the Grand Canyon anyway and we had a good time.
Later that night, while my wife and I were packing up to leave the next morning, we got a call from my sister that my dad was in the hospital.
My dad is 85 and has been dealing with health issues for a number of years now, had been very much looking forward to this trip. So much so, that he had ignored some issues just because he didn’t want to miss out on the trip to the Grand Canyon.
It turns out, he had an infection. He had an infection and needed to be admitted to the hospital to receive fluids and antibiotics. After a day in a Vegas hospital, he was released and cleared to fly home one day later than planned. He got home safely and got some much-needed rest and is doing much better.
Oh, and the cold I caught, wasn’t a cold at all – it was COVID. And … I wasn’t the only one. My wife also caught it and has been much worse than I was. So … I’ve been dealing with that all week and just wasn’t able to come up with a clear topic for this week’s column. (Just so you all know - everyone is now fine.)
All that being said, it dawned on me early this morning (Thursday) that what I really needed to do was reach into my past and go back to the old potluck suppers that we used to go to at church. You know, those dinners where there would be a little bit of everything spread out on the table in the refectory of the church?
I always loved potluck dinners because it was the only place I ever had this kind of marshmallow fruit salad dish. I call it a marshmallow fruit salad dish … but I honestly have no idea what it is. All I know is it is creamy, sweet, filled with fruit and I have never had it anywhere else other than at a potluck dinner. It’s never been on any menu I’ve ever seen and my mother never made it either.
So, with all that being said, here is my potluck of Longhorn topics for you today and hopefully you’ll find something in here that you love like I love that fruit salad stuff.
TEXAS QUARTERBACKS:
I have been bullish on Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian for a long time now. I believe that last season’s college football playoff run will not be a flash in the pan season. We’re not going to see a collapse like what we saw after UT beat Georgia in the 2019 Sugar Bowl. This team is built to last.
The biggest reason why I say that is simple … Sarkisian is always going to have talent in the most important position in all of sports … the quarterback.
Dia Bell, the 4-star talent out of Florida, gave a surprise commitment to Sark and the Longhorns this week (thank you @Anwar Richardson for going on vacation).
Bell is the nation’s No. 2-ranked dual-threat quarterback and is currently No. 39 on the 2026 Rivals100.
In other words, he’s good.
Bell also happens to be the son of former NBA Raja Bell. Bell was twice named to the All-NBA Defensive Team … which means he put in the work.
In fact, Dia credits his Dad’s work ethic as an example that he’s tried to follow.
“He’s always been someone I look up to,” Bell said on Chalupa Batman’s podcast. “He went undrafted but still found a way to work himself back into the CBA (Continental Basketball Association) and then got picked up by the Sixers (Philadelphia). But just the work ethic you’ve seen throughout his career, I’ve been able to look up and kind of model my work ethic after him.”
Not for nothing, but Bell’s mother was a star athlete as well. Cindy Greenman was an all-conference soccer player at Florida International University and is FIU’s third all-time leading scorer. She met Bell on his first day on campus and he had to use his work ethic to win her over as well. Or, as he put it; “I pursued and conquered.”
Bell joins an incredibly talented QB room led by Quinn Ewers, Arch Manning, Trey Owens and soon-to-be-signed KJ Lacey.
Lacey said he’s excited to see Bell joining him in Austin and the two are already friends.
“We played on the same seven-on-seven team, that’s how I got to know him,” Lacey told Longhorn Country while attending this week’s Elite 11 competition. “We just kinda clicked, we’re homeboys now. After he went on his first visit at Texas he said they were his number one right now, I was like ‘I already told you how it would be when you go up there’.”
Lacey went on to say that nobody is a better quarterback recruiter than Sarkisian.
“When you go there you feel like a home, (there are) family vibes,” Lacey said. “On top of that, it’s not just what they show you there but what you can be when you get there. They’ll develop you to be the best.”
The Texas quarterback room is STACKED and that means that Texas not only is back, but they aren’t going anywhere for a long time.
QUINN EWERS GOLDEN NUGGETS
Quinn Ewers was on Robert Griffin III’s podcast “RG3 & The Ones” this week and there were so many damn good nuggets, I’m making its own section.
By the way, what I am putting below is just SOME of the great comments from Quinn and RG3. I highly recommend giving the whole thing a watch or listen.
Ewers told RG3 that the competition is what sets the Texas QB room apart from any other school.
“The way we all prepare,” Ewers told RG3 when explaining why Texas’ QB room is the best. “Y’all saw how the spring game went. We’re all capable of making great plays. Sark and Coach Milwee have us dialed up.”
RG3 asked Ewers about the benefits for Arch sticking around Austin and not leaving for more immediate playing time.
“Him seeing what’s going on from inside but also outside, I think that he can get a lot of intel from that,” Ewers said. “But obviously, another year to learn the offense and just get more comfortable within the smaller details. It’s just the best situation for him, I think.”
And Ewers added that there is a very close bond among all of the quarterbacks.
“I think we’re really intense competitors and we all want the same outcome, but at the end of the day I think we’re better humans and I think we’re better people. We really enjoy each other’s company in that quarterback room. During the season, we do quarterback dinners every Tuesday and we go have dinner together after Tuesday meetings. I’ve never been in a closer room. All three years we’ve had a super close room. My first year here, me and Hudson Card were in a quarterback battle but at the same time, we’re all hanging out on weekends, going to dinners, enjoying each others company. So yeah, football means a lot to all of us but being good humans means more.”
The bond in the quarterback room does not stop the QBs from competing against each other every day. And that’s because Ewers says competition is at the core of what the Longhorns do every day.
Whenever I hear about strong competitions in football, I always think about Pete Carroll. I heard Carroll talk about competition when he was the head coach at USC and it stuck with me. He said that he recruited the best to play against the best because he wanted a heated competition at every position and if a freshman or sophomore beat out an upperclassman who had been starting, he was ok with that.
Competition is so ingrained in Pete Carroll’s football DNA that he is still talking about it to this day (or at least, he talked about it on Wednesday).
Obviously Sark cut his coaching teeth under Carroll at USC. And now he has brought that love of competition (which was reinforced during his time at Alabama under Nick Saban) to Austin.
“I think that he (Sarkisian) has brought a winning culture back to the university and I think that’s the main thing,” Ewers said. “The way that we practice and the way that we work out, I don’t think there’s another team in the country that takes more pride in how hard we practice, and I believe that.”
If that doesn’t get you pumped up for the upcoming football season, I don’t know what will.
Surely, by now, most of you have lost some of the bitterness over Texas coming up short in the college football playoff game against Washington? Ewers didn’t have even a trace of bitterness in his voice when RG3 asked him about the game, but he did say he learned a lesson from the loss that he is continuing to work on.
“I didn’t start out how I wanted to,” Ewers told RG3. “We went three and out with a false start in the first drive and that’s just a terrible start. You just have to learn how to flush those. I think that’s the biggest thing for me, continuing on this year is just flushing those bad plays and bad drives.”
After hearing that, I made a mental note that throughout the season, I will be watching Ewers to see how he responds to slow starts or adverse plays.
Ewers also said he has learned, in previous games and in practice, to really listen and take to heart a Sark saying that he repeats often … "you can’t go broke taking a profit.”
In other words, if the deep ball isn’t there, take the checkdown.
“I just wish I knew that when I had Bijan in the backfield,” Ewers said with a chuckle. “But all of these guys (currently on the roster) can make the same plays. Just having those playmakers, just like you said, get the ball in the playmakers' hands. You never know what’s going to happen. They could break one tackle and it could be a game changer.”
The checkdown is a big lesson for Ewers to learn, but it has been the deep ball that has given the redshirt junior the most trouble in his time in Austin. But Ewers reportedly had a very good spring throwing deep.
“I’ve gained a lot of confidence in pushing the ball downfield and having to fit the ball in a smaller window,” he said.
If the deep ball starts hitting at a higher rate, this offense will be among the very best in the country … even going up against SEC defenses every week as part of the new conference.
Ewers said he’s always wanted to play in the SEC.
“It’s just like that Southern lifestyle, football and family,” said Ewers. “We just feel like it means more and we’re excited to be a part of it.”
It just means more? Sounds like QB1 is ready for the SEC Media Days which kicks off in just a few weeks on Monday, July 15th.
WHAT’S GOING ON WITH BASEBALL?
We’re still waiting for the axe to fall on Texas baseball coach David Pierce (not to be too crass about a man losing his job). But every source Orangebloods has spoken with has indicated that a change is going to be made … we just don’t know when.
Logic would dictate that the fact that athletic director Chris Del Conte hasn’t made a move yet means that he is waiting for his preferred replacement coach to wrap up his season before making a change. That would indicate that Texas A&M head coach Jim Schlossnagle is the guy.
I’ve long thought Schloss was the eventual replacement (even knowing that A&M will do what they can to try to keep him).
However, I’m now not so certain that will be the case if A&M goes on to win its first-ever College World Series.
I don’t believe A&M has the same resources they had when they money-whipped Jimbo Fisher. In addition to still paying Fisher to sit on the beach, they have already laid off a lot of their athletic department staff and the impending House vs. NCAA settlement means they are going to have to add close to $30 million a year in expenditures to players. Money is just plain tighter.
However, they did get $80 million earmarked to update their baseball facilities. They have clearly funneled a lot of money into their baseball NIL collective (exceeding what Texas has done so far). And if Schloss wins it all this weekend, they will move heaven and earth to keep him away from Austin.
If you’re cheering for Schlossnagle to make it to UT, then you have to bank on two things. One, that the other UT (Tennessee) beats A&M in Omaha this weekend. Two, that Schloss’ personal relationship with Del Conte is enough to sway the day.
If A&M does win it all and Del Conte still is able to pull Schloss away from College Station then that would be the coup to end all coups. Nothing would say “little brother” more than that.
It wouldn’t be the first time this year that Del Conte will have hired away a coach after winning a national championship at another school. CDC patiently waited and then hired Bob Bowman to lead the swim team just days after Bowman won the NCAA’s with Arizona State. But hiring away a swim coach from the Sun Devils is a whole rung (or three) below being able to hire away a baseball coach from your arch rivals after he brings them their first-ever CWS title.
In the meantime, Texas baseball is caught in limbo and it is hurting their ability to put together a competitive team for next season.
Texas has been non-existent in the baseball transfer portal which is currently up and running. None of the top players who have gone in (and have yet to commit somewhere) are talking about UT.
That will obviously change is Del Conte gets an exciting new hire put in place … but if CDC doeesn’t hire someone new and decides to stick with Pierce instead then Texas’ first season playing baseball in the SEC could be pretty rough.
So for now … we wait.
BIG RECRUITING WEEKEND:
I can’t lay claim to being much of a recruiting maven but I know enough to know that this is another huge recruiting weekend on the 40 Acres.
The aforementioned KJ Lacey will be in town for his official visit. This is Sark’s chance to put to bed any concerns anyone might have about Lacey going somewhere else (like Auburn) … not that I think you need to worry too much about that.
Also, Lacey has been working on 5-star wide receiver Jamie Ffrench while the two have been competing at this week’s Elite 11 camp. French will be in town for his official visit as well so those two can continue to build a bond which can only help in Ffrench’s recruitment.
Kaliq Lockett is another highly-ranked receiver who will be here for his official visit.
The dream of Dakorien Moore, Jamie Ffrench and Kaliq Lockett all coming to Austin is still alive – for now. And if Sark can pull that off, there will be no one more happy about that development than the loaded QB room that we talked about earlier in the column.
But the big dog (literally big) coming to campus is 5-star offensive tackle Michael Fasusi.
As @Alex Dunlap said in his column this week … it’s Fasusi, no matter what.
By the way, I know the movie “Draft Day” is cheesy and unrealistic, but I still thoroughly enjoy the flick and watch it every year.
Just look at this “nugget” from Alex’s column:
TWEETS OF INTEREST:
Just how important is portal recruiting when it comes to baseball? Apparently it is the new lifeblood of every winning program.
You need look no further than last year to see what a team can do when it comes to winning with portal players. LSU loaded up on portal guys and then balled out on their way to an NCAA title.
Tennessee and A&M have done a damn good job in the portal as well.
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For all of you who bemoan the portal … it protects the players. Period. Just listen to this little story about what life was like before the portal.
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This is the cold, hard truth in recruiting. It’s almost ALWAYS about the physical attributes.
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This is news you can use while Texas starts is SEC journey and y’all venture out for new road trip destinations.
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The Texas football team may be enduring ungodly heat during their summer workouts right now … but things are a little different at Montana State.
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My man @AaronLittleOB , who is the only Chargers fan I know, is pumped up for what Jim Harbaugh is bringing to his LA Chargers … but not more pumped up than Harbaugh is to have Dicker the Kicker wearing the powder blues.
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This is the cold, hard truth in recruiting. It’s almost ALWAYS about the physical attributes.
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I mentioned I was in Vegas last week (only lost $100 … which I consider a win). Poker players have been selling stakes of themselves for a long time. You can buy a percentage of a players buy-in for a tournament and if they win, you get a cut of the prize pool.
That move is now making it’s way to the NFL.
Barron Browning, who snubbed an offer from UT to go play for Ohio State back in the day, is selling a piece of his future NFL contract in exchange for cold, hard cash today.
Here’s the offer.
For just $10 per share, you can buy a piece of Browning’s future NFL earnings. He is making between 60,000 and 100,000 shares available for sale. The investors will then split 1% of his future NFL earnings.
Browning is currently playing on his rookie contract but he will soon be up for a second contract and that’s when the real money kicks in.
Of course, if he were to get hurt or something were to prevent him from ever signing a second deal, then he would be screwed.
By taking the money now, he is getting cash up front that he can invest or spend as he sees fit.
His investors now assume some of the risk of injury.
But here’s the thing … if this kind of deal catches on in the NFL, then it is only a matter of time before some industrious young high school football player makes the same type of bet against future NIL earnings.
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Speaking of investments … I am down to throw some dollars into this little venture.
I am fresh off a Vegas vacation with my family that was a lot of fun … until the end.
The second to last day, I came down with a cold (which always sucks), but I soldiered on and drove the family out to the Grand Canyon anyway and we had a good time.
Later that night, while my wife and I were packing up to leave the next morning, we got a call from my sister that my dad was in the hospital.
My dad is 85 and has been dealing with health issues for a number of years now, had been very much looking forward to this trip. So much so, that he had ignored some issues just because he didn’t want to miss out on the trip to the Grand Canyon.
It turns out, he had an infection. He had an infection and needed to be admitted to the hospital to receive fluids and antibiotics. After a day in a Vegas hospital, he was released and cleared to fly home one day later than planned. He got home safely and got some much-needed rest and is doing much better.
Oh, and the cold I caught, wasn’t a cold at all – it was COVID. And … I wasn’t the only one. My wife also caught it and has been much worse than I was. So … I’ve been dealing with that all week and just wasn’t able to come up with a clear topic for this week’s column. (Just so you all know - everyone is now fine.)
All that being said, it dawned on me early this morning (Thursday) that what I really needed to do was reach into my past and go back to the old potluck suppers that we used to go to at church. You know, those dinners where there would be a little bit of everything spread out on the table in the refectory of the church?
I always loved potluck dinners because it was the only place I ever had this kind of marshmallow fruit salad dish. I call it a marshmallow fruit salad dish … but I honestly have no idea what it is. All I know is it is creamy, sweet, filled with fruit and I have never had it anywhere else other than at a potluck dinner. It’s never been on any menu I’ve ever seen and my mother never made it either.
So, with all that being said, here is my potluck of Longhorn topics for you today and hopefully you’ll find something in here that you love like I love that fruit salad stuff.
TEXAS QUARTERBACKS:
I have been bullish on Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian for a long time now. I believe that last season’s college football playoff run will not be a flash in the pan season. We’re not going to see a collapse like what we saw after UT beat Georgia in the 2019 Sugar Bowl. This team is built to last.
The biggest reason why I say that is simple … Sarkisian is always going to have talent in the most important position in all of sports … the quarterback.
Dia Bell, the 4-star talent out of Florida, gave a surprise commitment to Sark and the Longhorns this week (thank you @Anwar Richardson for going on vacation).
Bell is the nation’s No. 2-ranked dual-threat quarterback and is currently No. 39 on the 2026 Rivals100.
In other words, he’s good.
Bell also happens to be the son of former NBA Raja Bell. Bell was twice named to the All-NBA Defensive Team … which means he put in the work.
In fact, Dia credits his Dad’s work ethic as an example that he’s tried to follow.
“He’s always been someone I look up to,” Bell said on Chalupa Batman’s podcast. “He went undrafted but still found a way to work himself back into the CBA (Continental Basketball Association) and then got picked up by the Sixers (Philadelphia). But just the work ethic you’ve seen throughout his career, I’ve been able to look up and kind of model my work ethic after him.”
Not for nothing, but Bell’s mother was a star athlete as well. Cindy Greenman was an all-conference soccer player at Florida International University and is FIU’s third all-time leading scorer. She met Bell on his first day on campus and he had to use his work ethic to win her over as well. Or, as he put it; “I pursued and conquered.”
Bell joins an incredibly talented QB room led by Quinn Ewers, Arch Manning, Trey Owens and soon-to-be-signed KJ Lacey.
Lacey said he’s excited to see Bell joining him in Austin and the two are already friends.
“We played on the same seven-on-seven team, that’s how I got to know him,” Lacey told Longhorn Country while attending this week’s Elite 11 competition. “We just kinda clicked, we’re homeboys now. After he went on his first visit at Texas he said they were his number one right now, I was like ‘I already told you how it would be when you go up there’.”
Lacey went on to say that nobody is a better quarterback recruiter than Sarkisian.
“When you go there you feel like a home, (there are) family vibes,” Lacey said. “On top of that, it’s not just what they show you there but what you can be when you get there. They’ll develop you to be the best.”
The Texas quarterback room is STACKED and that means that Texas not only is back, but they aren’t going anywhere for a long time.
QUINN EWERS GOLDEN NUGGETS
Quinn Ewers was on Robert Griffin III’s podcast “RG3 & The Ones” this week and there were so many damn good nuggets, I’m making its own section.
By the way, what I am putting below is just SOME of the great comments from Quinn and RG3. I highly recommend giving the whole thing a watch or listen.
Ewers told RG3 that the competition is what sets the Texas QB room apart from any other school.
“The way we all prepare,” Ewers told RG3 when explaining why Texas’ QB room is the best. “Y’all saw how the spring game went. We’re all capable of making great plays. Sark and Coach Milwee have us dialed up.”
RG3 asked Ewers about the benefits for Arch sticking around Austin and not leaving for more immediate playing time.
“Him seeing what’s going on from inside but also outside, I think that he can get a lot of intel from that,” Ewers said. “But obviously, another year to learn the offense and just get more comfortable within the smaller details. It’s just the best situation for him, I think.”
And Ewers added that there is a very close bond among all of the quarterbacks.
“I think we’re really intense competitors and we all want the same outcome, but at the end of the day I think we’re better humans and I think we’re better people. We really enjoy each other’s company in that quarterback room. During the season, we do quarterback dinners every Tuesday and we go have dinner together after Tuesday meetings. I’ve never been in a closer room. All three years we’ve had a super close room. My first year here, me and Hudson Card were in a quarterback battle but at the same time, we’re all hanging out on weekends, going to dinners, enjoying each others company. So yeah, football means a lot to all of us but being good humans means more.”
The bond in the quarterback room does not stop the QBs from competing against each other every day. And that’s because Ewers says competition is at the core of what the Longhorns do every day.
Whenever I hear about strong competitions in football, I always think about Pete Carroll. I heard Carroll talk about competition when he was the head coach at USC and it stuck with me. He said that he recruited the best to play against the best because he wanted a heated competition at every position and if a freshman or sophomore beat out an upperclassman who had been starting, he was ok with that.
Competition is so ingrained in Pete Carroll’s football DNA that he is still talking about it to this day (or at least, he talked about it on Wednesday).
Obviously Sark cut his coaching teeth under Carroll at USC. And now he has brought that love of competition (which was reinforced during his time at Alabama under Nick Saban) to Austin.
“I think that he (Sarkisian) has brought a winning culture back to the university and I think that’s the main thing,” Ewers said. “The way that we practice and the way that we work out, I don’t think there’s another team in the country that takes more pride in how hard we practice, and I believe that.”
If that doesn’t get you pumped up for the upcoming football season, I don’t know what will.
Surely, by now, most of you have lost some of the bitterness over Texas coming up short in the college football playoff game against Washington? Ewers didn’t have even a trace of bitterness in his voice when RG3 asked him about the game, but he did say he learned a lesson from the loss that he is continuing to work on.
“I didn’t start out how I wanted to,” Ewers told RG3. “We went three and out with a false start in the first drive and that’s just a terrible start. You just have to learn how to flush those. I think that’s the biggest thing for me, continuing on this year is just flushing those bad plays and bad drives.”
After hearing that, I made a mental note that throughout the season, I will be watching Ewers to see how he responds to slow starts or adverse plays.
Ewers also said he has learned, in previous games and in practice, to really listen and take to heart a Sark saying that he repeats often … "you can’t go broke taking a profit.”
In other words, if the deep ball isn’t there, take the checkdown.
“I just wish I knew that when I had Bijan in the backfield,” Ewers said with a chuckle. “But all of these guys (currently on the roster) can make the same plays. Just having those playmakers, just like you said, get the ball in the playmakers' hands. You never know what’s going to happen. They could break one tackle and it could be a game changer.”
The checkdown is a big lesson for Ewers to learn, but it has been the deep ball that has given the redshirt junior the most trouble in his time in Austin. But Ewers reportedly had a very good spring throwing deep.
“I’ve gained a lot of confidence in pushing the ball downfield and having to fit the ball in a smaller window,” he said.
If the deep ball starts hitting at a higher rate, this offense will be among the very best in the country … even going up against SEC defenses every week as part of the new conference.
Ewers said he’s always wanted to play in the SEC.
“It’s just like that Southern lifestyle, football and family,” said Ewers. “We just feel like it means more and we’re excited to be a part of it.”
It just means more? Sounds like QB1 is ready for the SEC Media Days which kicks off in just a few weeks on Monday, July 15th.
WHAT’S GOING ON WITH BASEBALL?
We’re still waiting for the axe to fall on Texas baseball coach David Pierce (not to be too crass about a man losing his job). But every source Orangebloods has spoken with has indicated that a change is going to be made … we just don’t know when.
Logic would dictate that the fact that athletic director Chris Del Conte hasn’t made a move yet means that he is waiting for his preferred replacement coach to wrap up his season before making a change. That would indicate that Texas A&M head coach Jim Schlossnagle is the guy.
I’ve long thought Schloss was the eventual replacement (even knowing that A&M will do what they can to try to keep him).
However, I’m now not so certain that will be the case if A&M goes on to win its first-ever College World Series.
I don’t believe A&M has the same resources they had when they money-whipped Jimbo Fisher. In addition to still paying Fisher to sit on the beach, they have already laid off a lot of their athletic department staff and the impending House vs. NCAA settlement means they are going to have to add close to $30 million a year in expenditures to players. Money is just plain tighter.
However, they did get $80 million earmarked to update their baseball facilities. They have clearly funneled a lot of money into their baseball NIL collective (exceeding what Texas has done so far). And if Schloss wins it all this weekend, they will move heaven and earth to keep him away from Austin.
If you’re cheering for Schlossnagle to make it to UT, then you have to bank on two things. One, that the other UT (Tennessee) beats A&M in Omaha this weekend. Two, that Schloss’ personal relationship with Del Conte is enough to sway the day.
If A&M does win it all and Del Conte still is able to pull Schloss away from College Station then that would be the coup to end all coups. Nothing would say “little brother” more than that.
It wouldn’t be the first time this year that Del Conte will have hired away a coach after winning a national championship at another school. CDC patiently waited and then hired Bob Bowman to lead the swim team just days after Bowman won the NCAA’s with Arizona State. But hiring away a swim coach from the Sun Devils is a whole rung (or three) below being able to hire away a baseball coach from your arch rivals after he brings them their first-ever CWS title.
In the meantime, Texas baseball is caught in limbo and it is hurting their ability to put together a competitive team for next season.
Texas has been non-existent in the baseball transfer portal which is currently up and running. None of the top players who have gone in (and have yet to commit somewhere) are talking about UT.
That will obviously change is Del Conte gets an exciting new hire put in place … but if CDC doeesn’t hire someone new and decides to stick with Pierce instead then Texas’ first season playing baseball in the SEC could be pretty rough.
So for now … we wait.
BIG RECRUITING WEEKEND:
I can’t lay claim to being much of a recruiting maven but I know enough to know that this is another huge recruiting weekend on the 40 Acres.
The aforementioned KJ Lacey will be in town for his official visit. This is Sark’s chance to put to bed any concerns anyone might have about Lacey going somewhere else (like Auburn) … not that I think you need to worry too much about that.
Also, Lacey has been working on 5-star wide receiver Jamie Ffrench while the two have been competing at this week’s Elite 11 camp. French will be in town for his official visit as well so those two can continue to build a bond which can only help in Ffrench’s recruitment.
Kaliq Lockett is another highly-ranked receiver who will be here for his official visit.
The dream of Dakorien Moore, Jamie Ffrench and Kaliq Lockett all coming to Austin is still alive – for now. And if Sark can pull that off, there will be no one more happy about that development than the loaded QB room that we talked about earlier in the column.
But the big dog (literally big) coming to campus is 5-star offensive tackle Michael Fasusi.
As @Alex Dunlap said in his column this week … it’s Fasusi, no matter what.
By the way, I know the movie “Draft Day” is cheesy and unrealistic, but I still thoroughly enjoy the flick and watch it every year.
Just look at this “nugget” from Alex’s column:
I recently spoke to an SEC recruiting director who said that Fasusi was the best high school OL that he's EVER evaluated:
"The best high school OL I've ever evaluated. He's that good. There's one 2026 kid Jackson Cantwell (from Missouri) who might come close, but you just have to turn on the tape, you just have to watch him and know that he's just now getting started. The way he moves is elite, effortless sh-t. Can't-teach-it-stuff. I mean, 84 inch wingspan, 36 inch arms, 6-5, 280 pounds and he runs a 4.8 40? A 28 inch vertical, and a 4.5-second shuttle. Just crazy, he's as clean as they come and that's before you tack on the upside he brings."
TWEETS OF INTEREST:
Just how important is portal recruiting when it comes to baseball? Apparently it is the new lifeblood of every winning program.
You need look no further than last year to see what a team can do when it comes to winning with portal players. LSU loaded up on portal guys and then balled out on their way to an NCAA title.
Tennessee and A&M have done a damn good job in the portal as well.
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For all of you who bemoan the portal … it protects the players. Period. Just listen to this little story about what life was like before the portal.
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This is the cold, hard truth in recruiting. It’s almost ALWAYS about the physical attributes.
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This is news you can use while Texas starts is SEC journey and y’all venture out for new road trip destinations.
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The Texas football team may be enduring ungodly heat during their summer workouts right now … but things are a little different at Montana State.
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My man @AaronLittleOB , who is the only Chargers fan I know, is pumped up for what Jim Harbaugh is bringing to his LA Chargers … but not more pumped up than Harbaugh is to have Dicker the Kicker wearing the powder blues.
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This is the cold, hard truth in recruiting. It’s almost ALWAYS about the physical attributes.
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I mentioned I was in Vegas last week (only lost $100 … which I consider a win). Poker players have been selling stakes of themselves for a long time. You can buy a percentage of a players buy-in for a tournament and if they win, you get a cut of the prize pool.
That move is now making it’s way to the NFL.
Barron Browning, who snubbed an offer from UT to go play for Ohio State back in the day, is selling a piece of his future NFL contract in exchange for cold, hard cash today.
Here’s the offer.
For just $10 per share, you can buy a piece of Browning’s future NFL earnings. He is making between 60,000 and 100,000 shares available for sale. The investors will then split 1% of his future NFL earnings.
Browning is currently playing on his rookie contract but he will soon be up for a second contract and that’s when the real money kicks in.
Of course, if he were to get hurt or something were to prevent him from ever signing a second deal, then he would be screwed.
By taking the money now, he is getting cash up front that he can invest or spend as he sees fit.
His investors now assume some of the risk of injury.
But here’s the thing … if this kind of deal catches on in the NFL, then it is only a matter of time before some industrious young high school football player makes the same type of bet against future NIL earnings.
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Speaking of investments … I am down to throw some dollars into this little venture.
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