Did not Know JT Barrett was from Texas. Wanted to come to Texas but Swoopes had committed? Anyone know anything about this story? Not sure how I missed this!
Barrett was only semi-impressive his junior year of HS, much like Swoopes. He never intended to start for tOSU, as he saw who was ahead of him in the pecking order. His other biggest QB offer was Illinois. A bunch of schools like Nebraska and Ole Miss were recruiting him as an ATH/WR. This was a case of poor evaluation by pretty much every college, and a kid who developed into a great QB, rather than wow scouts with great QB skills. Sometimes, it's a crap shoot. You can win or lose those, and Mack's staff basically didn't want to show up to the table. Neither did teams like A&M and Oregon, so it's not like we're idiotic. It just happens.
look at the tape, which I remember well because the recruiting sites were so high on him and couldn't understand Mack not offering. He was exactly what UT needed and was a pretty polished passer and decent runner already. I don't know about the other QB misses outside of offering Manziel and Griffin at the wrong positions, but this was a kid that was willing to sign even with Swoopes in house at QB. Just a flat out misevaluation or perhaps a promise to Swoopes that he would be the only QB taken. Plain mistake.
Recruiting is just like the draft... a buncha "experts" making judgement on a player that at the end of the day seems like nothing more than guessing... Weatherman odds of getting their **** right...
Barrett's astonishing development is one of the reasons that OSU's OC Tom Herman won the Broyals Award as the top asst. coach in the country. He also recruited JTB as TX is his "territory." He was at SHSU and Rice as an asst so he knows TX pretty well. He's now rumored to be the the front-runner for the Houston HC job. Hate to lose him but he's a helluva coach.
I wish people would get off the Manziel thing. UT never offered Manziel anything. No position was ever offered to him.