Ok, let's talk about it.
The burnt orange world took a bit of a right-hand turn at Albuquerque on Friday after the pledges of a couple of low-profile commits went to Tom Herman, while a five-star receiver from Florida and the best player in East Texas committed to Lincoln Riley.
I mean ... that'll typically do it.
What transpired after the eye of the hurricane passed the 40 Acres was a rather loud discussion about the state of the Texas program and a number of realities that exist. Suddenly, the world was once again separated into groups of pumpers and haters.
THERE WILL BE NO ROOM FOR NUANCE AND ANYTHING REAL, DAMNIT!
Except that's exactly the conversation that needs to take place. There's a complicated situation that Herman and the entire Texas staff are in at the moment and this is exactly the kind of thing we need to have open discussion about. I hope part of the reason you read this column every week is because you know I won't run away from talking about the tough subjects.
So, let's have the tough conversation.
"|"THIS IS ALL SO SHOCKING!!!! FIRE!!!!!"
None of this should be shocking. None of it. One of the big topics on Orangebloods for the last few months has been the limbo status of Herman's program in 2021 with the elite players on its recruiting board following a season that witnessed Herman fire 70 percent of his coaching staff.
We've talked about how Herman and his staff need success on the field this year to kick-start momentum. If the Brockermeyer brothers are taking a wait-and-see approach to Texas football when their old man is a legend at the school and they have a brother currently on the team, how do you think kids without significant Texas ties are looking at the program?
What happened this weekend that caused so much emotion is that what has been talked about in theory occurred in reality. The Longhorns went from an early betting favorite with Texarkana Texas High linebacker Clayton Smith to watching him commit to the Sooners because of what's happened in the last 10 months. With the recent commitment of fellow Texarkana standout Landon Jackson to LSU, the Longhorn are suddenly 0 for 2 on big-time prospects from an East Texas area that UT once dominated.
None of what's happening is eye-popping to anyone who has been remotely paying attention.
"SHOULD WE BE PANICKING IN THE STREETS???!!!???"
I might stress having a bit of urgency about the matter, but not panic.
The truth of the matter is that the Longhorns haven't had a lot of momentum in the last eight months of 2021 recruiting, but they had enough success last summer with the commitments of Ja'Tavion Sanders, Billy Bowman and Jalen Milroe that the foundation of the recruiting class already has two five-star level prospects to anchor it and a national 50-level type quarterback prospect.
That's three top top 10-level prospects, which is exactly how you want to start.
However, the reason for needed urgency is that all of the big success that the Longhorns have had in 2021 occurred at a time that is no longer remotely significant to what is happening to the rest of the class. Last July and August might as well be a lifetime ago because that was when the program was coming off of a Sugar Bowl win over Georgia and Herman's sales pitch of championship aspirations hadn't hit the wall in the wake of a season that saw Herman feel the need to fire almost everyone.
Sanders committed to the Longhorns on September 8th of 2019 and in the last eight months and nine days, the Longhorns have landed zero commitments from the top 10 in my Lone Star Recruiting Top 10. Or Top 20. Or Top 30. Or Top 35. While the Longhorns haven't had a lot of success with the prospects at the top of their recruiting board, nine other members of the state's Top 30 have committed this year to other programs.
Of course, there are still five key available targets from the state Top 10 and another seven if we extend the list to the Top 25, so the Longhorns could still finish strong with their remaining targets like the Brockermeyer brothers, Camar Wheaton, Bryce Foster, Savion Byrd and Shemar Turner.
But, the margin of error is getting smaller in terms of Texas being able to take advantage of a historically good 2021 class and time isn't UT’s best friend. Again, there needs to be an urgency in the conversation, but I wouldn't advise panic.
"So, what needs to happen to finish strong? We just need to win a bunch of games and it'll be ok?"
Maybe.
At least if we're talking about the 2021 recruiting class.
The rub for this Texas coaching staff is that it knows it needs to make an impression on this group of prospects, but it's running out of time to do so and operating in the middle of a pandemic when 70 percent of your staff hasn't had a chance to truly bond and get to know the prospects it covets with in-person connecting.
At best, the Longhorns will be able to start to change the narrative that last season created, but what if there are no games? What if there's no early season LSU game to make an impression? Also, what if it's too late?
Many of the state's top prospects are making decisions right now and in a couple of months, it's possible that they'll be so cemented in their commitments and not willing to reconsider a decision they've come to be quite comfortable with. What if Texas can't do what Texas needs to do with the 2021 class until November and November is too late in the process?
The single most concerning element of this entire situation is that what is suddenly outside of UT's control can't be fixed until potentially a date that renders all of the potential fixing meaningful for the majority of the 2021 class. Yes, a flip or two could occur, but that's not something you can plan on at the moment for multiple reasons (I'll get to those momentarily).
No one wants to hear this, but salvaging 2022 recruiting in a big way with a big year might be a more realistic goal than salvaging 2021 recruiting in a big way.
What about all of the three-stars Texas is taking?
Look, I can't constantly stress the importance of signing national top-75 kids and then pretend it doesn't matter when it's not happening, so you're not going to hear me say that landing five three-stars over the course of a 20-day window is any reason to throw a party.
The truth of the matter is that one by one, case by case, you can make arguments for each of those five players. A guy like Jordan Thomas you could successfully argue is a four-star prospect. The same is true of Morice Blackwell.
Yet, let's not get lost in the trivial-ness of the margins. Recruiting isn't about state top-30 kids with a 20 percent success rate versus those with a 10 percent success rate. Recruiting is about landing the kids with success rates in the 40-70 percent range.
We can get so caught up in wanting to argue that one or two of those three stars should be four-stars, but the real conversation is that Texas at the moment has a slippery handle on the recruitments of the kids it is recruiting with success rates in the 40-70 percent range.
There's nothing wrong with a prospect like Corey Cain. His three-star status doesn't mean he can't be great, rather it just means the chances of him being so are longer than a guy like in-state top-15 prospect Jojo Earle, who recently committed to LSU.
In the case of a player like Cain, he's at a position that the Longhorns want volume on in this class, which is one of the reasons they've offered more than two dozen wide receiver prospects and 10 in the Lone Star State alone. If you consider that Bowman could play on either side of the ball at the next level, the Longhorns had zero true wide receiver commits before Friday and I'm sure the coaches felt like they couldn't wait to get the show on forever.
There's a trade-off that is made when you take the No. 25 offer at a position instead of the No. 2 or No. 3 guy on your offer list, but there's much less trade off when we're comparing the No. 15 guy that was offered vs. someone in the 20s. There's not a player among the top 5-10 on the Texas wide receiver board that the commitment of Cain will keep them from taking. That's likely entirely different for some of these other wide receivers that have only been recently offered.
With 11 kids committed, five four/five stars and another four high three stars isn't a terrible early return rate. As the numbers tighten up, what needs to eventually happen is that the war daddies come in and populate the class into the state an elite class eventually looks like and in a year when the in-state talent is elite in depth, Texas should have an elite class.
Damnit, Charlie, you're the gift that keeps taking!
This is one narrative that we need to nip in the bud, if only because it's so misleading.
The truth of the matter is that whatever hole Charlie Strong created for Herman, the current Texas coach was able to get out of the hole and as recently as September, the Longhorns were the No. 1 most impactful program in the state with regards to the 2021 class. The Longhorns really did appear poised for a possible No. 1 overall class in the country and the events of last season that concluded with seven coaches being terminated has created the current situation.
Strong was a disaster, but he's not the reason for Herman's standing in year four in Austin.
No. 2 - Party like it's 1999?
Consider this next section of the column an extension of the Uncle Ketch story-time section, but the last 20 days or so have kind of reminded me of what happened with the program back in 1999 under Mack Brown.
While everyone remembers that the 1999 class ended up ranked as the No. 1 class in the country behind Chris Simms and Cory Redding, the beginning of that class included a lot of off-the-radar guys. Hell, they took a fullback from Brownwood that summer named Jason Barron who was more known for doing roofing work in the summer than anything he did on the field. Yes, there was a bit of a freakout when Texas offered Austin Westlake quarterback Adam Hall and running back Brett Robin.
In all, Mack took close to double-digit guys in the early stages of the 1999 class and it appeared as if the class was going to be remembered for something other than the commitments of Simms/Redding. So, why did they take all of these fliers on unknown kids from their summer camps?
Well, it's an easy question to answer. Mack wasn't sure that the team would be very good on the field and was taking what he could get while he could get it because he didn't want to get to August needing to sign 20 players in the final months of the recruiting process.
There's a little bit of the 1999 summer camp theme going on right now. Texas needs to create some forward movement and the Longhorns have achieved that by adding a perfectly fine group of recent commits. Perfectly fine isn't great, but it's not a disaster.
What will be a disaster is if Herman gets to December and hasn't created the momentum that Brown was able to generate in that 1998 season with Ricky Williams in the backfield.
Just like 1999, I'd argue there's a top-five class out there that's obtainable at the moment with this 2021 class, but it'll take a little magic on the field to get there.
No. 3 - An elephant in the room ...
Let me apologize about bringing this up because it feels like a narrative that exists every time the Longhorns change their head coach or have to remove chunks of the assistant coaches, but there's one more really key point about a problem that exists in 2021 that must be stressed.
Outside of Herb Hand, Stan Drayton and Oscar Giles, none of these Texas coaches have been on campus for more than five months.
When you look at the key prospects in the state this year, those are the three coaches that are handling the biggest recruitments, but the rest of the Texas staff is struggling to get a lot of footing for three reasons.
a. Most were new to Texas and the prospects they were about to be responsible for recruiting.
b. There's an ongoing pandemic keeping them from maximizing what they need to do.
c. The coaches that they are competing against for the top prospects often have 12-24 month existing relationships at a point when the new Texas staff is starting at square one.
Consider this comment made by Clayton Smith to Rivals.com following his decision to commit to the Sooners on Friday.
"I already knew (my decision) after visiting (last July) and talking with Coach Riley when I went to visit them," Smith said. "On the ride home, I knew it felt like home. Honestly, it has been on my mind ever since and I didn't feel the need to wait (until January) and I didn't want to wait on it. I wanted them to know I was all in so I went ahead and committed to get this ball rolling."
New Texas linebackers coach Coleman Hutzler showed up on the scene and the most important linebacker recruit on his radar had already been thinking of committing to the OU coaches for months.
Barring Hutzler and the rest of the new Texas coaches being absolute recruiting rainmakers, which none of them have a real reputation for doing being, he was walking into a situation he was probably never going to win.
No new coach on the Texas staff outside of possibly former OU assistant Jay Boulware is in a better situation. It just so happens that every single remaining top-10 prospect in my rankings is in a position group coached by Hand, Drayton and Giles. Smith is the only recruit in the top 10 that was previously uncommitted and being chased directly by the new Texas coaches.
The real potential problem areas in this class are at these positions with new coaches - wide receiver, tight end, linebackers and defensive backs.
It's not an accident.
No. 4 - More comments from Smith ...
Texas almost certainly finished second for Smith, although he says it came down to a top three of OU, Texas and LSU.
Want to know what Texas is recruiting against in the flesh?
"This week, I focused on seeing which was the best fit for me and my family and we kept talking about who can get me to the NFL. I've been talking it over with the coaches and it came down to Oklahoma being the best fit for me," Smith said.
NFL? Check.
"With Oklahoma, everything was straightforward to me. No lies ... What they were saying -- about when I get there -- you can't go against it. They check every single box .. literally. There's nothing negative about Oklahoma and we looked and we couldn't find one. I couldn't wait any longer to commit."
I'm not even sure what he's implying here, but it's clear that some boxes weren't being checked at the other schools he was considering. More than anything, there seems to be a trust issue in some capacity that he's referencing and he seems certain it's not an issue in Norman.
Just for the record, I wasn't expecting such an emphatic set of statements from Smith. I figured he was a guy that the Longhorns might be able to sway with a big season.
Maybe not.
No. 5 - Breaking down the LSR Top 25 ...
Real quickly, I just wanted everyone to get a true sense of where things stand with the in-state 2021 difference makers.
Committed (13 of 25)
No.3 OL - Donovan Jackson - Houston Episcopal (Committed to Ohio State
No.4 DE - Ja'Tavion Sanders - Denton Ryan (Committed to Texas)
No.5 ATH - Billy Bowman - Denton Ryan (Committed to Texas)
No.7 QB - Jalen Milroe - Katy Tompins (Committed to Texas)
No.8 LB - Clayton Smith - Texarkana Texas High (Committed to Oklahoma)
No.11 DE - Landon Jackson - Texarkana Pleasant Grove (Committed to LSU)
No.12 QB - Garrett NussMeier - Flower Mound Marcos (Committed to LSU)
No.13 QB - Eli Stowers - Denton Guyer (Committed to Texas A&M)
No.16 WR - JoJo Earle - Aledo (Committed to LSU)
No.18 OL - Hayden Conner - Katy Taylor (Committed to Texas)
No.21 DE - Chris Murray - Wichita Falls Hirschi (Committed to TCU)
No.24 QB - Preston Stone - Dallas Parish Episcopal (Committed to SMU)
No.25 WR - Quay Davis - Dallas Skyline (Committed to USC)
Uncommitted (12 of 25)
No.1 OL - Tommy Brockermeyer - Fort Worth All Saints (50-percent)
No.2 RB - Camar Wheaton - Garland Lakeview Centennial (45-percent)
No.6 OL - Bryce Foster - Katy Taylor (40-percent)
No.9 OL - Savion Byrd - Duncanville (35-percent)
No.10 DE - Shermar Turner - DeSoto (50-percent)
No.14 DB - J.D. Coffey - Kennedale (75-percent)
No.15 OL - James Brockermeyer - Fort Worth All Saints (50-percent)
No.17 DT - Marcus Burris - Texarkana Pleasant Grove (5-percent)
No.19 RB - L.J. Johnson - Cy Fair (40-percent)
No.20 DB - Deuce Harmon - Denton Guyer (30-percent)
No.22 DB - Latrell McCutchin - Austin LBJ (0-percent)
No.23 WR - J. Michael Sturdivant - Flower Mound Marcus (0-percent)
* (Percentages are the most updated percentages that @Suchomel \is giving on the likelihood that Texas signs each player)
What stands out about that list of 12 uncommitted?
Six of the top seven are from the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex.
No. 6 - Just for the record ...
The University of Texas should never do anything related to social media and BBQ without the supervision of Herb Hand.
This never happens if Hand is involved.
That poor, poor homeless-looking pickle.
No. 7 – BUY or SELL …
(Sell) I've had Stubb's BBQ several times, but I can't ever remember what it was that I ate and it was never so good that I've rushed to go back inside for food in the last 10 years or so. It's not me trying to be a hater, but I can't lie, either. Without remembering what I've eaten there, I'll take it over The Salt Lick.
(Buy) More elite kids are going to commit elsewhere before the Longhorns have a chance to prove themselves on the field.
(Sell) I don't believe the rest of the state is waiting to see what they do. It's hurting recruiting because those are two must-haves and they aren't in the cupboard yet, but not in a bigger 30,000 foot view of recruiting.
(Buy) Every receiver on the team not named Brennan Eagles better wake the hell up.
(Sell) Maybe one.
(Sell) I'm not sure I'll ever be convinced that Ehlinger will have a season that isn't impacted by some sort of injury.
(Buy) At this point, I think the SEC is full speed ahead.
(Sell) It could be, but I can't declare that when these kids haven't practice with seven new coaches even one time.
(Buy) Ehlinger, Eagles, Cosmi, Kerstteter, Ossai and Brown.
(Buy) Sure.
(Sell) No, not yet. Also, Mack recovered from that five-game losing streak at one point to run off four wins out of five himself before the floor fell out from underneath the program in 2010.
(Sell) Did Charlie Strong warrant benefit of the doubt in the 2017 recruiting class when there were obvious problem signs because he had signed two top-10 classes in the previous two seasons? Some people originally argued yes. I did not.
No. 8 - Scattershooting on the world of sports ...
... You had to know Dana White would be the first person putting his athletes out to perform during the Rona, but I have to say, it looks like a smart play by him at the moment because I've been a disenfranchised UFC fan for more than a year, but I was fully entertained by Saturday night's Fight Night on ESPN.
... In fact, with live soccer back on TV in the morning and UFC on at night, it felt very 2018 for me this weekend. Ironically, I did not watch the Bayern Munich game.
... Six hours of Bundesliga action. That's how much I watched this weekend. My TV has never been on FS1 and FS2 for so long.
... Dear Ed Oliver, you've got to be better than that.
... The NFL as a whole was kind of boring this weekend. Step it up, Rog.
... For the record, Scottie Pippen can never be ranked ahead of Charles Barkley on any all-time NBA players list. Period. It shouldn't annoy me, but it does. You can rank him ahead of all the Robins you want, but he can't rank ahead of other all-time great Batmen.
... I don't think I need crowds at my sports events nearly as much as some people.
No. 9 - The List: Ranking my favorite sports documentaries ...
With the conclusion of The Last Dance documentary series on Sunday night, I thought I would rank my favorite sports documentaries of all-time.
10. The Endless Summer
9. Bigger, Stronger, Faster
8. One Day in September
7. When We Were Kings
6. Baseball
5. The Two Escobars
4. Hillsborough
3. The Last Dance
2. Hoop Dreams
1. OJ: Made in America
No.10 - And finally...
Don't tell me that this dog isn't doing better than some of you...
