Jamile Johnson gone, Ketchum or Locke in?

jayakris

jayakris

2,500+ Posts
It seems Jamile Johnson made a last minute visit to Tech, as his HS coach was hired there, and now he has posted he is "opening up his recruiting" as per his tweet. That means he is gone. Consensus 3-star but he was another lower ranked guy who may be better than his ranking that Charlie had picked up. He had committed and decommitted from UNC, and OU before coming to us. Now going to Tech it seems. Tech? Oh well, good luck, if the coach has that much influence on you.... He was expected to be a safety for us.

This was being speculated ever since his HS coach got hired on Friday. Knew it could be coming, but I thought perhaps he was only being nice to his HS coach. Apparently not.

Now it makes sense why an equally good (actually better) athlete JW Ketchum suddenly started getting twitter follows from multiple UT coaches on friday. High 3-star dual-threat QB from Holton Hill's high school, who is a tremendous athlete (though not expected to be a QB in college, and probably be a safety). Here is what's interesting. He was in the car with Boyd and Hill when they came to Austin on Friday to commit. Hill and Boyd stayed back in Austin, and the story was that Ketchum did not have a ride back, so he was staying for the weekend too. Haha!

Ketchum is committed to Baylor but is rumored to have been a longtime longhorn fan. So, there could be smoke out there. Don't be surprised if we have a change of commits for that safety position. Probably an upgrade actually, if it happens, but close. We will see.
 
What is interesting is that some of us were getting concerned ever since Friday evening about the JW Ketchum smoke. It was all a quiet visit. But he could be seen at the back seat in a picture that Holton Hill had posted Friday morning, though people only figured out later that it probably was Ketchum (and later it was confirmed that he indeed came to Austin).

My concern was that the smoke started just around the time Charlie's in-home with Locksley finished at Maryland. So the worry was whether we were making such a desperate move as to pick up Ketchum as a QB (he is not a great passer though a fantastic runner). But seeing it was Bedford who suddenly put in a twitter follow on him, it looked petty weird. Then the Jamile Johnson story broke yesterday. So, to me it is probably a bit of a relief
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But nothing official from Ketchum's side. I would say that it is just not normal for a kid to hang out in another school without an official visit in the last weekend of recruiting. But... we... shall... see...
 
Maybe this clears a place for the Baker kid that's currently committed to Georgia. Texas has three corners in this class already, but they are tall and play physical. In recruiting it's better to overload on corners than safety. Corners can get bigger and turn into safeties. Against some spread teams, you need more cover guys than thumpers anyway.

Safeties that grow turn into linebackers and in this class we are SET at linebacker.
 
To put a positive spin on it, now Jamile can be the headline defensive recruit in Lubbock this signing day. Let's face it, in the 2015 class, this kid would have been the fifth highest ranked DB coming to Texas. We even have two recruits with the last name Johnson rated higher.
 
Also, we just offered a safety from Beumont, Oregon commit 3-star PJ Locke (about national top-700), 5-10, 18- lbs. Not really sure what is behind it.... Based on ratings he is not as good as Jamile Johnson, but his size rather than the play seems to be the reason for the lower ranking too. I guess our staff just don't want to be left without bodies, as the secondary depth is pretty thin right now, even with all the new commits.
 
If Oregon and Texas want a kid, I'll bet he's a helluva prospect, now matter what Ketch and Liucci have him rated.
 
Now PJ Locke himself is mad at what the recruiting services show for his size/weight. he just tweeted -The Link

@PjLocke4: In case yall didn't know... I'm 5'11 almost 6'0 200+ lbs
 
Seems like that's about the same dimensions as a kid named Earl Thomas that Mack recuited. I can't remember what happened to him. I think he stayed on the roster a couple of years and looked pretty good to me. I know he didn't play four years here. Did the coaches run him off (or Trap Door as the Aggy's say) before his senior season cause he was too small?
 
Funny you mention that, Crockett. Just yesterday I was watching some football game that happened to be there after I watched a girl singing at a stadium (she is from Katy, TX or something?). Anyway, there was this guy with "Thomas III" on his jersey, and I thought of that same dude at Texas (he also had a III in his name, I think). But that guy had some dreadlocks, and this guy looks bald. Yeah, whatever happened to that dude? These days I only look at twitter, so I'm kinda out of touch.
 
It seems PJ Locke is staying with Oregon. he just tweeted. It was kinda late in the process, so I'm not surprised. He was a good player, but probably not a big loss, considering that Charlie hadn't though highly enough of him to offer early enough. Hey, there is one more Texas player who at least won't annoy us in the future saying Texas didn't offer if he makes it big elsewhere!
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