Recruiting Roundup
May 29th, 2009 by Scipio Tex
You know by now that Texas received it’s first blow of the recruiting season when Ahmad Dixon declared for Baylor. Losing an elite recruit to Baylor is like having Pat Boone pick your pocket. Dixon was one of our best five recruits and will serve as the bellcow of Baylor’s class. I don’t think this one is necessarily over, but if it is, Dixon must take heed of the Mack Brown recruiting curse.
How we deal with this one will tell me a bit about Muschamp’s impact on our philosophy. Urban Meyer would shrug and recommit himself to recruiting the prospect, chuckling at the great game that is swaying the suggestible minds of 17 year olds. As for Texas, we’ve had the tendency to act like an aggrieved wife who found out about an affair. Not even a clever French wife, who would use the affair as leverage to make the husband buy her a new wardrobe and take her to Cannes, but a mean-spirited American wife who takes all of your stuff and refuses to talk to you.
A lot of people have speculated about the angles Baylor played to pull this off and I think it’s pretty clear that it was a combination of depth chart angst, classroom worries, and access to Dixon via the defensive coordinator’s son, Levi Norwood. I also wonder if Akina showed him sufficient love after getting his pledge. Baylor played pretty effectively upon the notion that he’s a Day 1 starter in Waco who will be given small classes, individual attention, and “an academic plan” and Jason Smith’s draft status proves that the NFL will find talent wherever it is. This is all easily combatted, but the question is whether we even care to do so.
Folks who are saying “Forget Dixon if he’s scared to compete” are missing the boat. First, many high school players have no idea how good they actually are - see Connor Wood. We run a base nickel now and our coaches would like to do it with three safeties. There’s plenty of opportunity. Second, his fear of competition may not be on the football field, but in the classroom. It’s worth our time to fight this one out.