war room and other nuggets
With Texas playing at 11 a.m. on Saturday, it may not be a huge number of recruiting visitors, but there will be some important targets on campus, including four official visitors. A quick look at some of the bigger names we’ll be tracking …
Official visits
QB
Cameron Rising – The UT commitment will take his official visit this weekend. Rising has always said the right things when I’ve talked to him and sounds very happy with his Texas commitment, but there continues to be speculation that he could take another visit or two. This weekend could be a good chance for the UT staff to tighten up any issues (if there are issues) and lock down Rising’s pledge.
WR
Rondale Moore – Another UT commitment who will be on his official visit. Moore still isn’t saying much about his commitment but I do expect a Purdue visit at some point. A person close to Moore told another Rivals reporter this week that he doesn’t expect Moore to sign with Texas. We’ll see if the UT staff can change those opinions this weekend, but if Moore takes a visit to Purdue
following his UT visit, that would be pretty telling.
OL
Badara Traore – Every time I’ve talked to Traore, who ranks as one of the nation’s top JUCO prospects, he speaks very highly of Texas and mentions that he’s followed the UT program for a while. The Longhorns will face some tough competition for his commitment, but my gut tells me that Texas is going to come out of this weekend as his leader.
DE/LB
Nikolas Bonitto – This one should be interesting. When I talked to Bonitto a few weeks ago, shortly after UT offered, Bonitto had very good things to say about Texas and a recruiting source in the state of Florida told me a couple weeks ago he thinks the Longhorns could very much win this one. It’ll be interesting to see what Bonitto says after the visit.
Key unofficial visits
WR
Tommy Bush – Bush, who holds a UT offer, is no stranger to the Texas campus. I still think if Texas pushes hard, it stands a really good chance to eventually land his commitment.
2019 WR
Jordan Whittington – Like Bush, Whittington has been on the UT campus a ton. He’s a top national prospect who has been close to committing a couple times. This weekend should only strengthen UT’s already strong position with him.
2019 OL
Branson Bragg – Dude loves UT and the Longhorns are going to be tough to beat in this one. (Suchomel)
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Ridge Point tight end
Mustapha Muhammad is scheduled to announce his commitment on Friday at 6:30 p.m. His final schools are Michigan, Texas, UCLA and Clemson.
The Longhorns did a great job of putting themselves in contention on this one, especially considering Muhammad had pretty much dropped Texas after the previous staff quit talking to him. But as I said on Wednesday, my guess is that this one is going to go Michigan’s way. (Suchomel)
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Top national 2019 RB
Noah Cain and his IMG Academy teammates had a bye last week, so Cain was back in Texas and was able to attend the Texas-OU game as a guest of the Longhorns’. Cain, who ranks No. 17 on the 2019 Rivals100, said it was a tremendous experience.
“It was a great game, great environment. With me being recruited by both schools, it made it even better,” Cain said. “I have an opportunity to play for both schools so that was good getting to see both sides of it.”
The Texas staff can’t communicate with recruits in person on the day of the game since it’s on a neutral field, but Cain said he was in touch with the UT staff over the phone. Interestingly, he said he and the staff discussed UT’s offensive line issues, since Cain is paying close attention to the blocking he would receive at various schools he’s considering.
“I talked to them. They knew I was curious about the offensive line paly. That’s been a big question for me,” Cain said. “I know they have a lot of injuries on that side of the unit, they’re trying to get that fixed. I’m definitely looking at that as a big factor with me choosing the Longhorns, because without an offensive line can’t do much.
“They told me they have like five of their (o-line) starters out or something, a true freshman playing. Really they’re just filling the gaps in where they’re lacking at,” Cain said. “They said they’re recruiting linemen in this class to come help them out. I know they have a kid from Frisco, who I know is good. But it starts in the trenches, you have to have good blocking.”
While Cain does have questions about UT’s offensive line play and would probably like to see progress from that play, he did like what he saw from UT’s freshman quarterback Sam Ehlinger.
“Ehlinger palayed hard at. He’s a great player, future of the program,” Cain said. “I would have a chance to play with him so that’s good.”
The 5-11, 200-pound Cain is really doing his homework on the schools he’s considering. He told me he’s watching offenses closely to see what kind of blocking schemes they run and he sees himself as more of a zone back who can find cutback lanes. So who fits that billing from what he’s seen?
Oklahoma, LSU. Ohio State runs more gap schemes. Texas, before the season, told me they would be more of a pass team this year because of their linemen and their personnel, so I knew before the season they weren’t going to be running the ball as much, so I’m glad I was aware of that before the season,” Cain said.
He’s also looking at depth charts and trying to find a situation that will allow him to compete for early playing time.
“I’m graduating early, so I want to come in and make an impact in a program, make a big impact from the start,” Cain said. “That’s definitely an eye-opener for me. I know they (Texas) have Keaontay (Ingram) in the 2018 class, but a lot can change. So we’ll see.”
Cain plans to take an unofficial visit to Clemson in two weeks. (Suchomel)
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When I talked to Richland LB
DaShaun White last week, he had yet to pick up a UT offer. The A&M commitment was hopeful one would come and told me if it did, he’d probably take an official visit to Texas. That offer wound up coming the day after he and I talked, and White said he was glad to finally get the news.
“It was really a long time waiting. It was something I felt like could have happened a while ago. But not everything goes as planned,” White said. “I’m happy we still got it trough. In the end it won’t really matter when it came through.”
White camped at Texas in the summer and was told after that performance that the staff wanted to see some of his senior film. Todd Orlando attended Richland’s game against Fort Worth Eastern Hills a few weeks ago and must have liked what he saw.
“Coach Orlando shows up to my game after watching some film without even talking to me. I didn’t know what was going on, but they were keeping up with my film and he shows up to a game, complimented my blitz timing and everything,” White said. “I think they actually got to see how fast I was because I didn’t run a great 40 time at their camp, since it was my first time running over 220.”
White told me he’s now “100 percent” certain he’d take an official visit to Texas. He was hoping to connect with Orlando this week to pick out a date.
White’s thoughts on the UT offer …
“I’m happy I can put them in the loop. I have a lot of really good friends committed there. The culture there is amazing, the defense is stellar in itself and keeps building every game. It was an honor to get that offer. I’m happy we can finally build a relationship with coach (Tom) Herman and coach Orlando and go from there.”
White was at the Texas-OU game on Saturday and it sounds like the experience really blew him away.
“The fans were out of this world. I’ve never seen fans get that riled up over a game. That was fun to watch,” he said. “OU has a really good offense, so it was good to see Texas kind of figure things out before the half and come out and shut them out for a while. It gave their offense a chance to dig into the game, which seems to be their story a little bit. I think if they fix a few things, they have a chance to be a really scary team.”
White remains committed to Texas A&M, but is strongly considering both Texas and Oklahoma. He’ll take an official visit to OU next weekend.
“It’s really close,” White said of the race between A&M, Texas and OU. “Actually, whenever I did commit, it took me a lot longer than I wanted to just because I couldn’t make my mind up. I’m happy with my decision. I don’t want to take it back, but if things don’t work out with A&M, I have good options.” (Suchomel)
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Texas linebacker commitment
Byron Hobbs is still a couple weeks from returning to action after suffering a neck muscle injury early in the year, but he was able to make to the Texas-OU game last weekend and said he loved every minute of it.
“It was definitely an experience. I’ve never experienced anything like that before,” Hobbs said. “The atmosphere was amazing. When they went down 20-0, the fans never gave up. The recruits were talking the whole time, saying OU sucks. We were calling Sam the GOAT because of all the big-time plays he was making.”
Hobbs and DaShaun White are pretty good friends, and those two talked quite a bit at the game.
“I was definitely talking to DaShaun. I was talking to him heavy. I was talking to a lot of other guys – Reese (Moore), Keaontay (Ingram), Dicker the kicker,” Hobbs said. “I was just talking really to everyone that was down there.”
Never one to lack confidence, Hobbs said he was envisioning himself playing in that game and he can’t wait to represent Texas in that rivalry for the next four or five years.
“I wish Baker Mayfield had another year. He likes to talk a lot. I can definitely see myself playing in that game,” Hobbs said. “My dad said, ‘I can see you having two defensive touchdowns, a pick six and a forced fumble you pick up and score for a TD.’ I can see myself in that Naashon Hughes spot, getting some big plays, a pick 6, Kyler Murray, not letting him scramble.”
I asked Hobbs what he liked so much from Ehlinger …
“He has the juice. My dad even called him Tim Tebow, or a fullback that plays quarterback. He referred to him like Tim Tebow because he runs so hard. He might get hit hard, but he’s going to get back up,” Hobbs said. (Suchomel)
