Defensive lineman Princely Umanmielen pulled a bit of a surprise with his timing when he committed to Texas back in mid-August. The Manor standout had gone back and forth with a few different schools sitting atop his list, with the trio of Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma all fighting it out to the finish.
The Longhorns won out with a verbal commitment on August 12 and while Umanmielen has maintained since then he’s happy with his decision, he has also stated all along that he would take other official visits to cover his bases.
Umanmielen will take his first visit this weekend to Oklahoma to see the Sooners host Texas Tech. He’ll be in College Station on October 11 to visit Texas A&M. Initially, he planned to take his Texas official last weekend, when the Longhorns hosted Oklahoma State, but he changed those plans and will now take his UT visit the weekend of October 18 at the request of the Texas staff.
“They pushed it back. They want it to be my last official,” Umanmielen said.
Umanmielen said coaches besides those at Texas hit him up “pretty much weekly,” with A&M and Oklahoma being the most aggressive. It’s mostly small talk, he said, with those coaches telling him they want to get him on their campus for a visit. Some of the conversations focus on coaches trying to convince Umanmielen that he won’t be as successful at Texas as he would be in their respective programs, but Umanmielen said he’s not buying it
“They tell me that if I go (to Texas) I won’t be doing any moving around, things like that. They talk about the Texas defensive scheme. I don’t pay much attention to it,” Umanmielen said.
The 6-4, 234-pound Umanmielen wasn’t able to make it to the Longhorns’ game last weekend, but he got a chance to catch it on television and liked what he saw from Texas in its 36-30 win over Oklahoma State.
“I think in the game, they played hard the whole time. I felt like we would have won by a lot more if not for some small mistakes like the punt return fumbles,” Umanmielen said. “But I felt like they executed well except on special teams.”
Umanmielen and his Manor teammates picked up an easy win last week, beating Houston St. Pius X 53-7.
“It felt good. I played pretty well for the two quarters I played before they took us out,” said Umanmielen, who recorded 4 tackles for loss, 2 ½ sacks, 8 total tackles.
