Change in recruiting philosophy

[horn4jc]

After the dust has settled on signing day, this year seems to be a shift in recruiting philosophy. Based on the actions of the coaching staff as well as Mack's presser today, here are some of the changes.

Mack has shown more of a willingness to go out of state to get top talent. Even though we lost the DGB sweepstakes, they put more effort into recruiting him and it may have helped in getting Shiro Davis. That and Bo Davis. Also, him and Stacy Searles influence Mack in getting a couple of JUCOs at need positions. Kudos to Mack for being flexible in his philosophy.

Also, Mack is more flexible with deadlines on Junior days. If the player is really a top talent, he'll let him look around before committing. He indicated in his press conference he advised them to wait till after at least 3 days from the OV to make a decision. He encourages them to look around if they are not 100% sold on Texas before committing to them. Also, he doesn't seem to be in as of a hurry to lock down the class. Guys like Marcus Johnson and Kendall Sanders emerged later than the Junior days. So he had some ships available to offer them.

Lastly, one minor adjustment in evaluating talent. Instead of just looking at the highlights of the games, he and the coaching staff watch whole games of recruits. Anyone looks good with the highlights. But he wants to see how they react to adversity and if they take plays off in certain situations.

 

[Horns11]

I find it somewhat shocking that he would admit to the 3rd point. I know for a fact that going back as far as 1999, several assistants would attend HS games on Friday night whenever we had a home game on Saturday. So only watching "highlights" instead of entire games doesn't seem quite right in that context. Unless Greg Davis would sit in the press box for 5 minutes and shoot the **** with some of the local homers before heading back to Austin, which doesn't seem like his personality.

I think the staff just got plain lazy from the 2004-08 classes. We were really damn good on the field, so we took the highest-ranked Texan recruits from each of the "expert" lists without much regard to the highlights at all. Just plug them in to the system and we'd be fine.

 

[IdahoanHorn]

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[H-D Rider]

JC...
I agree with what you said along with Horns11 whole heartedly, as well an additional thought...
Mack has let-up on the reins of bringing the kids into Austin for an official offer and let the coaches who are out recruiting to give out the verbal offer! I remember early last spring hearing a youngster say that Brian Harsin had 'offered' or Stacey Searels had 'offered'! To me that was huge and gave me insight that Mack was going to trust his coaches to make decisions and that Texas's past recruiting ideology had indeed changed... like we saw over the last 10-12 months, it doesn't matter where you live, if you show interest in Texas, Texas will show interest in you!

Just think if Texas was in on 4 of the top 5 receivers in the country this past year, I wonder how many we would have signed with Texas?? A year after all the hires Mack made, I don't think there is an 'iffy' in any of them! This new staff is $$$.