Let's begin things with five big picture Texas football thoughts after 40-percent of the spring practices have been completed.
1. Things are on schedule with the quarterbacks...
Unlike a year ago, I haven't had anyone in discussions make an attempt to make huge declarations about either of the two quarterbacks. Both Quinn Ewers and Hudson Card have progressed over the six days of practice, which was highlighted by the fact that the offense as a whole had a very good day in the first scrimmage without needing to lean on its superstar running back or wide receiver.
2. The Portal additions are everything the coaches likely hoped they would be...
Ohio State transfer Ryan Watts has been the best pure cornerback on the roster (I'm counting Jahdae Barron as a nickel-back) through the first six days and has pretty seamlessly joined the starting line-up and might not leave it until he departs for the NFL. Meanwhile, Isaiah Neyor has not only helped improve the talent and depth at wide receiver, but he seems to have entered the program with exactly the kind of personality that has allowed him to fit in with his teammates, despite the competition for playing time.
3. The wide receiver position has been a positive...
Jordan Whittington is healthy. Neyor is on campus and impressing. Marcus Washington seems to be evolving. Casey Cain was a practice MVP on the offensive side of the ball on Saturday. Even without bringing Xavier Worthy into the equation, the wide receivers seem to be buzzwords for everyone thus far.
4. Older players not quite reaching new levels...
If there's a disappointing element of the six workouts thus far, it might center around the fact that few of the returning older players have really taken another step forward. For instance, I haven't heard anyone gush over D'Shawn Jamison, Keondre Coburn, Moro Ojomo, Junior Angilau or a few of the other vets. That's not to say that they aren't performing well, but they aren't performing so well that people have been doing cartwheels in excitement.
5. Players that are making positive moves....
Ewers. Neyor. Cain. Ja'Tavian Sanders. Gunnar Helm. Hayden Conner. Alfred Collins. Prince Dorbah. Barryn Sorrell. Byron Murphy. Devin Richardson. Ovie Oghoufo. Kitan Crawford.
p.s. - There's a note about injuries and the overall state of the team's health, but out of fear of serving as a jinx over the matter, I'm not going to say it... even if I'm thinking it.
No. 2 - Stealing from Anwar ...
If you didn't read the Sunday Pulpit earlier today, shame on you. Go do it as soon as you're done with this column.
The section on Jordan Whittington made me realize how much I'm pulling for Whittington to finally emerge as the player we've all thought he's capable of becoming. Going into last season, I thought a healthy Whittington would emerge as an all-Big 12 type of player, but injuries once again limited him throughout the year.
So frustrating has it been that Whittington admitted to Orangebloods this off-season that he considered a position change and even hinted that he spoke with people inside the program about letting him move back to defense. From the sounds of it, Steve Sarkisian might have stepped in and told him that such a move would occur over his dead body.
In fact, Sarkisian has been quick to highlight how important he believes Whittington is to the offense throughout the spring.
Personally, I keep thinking about former Texas great Jordan Shipley when I think of Whittington. While it's easy to remember that Shipley was a buzzsaw on the field in 2008 and 2009, the first four years of his Texas career looked like this:
2004 - Missed the entire season with a knee injury
2005 - Missed the entire season with a hamstring injury
2006 - 16 receptions for 229 yards and 4 touchdowns
2007 - 27 receptions for 417 yards and 5 touchdowns
That's hardly the stuff of legends. Now let's take a look at Whittington's first 3 seasons.
2019 - Missed the entire season with a groin injury
2020 - Missed half of the season with an injury, but finished with 21 receptions for 206 yards
2021 - Missed four games with an injury and finished with 26 catches for 377 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Obviously, the two players don't exactly mirror each other aside from both having very modest statistical starts because they couldn't quite shake the injury bug and build up consistent plus-play.
Shipley eventually got over the hump because his talent was too good to be held back forever and that's what I'm hoping is the case with Whittington.
It's no small thing that Xavier Worthy said of Whittington on Saturday, “I’m happy to see Jordan Whittington healthy because I think he’s one of the best receivers in the nation." If I learned one thing about Worthy in our interviews with him last fall, it's that he doesn't say words just to say them. If he's saying that about Whittington, it should tell you that he has an incredibly high amount of respect for him. There's just not a lot of BS in Worthy's body.
Don't give up on the idea that Whittington can reach his upside. There's one historical precedent in Texas football history that suggests Whittington can get over the top with just a little bit of injury fortune. It's time for there to be two.
If I have to, I'm going to say it enough times that I wish it into existence.
No. 3 - Let's talk about UT's newest 2023 commitment ...
The Longhorns picked up a commitment on Saturday from one of the state's top linebacker prospects - North Crowley's S'Maje Burrell.
I've probably watched Burrell's film a half-dozen times in the last week or so as I prepare the finishing touches on an updated LSR Top 100 for the 2023 class and each time I've watched him, I've come away with an array of opinions that don't always point in the same direction.
Let's start with the really good stuff.
Burrell is a really good, highly productive football player. Physically (6-2, 215), his frame is right in line with those that have succeeded the most from this state in the last 20 years (see two sections down). He's a great finisher as a tackler, he reads the field extremely well and at his best, he's a difference-maker at the high school level. Also, he exhibits really good short, explosive burst once he's able to identify the ball between the hash marks.
There are a few negatives that I think limit his upside from a national ranking standpoint. Probably the thing that jumps out the most is that he's a good, but not an elite athlete from a speed standpoint. While he can do backflips like Simone Biles, I have some concerns that he'll struggle to beat running backs to the corner on plays outside of the hash marks as a sideline to sideline player. He's probably a two-down player with some positional limitations (ie ... not sure he's ever going to be anything other than an inside linebacker). He's a total downhill banger, who will need to prove that he can play in space at the next level.
Finally, the thing I probably like the most about him is his feet. While he might not always move laterally like an elite prospect, he's pretty damn nimble on his feet, which enables him to knife in and around traffic between the tackles when in pursuit of the ball. Do yourself a favor and just watch his feet on his HUDL film. Just his feet. You'll like what you see.
Overall, I find myself torn on exactly where to rank him, primarily because I'm spooked over linebackers from Texas that aren't elite of the elite prospects (see section 4 below). He feels like a player that should be regarded as a Rivals250 type of prospect, but not one that I think is probably in the national top 50-70 range.
No. 4 - Read it and weep ...
A few notes before we get started.
1. On the average, a five-star ranked player has somewhere between a 50-70% chance of being drafted by an NFL team, depending on the year. A five-star ranked player is also 10X more likely to be drafted in the first round than a four-star prospect and between 2-3 times more likely to be drafted at all.
2. On the average, a high four-star ranked player has somewhere between a 35-60% chance of being drafted by an NFL team, depending on the year. A high four-star ranked player is also 10X more likely to be drafted in the first round than a three-star prospect and twice as likely to be drafted at all over a mid four-star prospect.
Ok, this is your last chance to turn away from the ugliness. Don't say I didn't warn you.
The 5 stars.
2006 - Sergio Kindle (Texas)
2013 - Mike Mitchell (Ohio State)
2015 - Malik Jefferson (Texas)
2016 - Erick Fowler (Texas)
2017 - Baron Browning (Ohio State)
Active Players: 2019 Marcel Brooks (LSU) and 2021 Clayton Smith (Oklahoma)
Breakdown
* Three of the five players (60.0%) were drafted by NFL teams: Sergio Kindle (2nd round), Malik Jefferson (3rd round) and Baron Browning (3rd round)
* Of the other two linebackers that didn't have NFL careers, both proved to be historically bad busts, as neither even made a single tackle at Texas (Fowler) and Ohio State (Mitchell), respectively.
* Brooks is currently playing wide receiver at TCU and is going to be regarded as one of the biggest busts of the 2019 recruiting year.
* On a personal level, I've graded 8 linebackers from Texas since 1997 as five-star prospects: 2001 Derrick Johnson (Texas), Kindle, 2007 Keenan Robinson (Texas), 2010 Tevin Jackson, 2011 Steve Edmond, Jefferson, Fowler and Browning. The hit percentage of players from that group that was drafted by NFL teams is 62.5%.
The High 4 Stars:
2006 - Michael Morgan (USC)
2010 - Tevin Jackson (Texas)
2011 - Steve Edmond (Texas)
Active Players: 2020 Drew Sanders (Alabama) and 2022 Harold Perkins (Texas A&M)
Breakdown
* None of the three players (0.0%) were drafted by NFL teams:
* Personally, I'm 0 for 7 on high four stars since 1997. It's ugly. Here's the list: 1997 Mike Clay (Missouri), 1997 Everick Rawls (Texas), 1999 Devon Davis (Tennessee), 2002 Marvin Byrdsong (Mississippi State), 2002 Aaron Harris (Texas), 2005 Chris Brown (Texas), 2016 Jeffrey McCulloch (Texas). Of this group, Harris was at least an all-American at Texas and qualifies as one of those rare standout college players that was viewed as value-less by NFL teams. Byrdsong and Rawls were solid college players.
Mid 4 Stars
2006 - Anthony Lewis (Texas A&M)
2006 - Jared Norton (Texas)
2007 - Keenan Robinson (Texas)
2007 - Derrick Stephens (Texas A&M)
2008 - Justin Johnson (Oklahoma)
2009 - Tom Wort (Oklahoma)
2013 - Deoundrei Davis (Texas)
2014 - Zach Whitley (UCLA)
2014 - Otaro Alaka (Texas A&M)
2015 - Richard Moore (Texas A&M)
2015 - Anthony Wheeler (Texas)
2017 - Anthony Hines (Texas A&M)
2018 - Alston Orji (Vanderbilt)
Active Players: 2017 Levi Jones (USC), 2020 Josh White (LSU), 2021 Kendrick Blackshire (Alabama) and 2022 Kobie McKenzie (Oklahoma)
Breakdown
* One of the 13 players (7.7%) was drafted by NFL teams: Robinson (4th round)
* Two others have played in the NFL: Alaka and Hines
* Of the other 10 linebackers that didn't have NFL careers, you'd have to say that Norton and Wheeler were the best of the bunch and neither were ever full-time starters.
* Jones transferred from USC to NC State and is hoping to be drafted this spring, but there doesn't seem to be a ton of buzz about him that I can find. White is currently in the Portal and has emerged as a target for the Longhorns. Blackshire was used exclusively on special teams as a freshman in 2021.
Overall Breakdown
Basically, five stars are going to do what five stars mostly do (pan out and get drafted on the first two days of the NFL Draft), but everything is worse than a crapshoot over the course of the last two decades.
Only one of the top 16 (6.3%) highest-rated non-five star linebackers from the State of Texas in the last two decades has emerged as a drafted NFL talent ... Keenan Robinson. That's it.
That number should 4X-5X higher.
If you dig into the data on the low 4 stars from the same time period, only 3 of 30 (10%) from the state of Texas were drafted, which is only slightly lower than the national norms for players from the low 4 star tier.
Still, in the history of the Rivals rankings, only 4 of the 46 combined (8.7%) four-star prospects from all three tiers developed into NFL drafted players. No other position on either side of the ball comes within a 100-foot pole of such awful numbers. By comparison, offensive linemen from the state of Texas in the same rankings tiers have developed into NFL drafted players at three times the rate of linebackers.
It's not just Rivals or the other recruiting services that are missing. It's everyone. There's no magic pocket of linebackers from the state of Texas that the services or major college coaches are ignoring.
History is telling us that outside of the absolute studs of studs (five-stars), only 1 out of 10 highly-rated linebackers from the state of Texas hits. Until we start seeing some trends in the numbers that point towards a sea of change, it would be incredibly smart to take all prospects at the position with similar profiles with a huge grain of salt because their historical value is woefully short of what one could reasonably expect.
No. 5 - Creating the model linebacker prospect ...
Last thing on this linebacker deep dive. I found myself wondering if there was anything we might be able to take from the guys that actually made it as NFL success stories from the linebacker position as prospects from 2002-2017.
Here's the list of nine that made it, along with their physical profiles:
2006 Sergio Kindle (6-4, 225)
2007 Keenan Robinson (6-3, 211)
2007 Travis Lewis (6-1, 213)
2010 Corey Nelson (6-0, 210)
2014 Otaro Alaka (6-3, 210)
2015 Malik Jefferson (6-2, 218)
2017 Kenneth Murray (6-2, 208)
2017 Baron Browning (6-3, 230)
2017 Anthony Hines (6-3, 218)
A few things that stand out to me ...
* The only players that were listed at more than 218 pounds were a couple of five-star anomalies in Kindle and Browning. The other seven players, who were all four-star successes, were listed between 210-218 pounds.
* With the exception of Kindle, who eventually found most of his success as a college player at the edge position, all of these guys were incredibly quick, explosive and moved laterally like they were shot out of cannons as high school prospects.
* If you take the Rivals five-stars out of the equation, the median height/weight between the other six players was 6-2, 212 pounds.
* In the history of the Rivals rankings up until 2018, only two of 25 linebackers from the state of Texas that weighed more than 219 pounds coming out of high school and were ranked as a four-star (or higher) prospect went on to be drafted by NFL teams. Both were five-stars (Kindle and Browning). All of the other previous 23 prospects failed to make the NFL. That includes the following players that played for Texas: Steve Edmond (245), Jeffrey McCulloch (235), Kendall Thompson (232), Jared Norton (232), Tariq Allen (231), Tevin Jackson (230), Dravannti Johnson (230), Marquez Bimage (223), DeMarco Boyd (223), Tim Cole (220) and Chet Moss (219).
No. 6 - Better Late Than Never ...
For a while on Sunday, I kind of dreaded writing about a Texas baseball team that would have lost three out of four games this week against rivals Texas A&M and Oklahoma.
The Longhorns were trailing by six runs on Sunday heading into the seventh inning and you could feel the negativity building. Yet, give these Longhorns credit for refusing to go down, as they exploded for 6 runs in the 7th inning and 5 more in the 9th inning to take the series over the Sooners with a 12-8 win.
At the end of the day, taking two of three from the Sooners at a neutral is a job well done, even if it's not a job perfectly done.
This team still has to figure out some of its pitching issues, but it has the firepower to score runs every time it takes the field and we know the team has guts.
No. 7 – BUY or SELL …
(Buy) It just feels like if it's Texas and he has so much doubt that he feels like he needs to wait to see them on the field in 2023, maybe it shouldn't be Texas. Meanwhile, if it's Alabama ... why wait? I think there's clarity by the end of the spring. That being said, everyone around the kid says that he's going to take his time ....
(Sell) I'm not sure that's quite on the horizon, even if Texas might pick up several commitments.
(Sell) If we listed all of them at 75-percent in favor to Texas, the mathematical probability that you'd hit all three hovers around 32-percent. That line of thinking has me believing that the "safe" bet is Texas not landing all four of those players.
Note: I misread the question. Hence, the funky answer.
(Buy) It's hard to argue with the "if he's even, he's leaving" line of thinking.
(Sell) I suppose I need to have the subjective nature of "greatly improved" defined for me because with no players in this group that look like all-Big 12 first-team level of performers at first glance, it's hard for me to believe that it'll be greatly improved, unless your version of greatly improved is different than mine. How can it be greatly improved if it doesn't have any players on it that project as superior to the majority of their peers at their specific positions across the Big 12?
(Sell) He has a chance to be a very solid role player this season, but I don't expect him to be a starter, unless Texas misses on transfer targets and/or injuries occur.
(Buy) Coach.... Will Smith will get out of his seat and slap you over such words.
(Sell) I think that would mean that the most talented player that the program has seen on paper in 20 years didn't develop throughout the off-season as expected or he became injured.
(Sell) On a neutral field, I'd probably count games Mississippi State, Tennessee, South Carolina, Missouri and Vanderbilt as wins. That's five. Games against Auburn, Florida and LSU feel like coin-flips. If Texas doesn't go 0-fer on the coin flips and it wins the games it should win, we're probably talking about 6 or 7 wins.
(Sell) 21.5
No. 8 - Scattershooting on the sports weekend ...
... I'm not sure that I can fully put into words the significance of that UNC win over Duke. It's hard to think of a situation that quite compared to it. In an absolute barn-burner classic of a game, the Tar Heels retired Coach K. There's literally nothing that a Duke fan will be able to say to a UNC fan in the future in terms of shit-talking that can really stick. It's the Justin Tucker field goal in College Station on HGH.
... That being said, I'm taking the Jayhawks on Monday night to cut down the nets.
... I might be underselling UNC because the Tar Heels have been involved in the two most memorable games of the entire tournament - second round vs. Baylor and Saturday night against the Blue Devils.
... Kind of blows my mind that UConn hasn't won a women's national championship in basketball since 2016. Today's seniors in high school were 11-12 years old the last time it happened.
... Frank Gore will one day be voted into the NFL Hall of Fame, but the truth of the matter is that any running back that only makes All-Pro once in his life should only be allowed to be inducted into the NFL Fall of Very good, 16,000 rushing yards, be damned.
... Bring on The Masters.
... Consider me completely perplexed with regards to the looming playoffs in the Eastern Conference of the NBA. I don't really know what to make of the Nets/Sixers just a few weeks after the big trade. It kind of feels like when the dust settles, we're going to be looking at the Bucks/Celtics deciding it all. The seeding process after this last week of games could decide everything, as the No. 2 seed and the No. 4 seed are separated by a game.
... The best rivalry in sports right now is Liverpool/Manchester City in the Premier League. We're basically watching the 1992-1995 Cowboys vs. Niners between these teams in real time.
No. 9 - The List: Top 10 Slaps of All-Time ...
I think we've talked enough about the Will Smith/Chris Rock slap to last a lifetime. What I've done this week is compile the Top 10 best slaps from the world of movies/TV/sports.
Enjoy.
10. Jim Slaps Dwight in The Office
9. Juwan Howard vs. Wisconsin assistant coach
8.Charles Oakley punks Scottie Pippen
7. Don Corleone slaps Johnny Fontane in The Godfather
6. Mr. Tibbs slaps Endicott (In the Heat of the Night)
5. Dereck Chisora slaps Vitali Klitschko
4. Mexican Soap Opera Star Slaps Reporter
3. Wyatt Earp double slaps Billy Bob Thornton in Tombstone.
2. Daniel Plainview puts Brother Eli into the ground in There Will Be Blood
1. What Did The Five Fingers Say to The Face?
No. 10 - And Finally...
Just a quick note on Arch Manning on the heels of his visit to Alabama last week. Unlike last week's visit to Austin, things have been very quiet upon his departure from Tuscaloosa. Whereas last weekend ended with tons of positive buzz, it's been completely quiet on the Alabama reporting side of things on the visit. Not sure if it's good or bad, but the two visits seemingly ended with different vibes.... one was incredibly optimistic and the other seems a bit uncertain because of complete silence.
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