Dallas Morning News has whole page on recruiting today. Lists from their own Sports Day for local area and 247 for state and national. 247 has 15 of their top 25 national players from the Southeast (Virginia to Louisiana). Is this true or more likely SEC bias? Texas is projected to clean up in the top end of 247s state rankings, but A&M is getting most of the linemen in the top 50. What's with this? Herman has one recruit of note from the News North Texas 100. Ignoring or better waters elsewhere? First Texas player in the national list is Foster at 19. Only DB and WR make the national list from Texas. True evaluation or lack of careful evaluation? Lets talk....
57 visits and no posts. Are all my observations on point? Where are the gurus to splain the sistiation?
yes, i've said that also. the answer to that question has been "not a great year for Texas OL." I'm not sure.
Recruiting services and media like the Dallas Morning News do fans a good service with their rankings of recruits. They devote a lot of resources to it. That said, if Tom Herman/Gary Patterson/Lincoln Riley thinks a kid is a great prospect and media sources disagree... I'm betting with the coaches. They have more time, more expertise and more skin in the game.
Agree with the thesis, but it is hard to believe anything that comes out of a coaches mouth. Of the three mentioned: - Herman's 2017 team showed improvement on the field but not in the win/loss column. Without a decent product on the field Herman has to recruit based on hope. Not sure that is any better than what the recruiting services and media do. Losing an OL to SM frigging U is not a good sign. (I will add that with the coaching changes at aggy and piggy, if Herman doesn't win on the field in a big way Texas will be in trouble.) - Patterson seems to be the best judge of talent, but his base is the 3 stars, and 3 stars don't do much in the media/recruiting circles. - Riley has Big Red behind him and is in the playoff with Stoops people his first year. No one knows what he is all about, but as indicated, Big Red has his back.
TH #1 priority is to nail down Houston, and he is right to do so. I doubt the DMN gives them a fair shake.
It makes sense for Herman to heavily recruit Houston as that is previous home base(U of Houston). Eventually, he has to branch out to North Texas. There are lots of terrific players in the DFW area and it doesn’t make sense to let The Land Thieves, Frogs, Raiders, SMU and out of state interlopers to just run free there. I hope in 2019, Texas takes the best players from the entire state. Perhaps the top 6 in Texas were all from Houston area this year, but not every year. For sure need to keep LSU and Aggy from poaching Houston area though.
It's not just "home base", he rightly perceives that Houston has the best talent overall in the state. Same strategy David Pierce is applying for baseball.
Allen, DeSoto, Cedar Hill, Southlake, Denton Guyer, Euless Trinity all produce a lot of D-1 talent each year, but there is a lot of diversity in where kids choose to attend.
1 It would be in error to say that the entire Texas Recruiting Staff puts little effort into other markets besides Houston. We just do better there. 2 North Texas is a weak area for Texas recruiting recently. OU, LSU, Bama, aTm, OSU all recruit North Texas more effectively. 2a If I were OU, I would focus on Oklahoma and North Texas, so that makes sense. 2b But no reason aTm, LSU, or Bama should be more successful in North Texas than we are. 3 I'd really like Jeff Okudah, Baron Browning, Anthony Hines, Jack Anderson, Tyrell Shavers, Robert Barnes, or Jalen Reagor in last year's class. 7 of the Top 15 from 2017 (247 composite) were from DFW. 3a Maybe Herman isn't reaping the rewards of a full year at Texas in recruiting. Maybe this year is Houston-heavy at the top, whereas last year was DFW-heavy. Last year, Sam was our highest ranking recruit in-state at 19th (247 composite). 3b If we don't improve our North Texas recruiting, expect some years to be average recruiting classes (like last year).
Why did U Georgia do so well? Per Scout the top two players in the nation (both QBs) are from the state. 3 of the top 10, 5 of the top 25 and 7 of the top 50. If those players are truly that good it is a once in a lifetime opportunity for them and they took advantage. My premise is still that Scout has a SEC bias (Virginia to Louisiana dominate the top 100). Georgia with 3% of the US population produce 14% of Scout's top 50??
If Scout is Emfinger, I quit taking his service when he referred to us as TU when publishing that a DB, Charles Washington, either committed or signed with us.
When I was watching the UA game, I noticed the total bias that the ESPN reporters were giving to the SEC specifically to Georgia and Bama. There was a good measure of other SEC schools as well but man they laid it on thick with the SEC love.
