Texas Junior Day/M Junior Day
Texas held it's junior day today and so far has picked up 11 commitments. I'm envious of how easy it is for them to bring in so much top level talent.
We have a junior day coming up next weekend. How many commitments do you guys think we'll get out of it?
Update:
RT @gkketch: Horns just landed their second top five in-state commitment of the day and three others are on campus. Wow. Up to 12 commitments.
Update 2:
RT @gkketch: Horns just landed their second top five in-state commitment of the day and three others are on campus. Wow. Up to 12 commitments.
Update 3:
RT @gkketch: Texas is now at 13 commitments for the weekend. One of the guys that needed more time decided that he didn't. That's 3 OL commits.
February 13th, 2010 at 3:54 PM ^
I just hope the kids walk away strongly considering us.
February 13th, 2010 at 4:09 PM ^
This Olympics could use him...great character
February 13th, 2010 at 4:10 PM ^
is whether or not sheroid evans commits to UT at their junior day. if he doesn't i think we'll have a great shot
February 13th, 2010 at 4:32 PM ^
Rivals has him commited to to Texas already.
February 13th, 2010 at 4:34 PM ^
yup.
RT @espn_onthetrail: Texas bolsters secondary with speedster Sheroid Evans - http://tinyurl.com/ykw78lw
February 13th, 2010 at 5:02 PM ^
that sucks, but life goes on
February 13th, 2010 at 4:34 PM ^
in the talent level of Michigan HS football and Texas HS football. The Houston area alone will have 2-3 times the number of D1 football talent then the entire state of Michigan.
February 13th, 2010 at 4:36 PM ^
the coaching is a night and day difference too. my wife is from texas and i've been to a few high school games when visiting her family (temple, texas/lache seastrunk). The offenses look more like college offenses that a lot of schools in michigan.
February 13th, 2010 at 5:16 PM ^
everybody wants to send their players to UT, so they model their teams around what UT does. for instance, it wasn't that long ago that everyone down here was still running the option on offense. but as soon as mack brown switched to a spread all the schools down here did too.
February 13th, 2010 at 6:48 PM ^
The spread offenses that all those Big 12 schools run is more a function of the coaching on a high school level. It all started back when Texas high schools allowed 7 on 7s in the off seasons. QB's developed the shotgun, quick route type stuff that you see all over the place. Now, when all these quarterbacks get to college, they've never taken a snap under center, but can run the spread from day 1. You'll be hard-pressed to find a true pro-style qb from Texas in the last years or so, outside of Stafford.
The big guy behind all this was the old coach at Soutlake Carroll, Dodge, or something. He's since gone on to be the head coach at University of North Texas, but it's still the same feel down there. There was an amazing article on this on espn or si or something a while back--really great read.
February 13th, 2010 at 8:48 PM ^
burntorangeandblue - you're right on with your info. Todd Dodge was one of the main men pushing the spread. He had the entire system in Southlake, Texas for him. He had the final say in every hire from high school down to the junior highs and even had some guys running the elementary city leagues.
February 13th, 2010 at 6:28 PM ^
The spread has only really hit Michigan area high schools in the last 5 or 6 years. My brother's hs team ran the spread in 2005 and were the only team that they played all year that ran it. They went to the state semis with it too.
February 13th, 2010 at 7:09 PM ^
There was some use of it before that. Marshall ran a spread as early as 1995, but they were definitely the rare exception.
February 13th, 2010 at 5:40 PM ^
It's amazing to me that in the ten years prior to Mack Brown's arrival, Texas only won 57% of their games. Now they are looked at as one of the top three programs in college football.
February 13th, 2010 at 6:29 PM ^
Mack Brown is hot sizzle at Texas. It would've been interesting to see what he could have done at UNC.
February 13th, 2010 at 5:58 PM ^
sounds like a couple good possibilities for UM next weekend, but I don't know that they are in a hurry to commit.
February 13th, 2010 at 6:30 PM ^
UT is the easiest coaching job in college football.
February 13th, 2010 at 6:39 PM ^
which is why the coach there before mack brown was so successful. there are harder jobs but it's "easy" at UT now because mack brown has made it that way
February 13th, 2010 at 7:15 PM ^
The previous coach went 42-28-1. He upset two time defending MNC Nebraska in a BigXII championship game as a huge upset. Texas we in the rebuilding phase from the ugly early 90s, and Mackovic did a good job of rebuilding the lost recruiting ties. He just couldn't put them over the top.
Also, add in that the Aggies were in one of their few and far between periods of success, and Mackovic wasn't that bad.
February 13th, 2010 at 7:43 PM ^
but he's not anywhere near what mack brown is right now. he certainly didn't get his recruiting class at junior days. like i said, if coaching UT is "easy" it's because mack brown made it that way
EDIT: mack brown still hasn't lost 28 games at UT
February 13th, 2010 at 6:32 PM ^
It's much easier to recruit for UM than it is for West Virginia.
February 13th, 2010 at 6:40 PM ^
Texas junior day has also been that way for a while now (as long as I've been following recruiting). They expect to shore up a big chunk of their class at junior day and I think they tell kids coming that if they get an offer, they want them to accept right away to keep their spot. I think it's a double edged sword: on one hand you can get a lot of your recruiting done early, so you can focus on finishing strong (which texas did BIG TIME this year), but on the other hand, as mere juniors, you're taking a lot of kids before their senior year, so there's a bit more risk than waiting to see how they play.
Texas as a state also I think has more of a culture that is focused on the longhorns where as Michigan has two BCS schools with a much smaller talent pool.
February 13th, 2010 at 7:43 PM ^
If they only got 12 commitments, that's actually a little disappointing for them.
The beat writer for Texas was saying on Rivals Radio that they were expecting 15-17 today.
February 13th, 2010 at 7:45 PM ^
They're having another JR Day next weekend.
February 15th, 2010 at 2:58 AM ^
Yeah but I think something like 8 of them are on the ESPNU 150 list as of right now. That's pretty insane.
February 13th, 2010 at 9:34 PM ^
Had some Michigan interest and is form the same high school as Stonum, Herron, and Woolfork. We were hoping that he wouldnt commit today so we'd have a chance but he was a longshot either way. Also completely unrelated but Jaxon Shipley, Jordan Shipley's brother also committed to TX. I'm so jealous of their in-state talent level
February 13th, 2010 at 10:11 PM ^
Would get so much more boring if we didn't have recruiting to obsess over :)