Mackovic dipped his toes in recruiting other areas. Well, his assistants did, in any case. Ricky Williams case in point. Eric Metcalf recruited us as much as the other way around. But we've never really flexed as a national recruiting power the way other schools do because of the perception we didn't have to. There was also the fact high school coaches ran recruiting in the old days in many ways. You had to stay on their good side or you weren't going to have much of a chance with their players. A good way to piss off that fraternity was to bring in a bunch of out of state players. Everything is so transactional now. Not just NIL, although that's obviously a critical part of it. But high school coaches have seen their influence diminished by trainers, 7 on 7 programs, and other 3rd parties even before agents got involved.
One of the big reasons why Texas was so fiercely opposed to A&M heading to the SEC is that as an institution Texas spent decades trying to keep the SEC out of Texas as a prominent presence. But once A&M broke that seal the floodgates were opened. We'll never go back to the days of instate schools dominating Texas recruiting. At the end of the day Texas and the coaching staff at UT do not owe their loyalty to high school coaches. Their priority is to build the best roster they can. There are going to be years where different positions of need are going to have a weak in state class. I love the idea that Sark and company have created enough in roads in hotbeds outside the borders that they can go get the best regardless of geography.
There was a feeling that in the 2000s Mack Brown had an opportunity to do the same thing. The brand after 2005 had never been hotter. Vince in football, TJ Ford and especially Durant in basketball. Baseball winning a national championship. Instead he sat on his laurels and allowed Saban to take the recruiting momentum away from him while he acquired a lot of summer camp bread to build recruiting momentum, and ended up with very average classes that were overrated because the commits had "Texas" next to their name.
This is honestly the best I've felt about the program in my lifetime. I was too young for the glory wishbone era. But I remember the 70s, and all the decades since. This is the best shape the program has ever been in during that time in terms of long term sustained success. It feels like this is the way it always was supposed to be, and we even got a little glimmer in the mid 2000s. But that was a mirage, and I knew it at the time. This feels good, man.