Raise your hand if you woke up excited about today being National Signing Day.
Come on, don’t be shy, get those hands up!
Anyone?
No?
Ok, I admit it, my hand isn’t up either. I didn’t even know it was National Signing Day until I saw it on social media.
I’ll be honest, as exciting as this day used to be, I’m ok with the new way of doing things. The earlier signing day allows kids who already know where they want to go to lock up a space. Heck, if anything, I think we should have a late summer signing day and then another one after the season.
Besides, with the portal, what does it matter if kids sign early? If there is a coaching change later, they can always get out of their decision and find another school.
The people most upset about the changes are probably the last people to make and service fax machines. For whatever reason, colleges held on to those things for Signing Day National Letters of Intent long after the technology had passed them by.
Still, it is NSD and it’s a time to celebrate (even if we’ve known for weeks who would be coming to Texas … many of whom are already on campus and working out).
So it’s only appropriate that there was a spate of good recruiting news coming the Longhorns' way on National Signing Day … starting with the Rivals national recruiter of the year, Texas wide receivers coach Chris Jackson.
Jackson won the award based on his outstanding WR haul in this year’s recruiting class:
Kaliq Lockett: #19 overall & #2 WR
Jaime Ffrench: #48 overall & #10 WR
Daylan McCutcheon: #95 overall & #18 WR
Michael Terry: #107 overall & #4 ATH
Recruiting was the biggest question mark surrounding Jackson when Sarkisian first hired him. Having spent the past ten years in the NFL (five as a coach and five before that as a player), Jackson was a complete unknown on the recruiting trail.
Even as a player, Jackson never experienced big-time recruiting, having to start off his playing career at a junior college before transferring to Washington State.
He did play high school ball at the private school powerhouse Mater Dei in California, so maybe he got a taste of what it’s like to be recruited while in high school. Who knows how that all works out there?
And yet, here we are, now and Jackson has proven to be not just a good recruiter, but one of the best in the country.
Now it should be easy to recruit wide receivers at Texas. Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian has a track record of showing he knows how to get WRs open. Plus, Texas has Arch Manning at QB and a couple of young studs waiting to take over whenever he goes off to the NFL.
Still, you can’t take anything away from Jackson. He stepped in, started forming relationships with players and has remade the WR room.
Jackson may also have played a part in Texas changing what type of receiver it is looking for on the recruiting trail, as outlined in @Anwar Richardson 's great column this week.
The good news on the recruiting trail didn’t end there. Melissa offensive lineman Maximus Wright used National Signing Day to announce his commitment to Texas.
First off, Maximus is just a cool name. You know you’re going to be either a badass football player or a badass goalie if you have that name.
But secondly, he’s a kid who lives up to his name, checking in at 6’-8” and 305 pounds.
Texas offensive line coach Kyle Flood has a type.
Wright’s Huddle film is fun to watch. He plays with an aggression that you love to see in an offensive lineman.
One thing I did notice in his film, which he will have to do a better job of, is that he tips off plays leaning forward on run plays. Not only can that give defenses an advantage in knowing whether it’s going to be a run or a pass, but it also shifts the lineman’s center of gravity and good defenders can use that against him.
But I’m not sure this is a kid who is going to step in and make a big, immediate impact.
I texted with a coach who is in the same district as Melissa and the note I got back on him was: “According to our defensive coaches, they didn’t think he was that level of a kid. But he is big (size is correct).”
When I asked what the ding against him was, he responded to say there wasn’t really a ding, just that Wright didn’t leave much of an impression when they went up against him.
Now, that’s coming from an opposing coach so take that for what you will, but I trust this guy completely so I definitely wanted to pass it along.
That should also not be taken as a projection that Wright won’t ever become a starter at Texas. He absolutely could. At only 305 pounds, this kid could put on another 30 pounds and still be able to carry it at the next level.
Put this kid in the weight room, let him learn under Coach Flood for a couple of years and you could have yourself a real player on your hands in the future.
I am talking about recruiting on National Signing Day because it is still the lifeblood of any program.
Want to know why Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama and Oregon are so damn good year after year? Go check out @Ketchum 's column from the weekend.
The teams that collect the most talent, win the most games. It’s a pretty simple equation.
And the talent Sark has been able to collect since arriving at Texas is the reason the Longhorns have played in two straight national semifinals and will be knocking on the door to compete for a national championship again this season.
THE ARCH MANNING HYPE TRAIN …
We’ve talked quite a bit about how the hype around Arch Manning is just different. This week has shown it to be 100 percent true.
It’s Super Bowl week in the NFL, but anyone with any kind of connection to Texas is getting asked about Arch during the Super Bowl festivities this week.
Arch was naturally a big topic of discussion when his father Cooper showed up on the Dan Patrick Show.
We also had multiple reporters asking about Arch Manning during the Super Bowl Opening Night event.
Chris Simms is getting asked about Arch as well and he has nothing but high praise for the new Longhorn signal caller.
“Arch is like, the guy,” Simms said. “He’s a better thrower than Quinn Ewers and I think he’s going to be a better decision maker, from everything that I hear, where they’ll be able to add more offense on the field. So I’m pumped. We’re back, baby!”
No offense to any Texas quarterback who has come on before, but this is next-level attention. We haven’t seen anything like it.
Now if we can only get to watch Arch in a spring game this year (fingers crossed).
FROM PIGSKIN TO HORSEHIDE
The Longhorns wrapped up their alumni game over the weekend and you can’t really take too much of what you see out of that scrimmage as gospel … but you can look at parts of it and get an idea that this team is going to be very good.
The biggest question mark will remain starting pitching and we won’t know about that until the games get underway.
But when I tell you that this lineup is loaded with power, I mean it’s loaded with power. The Horns have the ability to go deep with just about every hitter.
Even guys like freshman Cole Chamberlain, who is battling for a starting position but will likely be a rotational player, has the power to go yard, as he showed last weekend.
Still, this is going to be an absolute beast of a schedule during Texas’ first year in the SEC.
The conference baseball coaches voted UT to finish eighth in the conference this year.
Before you guys get too wound up about that, just look at the teams ahead of UT. That is a who’s who of national powers who have all won national championships. Well … almost all of them have. Texas A&M and Arkansas are still 0-fer in the College World Series chase.
But while the Aggies and Razorbacks may not know what it’s like to end their Omaha run in a dogpile, they are stacked with talent and it’s understandable why they’re ahead of Texas in the rankings.
Still, even if Texas does finish eighth in the conference, that’s probably good enough to make the postseason tournament.
But if I were a betting man, I would guess that Texas will finish higher than eighth. This season just feels like it’s going to be a big year.
TEXAS SOFTBALL FIRST PITCH …
Texas softball gets underway Thursday and just making the NCAA Women’s College World Series isn’t good enough. This year, the Horns are not going to be happy until they win it all and hoist the trophy.
Coach Mike White’s squad is loaded with the best pitching staff in the country, led by star pitcher Teagan Kavan. The Sophomore was a revelation last year winning 20 games with a 2.20 ERA and 135 strikeouts.
In softball, unlike baseball, pitchers can go back-to-back in big games during the tournament so having a dominant pitcher can be a game-changer.
But it won’t be just Kavan on the mound, she’ll be joined by senior Mac Morgan and junior Citlaly Gutierrez.
The star power is just as bright at the plate as Reese Atwood is already one of the best in the nation. The junior catcher was a finalist for the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award last season after setting five UT records including home runs (23), RBI’s (90), and slugging percentage (.862).
The SEC is no joke in softball either with 11 programs ranked in the preseason top 25. But it’s the newcomer, Texas, that heads into the season with the number one ranking and a big target on their backs.
TWEETS OF INTEREST
I’ve read plenty of times on this board about how some of you don’t care about things like a team GPA. But Sark has emphasized the team GPA as a metric he monitors closely and it has risen each year he’s been in Austin.
To Sark, and to the players, success in the classroom is a good indicator of success on the field.
“Coach Sark says it all of the time, there are three gears of life; your personal life, your school life, your football life,” Gunnar Helm said back in January. “If everything is going great then all of the gears are twisting themselves. But if you get something jammed up, maybe you fail a test? Maybe one of your grades drop? If that’s on the front of your mind then you start to do poorly on the football field then maybe your personal life isn’t going quite as well or the other way around. Maybe something gets jammed up in your personal life, you’re hanging out with the wrong group of people, you get in trouble, then the on-field stuff, maybe you get benched then you’re thinking about that and then you fail tests.
“Another way around it, you’re on the field, you’re busting assignments, maybe you get benched then you start to not really care then you don’t go to school then you start failing, then you become ineligible. It’s a snowball effect from all three aspects. That’s something that’s pressed upon us in the offseason. It’s part of our culture to have success off the field as well, especially in the classroom, especially at a school like Texas. I think Coach Sark has done a tremendous job with that.”
Texas cornerback Jahdae Barron, who has a chance to be a first-round draft pick this spring, said Sark changed his life.
"As soon as he got here, our GPAs got better," Barron said. "He pushed me to graduate. I know that was hard on him. But there are amazing things that he's done, and it's beyond football. He truly wants everybody to be a better person, and the better the person, the better the ballplayer."
So downplay the team GPA all you want, but it’s not something Sark or the players take lightly.
################################
Speaking of Jahdae Barron. It was very cool to see him receive his Thorpe Award trophy during a ceremony in Oklahoma on Tuesday night.
################################
The NCAA may be on the verge of changing the rules to punish teams that fake injuries to stop the clock.
Frankly, I love this idea of making players who go down with an injury of sitting out the rest of the drive, or the team calling a timeout to get them back on the field.
There are some coaches *cough* Lane Kiffin *cough* who have repeatedly abused the officials timeout for injuries in order to slow the game down or buy some time.
################################
How can you not love the attitude from Vic Schaefer?
################################
This was the biggest no-brainer ever. Hartline has certainly shown a lot of talent in developing elite WR after elite WR. But calling plays is a different trait. We won’t have to wait long to see what he’s like with a play sheet in his hands. 206 days until the Longhorns kick off the season in Columbus, Ohio.
################################
This is just for all of you Cowboy fans who need something to smile about these days.
################################
The Navy football team suffered a real tragedy this week when it found out that former Academy QB Brian Ellis was among those killed the plane crash in Washington, DC.
################################
I know most of you won’t care about this, but the ship selection ceremony at the U.S. Naval Academy is actually a fun event to watch. It’s just exciting to see where these young men and women will be heading off once they graduate and join the fleet. Check it out Thursday at 6:00 pm (ET).
################################
This poor guy stood no chance. It’s money and a hot woman. Both are undefeated.
################################
But every now and then … some smart fellow gets his revenge.
Last edited by a moderator:
