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Texas Preferred Walk-Ons: Good Kids from Good Families


Machinator

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Snagging Taafee and Minors got me just as excited as any of the staff hires - because it's the exact type of thing that Texas should be doing. You're a big time program in a football hotbed and just saw both of these kids ball out on the biggest stage in HSFB. Neither of them had anything close to a major offer. You make one phone call to each of them, "Are you sure you want to play football at Rice/Yale? Wouldn't you like to come play football at Texas?" take a PWO flyer on each, and see what happens. Even if they both suck, you're establishing that:

1. We don't fuck around and miss on surprise talents from our own backyard.

2. The Westlake pipeline is important - if you play at Westlake and have D1 potential you will come play football at Texas.

3. Our door is always open, and if you aren't good enough to be on scholarship here let's talk about maybe walking on. 

It shows me that Sark gets it and that he isn't ignoring a lot of the fringe practices that go into building a power. Sure, some of these kids will never be more than practice players, but you might be getting the next Hunter Renfrow. You don't know if you don't take a chance.

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27 minutes ago, Scholz said:

Both those Westlake kids can ball.  Taaffe played both ways in title game, wowed me.

Was he #14?

Edit:  Whoops, just saw his twitter pic above.  Yeah, that kid is a damn good football player.

Edited by Beau Vine
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22 minutes ago, Thiefery said:

So Sark is making Westlake his Mater Dei to USC?

Westlake should be easier to lock down than MD. 

It's also more supplemental. If USC misses on every MD kid in a year they are kind of fucked. Westlake isn't make or break since there are far fewer prospects - but we should never miss on those kids unless it's a heavily-instilled legacy type situation.

But - since it's a QB factory - those 2 or 3 D1 prospects per class can be huge.

Edited by ztejas
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6 minutes ago, JOSEYWALES66 said:

Is there still a cap on the number of walkons a team can have or has that gone away?

It used to be capped at twenty.

 

The team is limited to 105 total players during the offseason, which is typically 85 scholarship players plus 20 walkons. There's an unlimited amount of walkons who can join the team during the season (not sure when the exact starting point is, but I'm guessing that it's at some point early in fall camp), or at least they're limited by the amount of equipment and number of lockers you have. The walkons who are with the team year round are obviously more important than those who join the team during the season. 

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1 minute ago, Fud said:

The team is limited to 105 total players during the offseason, which is typically 85 scholarship players plus 20 walkons. There's an unlimited amount of walkons who can join the team during the season (not sure when the exact starting point is, but I'm guessing that it's at some point early in fall camp), or at least they're limited by the amount of equipment and number of lockers you have. The walkons who are with the team year round are obviously more important than those who join the team during the season. 

That makes sense.  Thanks for the explanation. 

 

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8 minutes ago, texifornia said:

Hell yeah, love it. 

It's semantics this first year, but he's coming in as a blue shirt guy not a pwo, correct? Either way, found money right now. I think I saw the had an actual scholarship offer from LSU. 

Edited by UncleSonny
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Fun family. Related to the Moffett oil family on his mom's side, and this is his dad's:

Quote

Lourd's father is Blaine Lourd, a New Iberia native who graduated from LSU in 1985 and is an investment advisor to the stars and others in Los Angeles. Lourd's brother is Hollywood talent agent Bryan Lourd.

 

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4 minutes ago, texifornia said:

Fun family. Related to the Moffett oil family on his mom's side, and this is his dad's:

Quote

Lourd's father is Blaine Lourd, a New Iberia native who graduated from LSU in 1985 and is an investment advisor to the stars and others in Los Angeles. Lourd's brother is Hollywood talent agent Bryan Lourd.

This kid sounds fucking rich as fuck.

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19 minutes ago, Fud said:

And his cousin is Billie Lourd, and aunt was Carrie Fisher 

Who played alongside Billy Dee WILLIAMS in ESB, who played Harvey Dent in Batman (1989), a character that later reappeared in The Dark Knight (2008) alongside Commissioner Gordon played by Gary Oldman, who played Lee Harvey Oswald in the political drama JFK (1991) that also starred Kevin Bacon.

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On 2/3/2021 at 10:28 AM, ztejas said:

:

1. We don't fuck around and miss on surprise talents from our own backyard.

It shows me that Sark gets it and that he isn't ignoring a lot of the fringe practices that go into building a power. Sure, some of these kids will never be more than practice players, but you might be getting the next Hunter Renfrow. You don't know if you don't take a chance.

We might even find the next Heisman Trophy winner as a walk-on in our own backyard. 

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7 minutes ago, Balcones said:

We might even find the next Heisman Trophy winner as a walk-on in our own backyard. 

Oh please. Like that would ever happen. 🙄

(But yeah - there's no reason we can't or shouldn't do the exact same thing with LT)

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Very positive note from Tom Loy(247/ND staff), on Cole Lourd.

 

Spoiler

Just a quick note on a 2021 Quarterback

Tom Loy
 

I've known Cole Lourd since Dec. 2019 from the All-American Bowl Underclassmen Combine. He was one of the more impressive throwers at the event. Terrific mechanics, very accurate, really, really smart, and a guy I absolutely felt could land some national offers. Ended up with an offer from Ole Miss, a late one from LSU, a nice Liberty offer, in addition to many Ivy League offers.

I'm told that despite a lack of an offer right now, Lourd is leaning toward accepting a PWO opportunity at Texas over the offer from LSU. Sarkisian has been all over him and seems to have single-handidly swung this back in favor of the Longhorns. He was nearly a done deal to the Tigers, but Sarkisian has put Texas in a great spot and I expect him to end up with the Longhorns.

He'll start as a preferred walk-on, but I'd be shocked if he didn't eventually receive a scholarship. This isn't just a typical PWO, in my opinion, but a guy that will make the QB room better and push for on-field reps.

 

 

 

 

 

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