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Texas Recruiting Notes 2021


Reese Bennett

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1 hour ago, HenryJames said:

Watched his junior HUDL. He’s part of a lot of double teams which I find bizarre. His few pass protection highlights are basically him tackling the pass rusher.

Calallen is a pretty well known Wing T team. Lots of technique work but if the kids good....

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1 hour ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

I'm not suggesting that I may re-think my Saturdays going forward if there is no football, but there will be folks who do. Others have suggested as much.  

This is a college football message board, so my opinion is easily dismissed.  I do get that, but looking at the big picture here---there are lots of people who are fans of college football, but they aren't fans.  

 

 

You keep trying to force this narrative on the Football board too, but it’s just stupid. People will say they’ve found better ways to use their time and then as soon as football comes back on, they’ll go right back to watching it. The same thing happened with covid and every time there’s been a strike over CBAs. 

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50 minutes ago, Burt Macklin said:

You keep trying to force this narrative on the Football board too, but it’s just stupid. People will say they’ve found better ways to use their time and then as soon as football comes back on, they’ll go right back to watching it. The same thing happened with covid and every time there’s been a strike over CBAs. 

I said the same about sports a few months ago, but I’ll be damned if you don’t see my ass sitting 6 inches from the tv for this NBA bubble.

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Calallen? Beating up on a bunch of 5’7” Mexicans from South Texas and then getting their shit pushed in when they play a teams from the rest of Texas that have actual talent has been Calallen’s MO for the last 20 years.

Edited by Not a Sock
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28 minutes ago, Sgt. Slaughter said:

I said the same about sports a few months ago, but I’ll be damned if you don’t see my ass sitting 6 inches from the tv for this NBA bubble.

The bubble games have saved professional sports in America. I'm not a huge fan of the NBA outside of Rockets games, but most of these games have been really well played, except for whatever the Lakers are doing.

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27 minutes ago, Not a Sock said:

Calallen? Beating up on a bunch of 5’7” Mexicans from South Texas and then getting their shit pushed in when they play a teams from the rest of Texas that have actual talent has been Calallen’s MO for the last 20 years.

racist comedy central GIF

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1 hour ago, Not a Sock said:

Calallen? Beating up on a bunch of 5’7” Mexicans from South Texas and then getting their shit pushed in when they play a teams from the rest of Texas that have actual talent has been Calallen’s MO for the last 20 years.

This was also true 30 years ago.

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9 minutes ago, tokamak said:

I get that no one was excited about Lengyel, but if that was Plan B, what gives us any reason to believe that Plan C will be something way better?

Usually with marginal prospects, we get a variety of takes, some favorable & some not.  Don’t recall one positive opinion on him.

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2 minutes ago, golfclap said:

History.

Hand has had a dreadful run so far in 2020. He put a shit ton of effort into 3 recruitments that were varying levels of doomed from the outset (Foster and Brocks) and stepped in his own dick by not having made contingencies for in-person camps and not having built relationships with many of the other 2021 OL class. So he added Myslinski, who likely never plays a down here, I don’t think he was going to be allowed a second marginal athletic take in fucking August. 

Herman, McKnight, and staff will identify jumbo athletes that have far more upside over the past and next few weeks. Carrington and perhaps Valai if he has the cycles, while attacking 2022 guys, will assist with some relationship building and Texas will end up signing 2 guys that are projects with markedly more athletic upside, while Hand continues to bang away at the few guys he’s made inroads with, to this point. 
 

the low hanging fruit that Hand has been dabbling with simply doesn’t fit AT ALL with what this staff has done over the previous years. He needs help and he needs to take a minute and stoop flailing. It’s a long way to Feb. 

Yeah, the athletic profiles of the some of the backups/reaches this cycle at OL does not mesh at all with the kind of 3 stars we've taken in the past like Cosmi, C. Jones, Hookfin, Karic. Hopefully Herman, Chang, and Yancy saw the same thing and vetoed grabbing a guy like Lengyel right now.   

I'm definitely on team wait for late risers instead of settling for limited athletes at this point. Obviously, Covid could really throw a wrench in finding late risers if there's no football this year, but even then, Herman, Hand, Carrington, Chang, etc. have all been in place for at least three years and have been recruiting the state heavily. We should have the cache with TX HS coaches to get the inside info on some late rising jumbo athletes even if we don't get the benefit of senior film. 

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7 hours ago, Bevo said:

I think our best bet is to do whatever it takes to get Byrd and Foster

 

They're not coming and haven't been for a while.

 

30 minutes ago, tokamak said:

I get that no one was excited about Lengyel, but if that was Plan B, what gives us any reason to believe that Plan C will be something way better?

 

Hopefully someone like Leyrer, we need true Tackles.

 

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45 minutes ago, tokamak said:

I get that no one was excited about Lengyel, but if that was Plan B, what gives us any reason to believe that Plan C will be something way better?

Because this staff has shown the ability to identify project OL, given senior film to look at. I think most would be more happy with Leyrer over Lengyel, and maybe after a little senior film they get serious about Ezra.

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33 minutes ago, golfclap said:

History.

Hand has had a dreadful run so far in 2020. He put a shit ton of effort into 3 recruitments that were varying levels of doomed from the outset (Foster and Brocks) and stepped in his own dick by not having made contingencies for in-person camps and not having built relationships with many of the other 2021 OL class. So he added Myslinski, who likely never plays a down here, I don’t think he was going to be allowed a second marginal athletic take in fucking August. 

Herman, McKnight, and staff will identify jumbo athletes that have far more upside over the past and next few weeks. Carrington and perhaps Valai if he has the cycles, while attacking 2022 guys, will assist with some relationship building and Texas will end up signing 2 guys that are projects with markedly more athletic upside, while Hand continues to bang away at the few guys he’s made inroads with, to this point. 
 

the low hanging fruit that Hand has been dabbling with simply doesn’t fit AT ALL with what this staff has done over the previous years. He needs help and he needs to take a minute and stoop flailing. It’s a long way to Feb. 

This is a big year for Hand. The OL needs to be much more consistent, and he needs to lock down 2-3 of the 2022 kids. If we are having this same conversation in August 2021, then Hand will be coaching out the string, if on the staff at all. Though I don't think Herman gets fired after this season, so Hand will at least get another recruiting cycle.

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3 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

So is Hand simply not good enough of a coach and recruiter, or is it a broader/different issue? Because if Herman whiffed on his first changing change, that’s concerning.

I think it is a little concerning that we are his 4th program in the last 7 seasons and that even with established connections to Franklin and Malzahn, neither made much of an effort to keep him when he moved on.

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Hand is probably a decent coach, but I don’t have a ton of faith in him as a recruiter at this point.
 

Herman and his support staff are the ones who have the track record of finding diamonds in the rough at OL, not Hand. Hand wasn’t here when we took Cosmi. I don’t know why that benefit of the doubt automatically gets extended to him.

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19 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

So is Hand simply not good enough of a coach and recruiter, or is it a broader/different issue? Because if Herman whiffed on his first coaching change, that’s concerning.

There's no doubt Beck/Herman fucked over Hand and gave him little chance to look good last year, and when combined with the overall bad results of the regular season, we went from looking good with a lot of our top prospects to fading fast with almost all of them.  I think our OL recruiting would've gone a lot differently if our defense and offensive game planning/coaching weren't dogshit almost the whole year. 

Hand's still a bit of a question mark. He's had a mix of good and bad indicators on his resume. There's no denying our OL improved when we replaced Warehime with him, but that's a low bar. Then again, he was hung out to dry in 2019 and given almost no chance to succeed, so it's hard to say. I think this year will be by far our best indication of him as an OL coach, and assuming we can get even average play at RT, I think our OL will look really good when combined with the massive improvement of Beck>Yurcich.  Overall, he seems to be a pretty good recruiter, but not elite. I expect his OL recruiting will pick up if we can have a good season (if we have one at all). 

More than anything though, Herman royally fucked up by following up the a Sugar Bowl win without making obviously needed coaching staff changes and then had a 7-5 regular season, and it impacted our recruiting at every single position.  Covid delaying/eliminating this season is bad luck, since we seemed primed to have a bounce back year with the new coaches and our most talented roster in a decade, but this is basically the inverse of DKR's quote playing out: Bad luck is what happens when shitty preparation meets lack of opportunity to change it.

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2 minutes ago, Lonestar88 said:

Hand is probably a decent coach, but I don’t have a ton of faith in him as a recruiter at this point.
 

Herman and his support staff are the ones who have the track record of finding diamonds in the rough at OL, not Hand. Hand wasn’t here when we took Cosmi. I don’t know why that benefit of the doubt automatically gets extended to him.

I don't see anyone saying he's some evaluating savant. The belief in identifying diamonds in the rough is with the system Herman's set up with Brian Chang and our personnel department, which is why we've found really good late riser OL every year, regardless of OL coach. Same goes for a lot of positions.  Herman has established a really good evaluation/personnel system and every coach benefits from it, so why wouldn't we expect that to apply to Hand's unit this year? 

No position coach is evaluating all on their own. When talking about a position coach as a recruiter, people are talking much more about their ability to land a target than their ability as an evaluator, because the evaluations are a system-wide effort.  

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This time last year we had OL recruiting wrapped up.

I think Majors will end up being a multi year starter on the interior after a few years of a red shirt and S&C program.  Same with Karic.  I'm not sure with Parr, still TBD imo.  And let's not forget Garth was as high as #6 in the state and #38 nationally at one point before injury.  If he rehabs and gets a few off seasons under his belt he may be the best one of that haul.

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Just now, Burt Macklin said:

I don't see anyone saying he's some evaluating savant. The belief in identifying diamonds in the rough is with the system Herman's set up with Brian Chang and our personnel department, which is why we've found really good late riser OL every year, regardless of OL coach. Same goes for a lot of positions.  Herman has established a really good evaluation/personnel system and every coach benefits from it, so why wouldn't we expect that to apply to Hand's unit this year? 

No position coach is evaluating all on their own. When talking about a position coach as a recruiter, people are talking much more about their ability to land a target than their ability as an evaluator, because the evaluations are a system-wide effort.  

The biggest indictment of Hand imo, is his seemingly lack of a relationship with any backup plans. After we missed on our top targets, it was panic mode. He landed Myslinksi because of a long pre-existing relationship with his father. 

If Hand missed all of his top targets and built little if any relationships with his backup targets, and we agree that he isn’t a key piece in evaluating his position, then what exactly does he do, recruiting wise, that’s valuable?

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3 minutes ago, Lonestar88 said:

The biggest indictment of Hand imo, is his seemingly lack of a relationship with any backup plans. After we missed on our top targets, it was panic mode. He landed Myslinksi because of a long pre-existing relationship with his father. 

If Hand missed all of his top targets and built little if any relationships with his backup targets, and we agree that he isn’t a key piece in evaluating his position, then what exactly does he do, recruiting wise, that’s valuable?

I mean this is all conjecture based on this recruiting class only,  so hard to say either of these things is the case unless it becomes a trend.

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Just now, Hank_Hill said:

I mean this is all conjecture based on this recruiting class only,  so hard to say either of these things is the case unless it becomes a trend.

I agree, I’m not saying fire the guy. I just don’t have a good enough reason to blindly trust in him as a recruiter at this point.

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Mike Roach: Thoughts on the week that was in Texas recruiting

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—It never fails that what is expected to be a slow week in August perfect for vacation turns into a busy week and a reminder that recruiting never really sleeps. Though I took some time away from the message board at Horns247, I still kept in tune with what was happening. Now that I’m back, here are some thoughts on the week that was.

—The recruitment of Michael Myslinski was more up and down at the end than I expected it to be. From the time I connected with him following his offer, it was clear that Myslinski was very interested in Texas and what the Longhorns had to offer. As we came down the stretch, I figured it would be fairly open and shut, but Michigan State made it incredibly interesting down the stretch. Kudos to our Notre Dame insider Tom Loy for having a lot of intel in this recruitment and assisting me with what was happening outside of Austin. The COVID-19 pandemic restricting our travel hampers our ability to develop sources outside of the state, so those types of resources in the network are invaluable.

—I know there has been some talk and discussion on Myslinski in comparison to other targets on the board. While the narrative of Herb Hand recruiting the son of an old family friend is true, I was told Myslinski was a kid that multiple members of the offensive staff wanted and prioritized. I wish I had a better feel for the level of talent he plays against, but there is a lot to like on tape. Start with the NFL pedigree as the son of a former professional player and current strength and conditioning coordinator.  Follow that with film that shows strong technique and a nasty demeanor with the ability to finish blocks.  My only real questions are level of competition and his actual size.  While he’s probably closer to his physical ceiling than most high school prospects, I do place a lot of importance on the fact that Michigan State and Iowa were in the fight for him down the stretch.  Offer lists can be deceiving, but the schools slugging it out at the end of a recruitment aren’t.

—There is a tendency to look at players like Myslinski and grimace at the fact they are closer to their developmental ceilings. While that isn’t a great recipe to apply across the board, it can be effective in many ways. Poona Ford was similarly thought of coming out of high school, but he was able to contribute and play at a high level over his time in Austin. I don’t know if Myslinski will be able to replicate the production that Ford had at Texas, but it’s something to keep in mind.

—When Texas was struggling for any sort of momentum back in May, I started probing around with sources to find if there was anything to be optimistic about in recruiting. When I was told there was definitely something there with Jaden Alexis, I dug into that immediately. From the moment I talked to sources in Austin, it was made clear that Alexis was a perfect culture fit and player the offensive staff was incredibly interested in. From that point I was able to connect with Alexis and understood how far along the recruitment was after speaking with him. From there, it seemed like a matter of when rather than if. While we waited for Alexis to make it official, many of the commits in the class were in contact with him. Just about everyone we spoke with were sure he’d eventually be a Texas commit, but he didn’t seem to be in any sort of hurry. I actually had the commitment story saved in drafts for nearly 2 months and kept randomly updating it each time a new commit would happen.

—As for Alexis, I really like the pickup for Texas. Any time you can add his type of speed (4.41 40, 10.75 100) you have to take advantage of it. Like Myslinski, Alexis has NFL bloodlines. His father Rich Alexis was an NFL running back after a productive career at the University of Washington. In speaking with our guys out in the state of Florida, it seems there are some believers there as well. I was told that Monarch isn’t a standout program in south Florida, and Alexis was still able to have a productive junior season. On film, his vertical ability is evident from the jump, but his quickness in short spaces also stands out. His build is also something that caught my eye. Like Devin Duvernay, he looks like an interior receiver built a bit like a running back which is becoming more normal in the modern age of football. I think he can be an effective outside receiver, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the was the inside receiver take of this class.

—While on vacation, I put in a pick for Arizona graduate transfer linebacker Tony Fields to end up at Texas. While a decision has yet to be made from what I know, I still expect that to happen. Sources in his recruitment felt that Texas was likely the team to beat from the beginning and I continue to hear confidence that the Longhorns will be the pick following Fields’ trip to Austin last week

—Last night’s Baylor commitment from Ryan Lengyel was a bit surprising but it also provided a great lesson to remember in the recruiting game. When Lengyel was offered by Texas and made a trip to Austin, it seemed like an automatic. In speaking with sources in Austin and near Lengyel, it was being talked about as a foregone conclusion. For that reason, I didn’t consider Baylor as a serious competitor and his pick of the Bears was a reminder that anything can happen in recruiting and it’s always best to be thorough. The Longhorns are going to once again have to pivot at the offensive tackle position, but we will get into more of that later.

—I used to do this job part-time while working a full-time job that I hated. I loved vacation and the ability to get away from that job to clear my mind, but that isn’t the case anymore. While getting away this last week and resetting my mind was a necessary break from the every day grind of recruiting, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ready to come back early. Thankfully, my teammate Nick Harris held it down and surpassed my expectations. When I hired Nick, I did it because of his desire to go above and beyond, and I thought he killed it last week following everything from a distance. I’m a bit of a control freak at times, but Nick proved himself as a legitimate dude picking up the load and making sure you guys didn’t lack for any recruiting coverage in the last week.

 

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25 minutes ago, Lonestar88 said:

The biggest indictment of Hand imo, is his seemingly lack of a relationship with any backup plans. After we missed on our top targets, it was panic mode. He landed Myslinksi because of a long pre-existing relationship with his father. 

If Hand missed all of his top targets and built little if any relationships with his backup targets, and we agree that he isn’t a key piece in evaluating his position, then what exactly does he do, recruiting wise, that’s valuable?

Not sure why you're basing your entire recruiting evaluation of Hand on a 2021 class that isn't even complete.  He's recruited well since he got here except for this class, plus he's landed two grad transfers in Anderson and Braun who had plenty of other P5 schools interested.  This year is by far the outlier and like I said above, there are quite a few Herman-caused factors that play a role in Hand's recruiting struggles this year. I'd also disagree with your assessment of Myslinski. Hand had been recruiting him for like two years, and kept him warm as the James Brock backup option the whole time, which is exactly what you claim he's failed  to do. It doesn't really make sense to discount him doing that simply because he took advantage of a pre-existing relationship in securing his backup option.

There also just aren't a ton of great backup options in-state, and Hand and the whole staff didn't get a chance to hit the road for evals in the spring/summer like they normally would. There was some elite talent at the top and then the class gets real thin prior to late risers popping up after their senior film.  

Edited by Burt Macklin
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3 minutes ago, Burt Macklin said:

Not sure why you're basing your entire recruiting evaluation of Hand on a 2021 class that isn't even complete.  He's recruited well since he got here except for this class, plus he's landed two grad transfers in Anderson and Braun who had plenty of other P5 schools interested.  This year is by far the outlier and like I said above, there are quite a few Herman-caused factors that play a role in Hand's recruiting struggles this year. 

There also just aren't a ton of great backup options in-state, and Hand and the whole staff didn't get a chance to hit the road for evals in the spring/summer like they normally would. There was some elite talent at the top and then the class gets real thin prior to late risers popping up after their senior film.  

It’s only his third class here, his track record here isn’t long enough or amazing enough imo to give him the benefit of the doubt and ignore the gaffes happening now. 

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