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(Eric Nahlin) Texas Recruiting Strategy: Balancing Portal Spending and High School Talent for 2026

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We are about to reach a very important time in the college football calendar, but it’s important for 2026, not 2025. Given the modern CFB climate is heavily influenced by portal recruiting, a team’s championship chances can either be improved or diminished in the next couple of months. First up is high school recruiting. The thing is, you cannot disassociate high school from the portal because it’s all tied directly to the same roster. The more aggressive a school is in high school, the less aggressive it typically will be in the portal. Resources are finite, even at a school like Texas.

I felt Ohio State won last year’s national championship during this same period, when high school recruiting, portal imports and exports, and retention all converged. Ohio State crushed it in all facets. Texas lost this year’s national championship when it failed to properly address roster holes on offense. Though, this defense wasn’t likely to win a national championship either — but that stems from a different sort of miss on Sark’s part.

Texas Must Win the Portal — and It Won’t Be Cheap

Texas has to crush the portal this offseason by filling in the robust needs we’ve been talking about for weeks, if not months: O-line, RB, LB, S, CB, maybe WR, etc. However, going hard in the portal is costly, even if you’re not targeting the priciest positions like QB and Edge.

This brings up two major questions:

  1. Will Texas have the resources to do what’s necessary?
  2. Are the coaches properly allocating resources between high school and the portal?

Offensive Line Recruiting: The Spotlight Position

A popular topic right now is offensive line recruiting — and rightfully so given this season’s struggles. Fans want to feel confident the coaches are adding the right type of athletes to ensure long-term health at the position.

Essentially, fans want a reclamation similar to what Texas executed at defensive tackle, where coaches fixed both the short- and long-term outlook of the position by being aggressive in the portal and also spending in the high school ranks. Maybe they were too aggressive. It would have been nice to trade a D-tackle for a competent offensive guard. The coaches left no doubt at defensive tackle and continue to recruit very aggressively. They can leave no doubt at offensive line this season.

Evaluating the 2026 Offensive Line Class

Given the need for immediate help to protect Arch Manning in his final season, I like the current high school class, even with its questions. First, it’s not an overly expensive group. That matters because retaining Trevor Goosby and overhauling the interior won’t be cheap. Second, they’re taking at least three offensive tackles. Tackles are harder to find than guards, meaning you must make a concerted effort to land them. Elite tackles are expensive, but developmental guys are more budget-friendly. You want a mix — and there needs to be a mix in every class.

John Turntine

Turntine is highly rated as the No. 79 player in the country, but his weight loss adds volatility to his projection. He’s probably not even 270 pounds right now. As we reported, the Turntines were not as focused on NIL as many similarly rated recruits. That doesn’t mean he’s cheap, but it makes it easier to cover his costs while he adds the considerable weight he needs.

Max Wright and Kaden Scherer

These two are exactly what the doctor ordered: lower-cost, genuine-upside OTs. They’re similar to John Mills (UT decommit, signed with Washington) last cycle. The more of these guys you can properly evaluate, the better. But, you have to take numbers because they’re far from sure things.

Should Texas Add Brysten Martinez?

Should Texas even be trying to add Louisiana native and LSU commit Brysten Martinez? That depends entirely on their portal budget, not high school. Given how immediate the needs are, I’d probably prefer more focus on the portal than a costly high school addition.

The Derrek Cooper Question

A similar situation applies to Derrek Cooper. Cooper is a talented football athlete but probably not the most college-ready running back, especially if the offensive line is still a work in progress. James Simon is a more natural runner, and even he can’t crack the two-deep right now. Rivals recently dropped him to the No. 216 player in the country — they must share some of my reservations. I like him as a prospect and would love to see him develop on the roster, but not at the expense of landing a stud running back in the portal. That’s a must and it’s been obvious since the first game of the season.

2026: The Window to Win It All

The goal for next season should be to win the National Championship. “We don’t have money for the portal” is not a valid excuse if it was obvious they had money for high school recruiting. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is actually the right approach given the importance of a swift bounce back. Right now their actions—pushing for Brysten Martinez and Richard Anderson—tell us they have enough money to do what’s necessary in the portal. I’m not sure all of IT’s sources would agree with that, however.

 

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Posted
5 hours ago, IDIOTsavant said:

Speaking of, I’d love it if he became assistant to the regional manager here….maybe replace Alina after the season.

If we just made the upgrade RIGHT NOW, would anyone know?

Posted

Cummings is a good looking athlete but he's too tall to be a LB who plays in space.  He's going to be an edge.  He might be redundant in the class, but it is an end of the class take and he's not chasing any of our higher rated players off.  We'll see.  Nice developmental prospect.    

Posted
1 hour ago, satyanash said:

(Eric Nahlin) Texas Recruiting Strategy: Balancing Portal Spending and High School Talent for 2026

 


That was a stupid article. yeah we need help in the portal but not at the expense of bringing in high school athletes. You have to be able to recruit quality linemen like Banks and not just look for them in the portal. And developmental guys are fine: wright and Scherer should never see the field though: they just aren’t athletic enough. Developmental guys are like the 2nd LSU line commit from MS, Tyreek Jemison from Georgia, Samuel Roseborough from Texas. 
 

and what the fuck is he saying about Cooper, that we don’t want him? That’s just dumb. 

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Posted
On 11/15/2025 at 1:49 PM, SOHHvet08 said:

I haven't been keeping up with this current recruiting cycle because honestly the Transfer Portal makes H.S. recruiting less of a priority for me to follow.

Anyways, seeing how the "Big Humans" strategy at O-Line recruiting got exposed this season... have Sark/Flood started to shift their developmental O-Line recruiting towards recruiting big athletes that you can put weight on instead of Big Humans that need to lose weight & get into better athletic shape OR nah?

Watching UGA highlights this week & comparing the UGA O-Line to the UT O-Line, Sark/Flood should shift to this strategy ASAP if they haven't already.

 

On 11/15/2025 at 1:55 PM, texifornia said:

Doesn't seem to be a big shift. To be fair, Flood has always liked big dudes even on his awesome Bama lines - it might be more of a Sark problem.

That said, we're probably going to finally be all over some transfer OL.

 

On 11/15/2025 at 2:19 PM, Bevo said:


Big humans hasn’t been that big of an issue. I wouldn’t consider Banks and Baker huge and Cojoe and Goosby are good and large. Turntine coming in this year is actually undersized. The problem is more of a numbers issue. We are recruiting non-starters like Stroh and Wright and aren’t recruiting enough guys who can start. Lee, Martinez, Utu, and Roseborough were all fine prospects and we may get one of those guys. Meanwhile, we have a huge hole in the middle of the line again with a class that will have 2-3 starters in it. Basically, we aren’t devoting enough resources into the offensive line.

 

8 minutes ago, Lonestar88 said:

These final commitments all just seem like lottery tickets. 

Both Max Wright & Kaden Scherer seem to fit the mold of big athletes you can put weight on, so I'm fine with both of them as developmental O-Line takes.

Posted (edited)

Someone last week on a 9.95 site posted a list of recruits outside the top 1000 we’ve signed the last 10 years or so. A few more success stories than I would have thought.

OL Devin Coleman
RB/WR Savion Red
OL Max Merril
LB Jaylan Ford
DL Sawyer Goram-Welch
OL Sam Cosmi
QB Matthew Merrick
DE Breckyn Hager
RB D'onta Foreman
OL Elijah Rodriguez
OL Alex Anderson

Edited by Hookem2147
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Posted
9 minutes ago, Hookem2147 said:

Someone last week on a 9.95 site posted a list of recruits outside the top 1000 we’ve signed the last 10 years or so. A few more success stories than I would have thought.

OL Devin Coleman
RB/WR Savion Red
OL Max Merril
LB Jaylan Ford
DL Sawyer Goram-Welch
OL Sam Cosmi
QB Matthew Merrick
DE Breckyn Hager
RB D'onta Foreman
OL Elijah Rodriguez
OL Alex Anderson

Ok….now filter by white guys outside the top 1000. Quite a list left. 

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Posted
35 minutes ago, Lonestar88 said:

These final commitments all just seem like lottery tickets. 

Cheap guys who hit are much better than expensive guys who sit on the bench.

Nahlin pretty much let the cat out of the bag when he talked about Scherer already being committed.

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Posted
1 hour ago, BurntOrange&White said:

White upper middle class linemen have no nasty to them. They ain’t hungry. 

Like all the Matthews boys.  Or every OL Michigan or Notre Dame ever recruited. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, SOHHvet08 said:

 

 

 

Both Max Wright & Kaden Scherer seem to fit the mold of big athletes you can put weight on, so I'm fine with both of them as developmental O-Line takes.

Yeah. Regarding big humans there should be a binary category on their 247 pages of “could they survive doing a cartwheel.” I’m fine with taking the guys that can. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, BurntOrange&White said:

White upper middle class linemen have no nasty to them. They ain’t hungry. 

Yet they keep having to start as the best option 

Posted

Yea Sark has to crush the portal this off-season. 
we only have Arch and Simmons for one more season. 
Im not trying to look at 2026 like I looked at 2023 or 2024 

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Posted
8 hours ago, Da Fino said:

Yeah. Regarding big humans there should be a binary category on their 247 pages of “could they survive doing a cartwheel.” I’m fine with taking the guys that can. 

 

Exactly, the problem is not cheap vs expensive, white vs. black, rich vs. poor. The problem is athletic ability. We keep bringing in guys who are slow. We have 4 guys recruited. 2 can move and 2 can't. Those 2 who can't should never see the field, but they probably will because of the numbers. And then we sit there and wonder why we can't run the ball or execute slow developing plays. 

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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, ClubWhatever said:

Or Dan Neil.  Or Lyle Sendlein.  Or Kasey Studdard

Or Will Allen.  3 of our national title winning O linemen starters in 2005.

In fact, Studdard might be the nastiest O lineman we've ever had.  He would tell the D on the goal line what the play was and we'd score anyway.

Edited by Scholz
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Posted
13 hours ago, D3zii said:

Yea Sark has to crush the portal this off-season. 
we only have Arch and Simmons for one more season. 
Im not trying to look at 2026 like I looked at 2023 or 2024 

Agreed. Gotta maximize the Arch/Simmons window. Not saying to ignore HS recruiting completely but portal and retaining key players should be the priority this offseason.

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Posted

Man these last few commits and guys we are after seem like JAGs and our plan B and C options.  This staff has shown the ability to find late risers and have hit on their fair share of 3 stars and players that were offered and evaluated late so I guess they get the benefit of doubt.  But yeah, taking guys from Standford, Cal, Minnesota doesn't seem like a recipe for success when we want to beat UGA and tOSU.

Posted
6 hours ago, Bevo said:

 

Exactly, the problem is not cheap vs expensive, white vs. black, rich vs. poor. The problem is athletic ability. We keep bringing in guys who are slow. We have 4 guys recruited. 2 can move and 2 can't. Those 2 who can't should never see the field, but they probably will because of the numbers. And then we sit there and wonder why we can't run the ball or execute slow developing plays. 

If we have slow guys executing slow developing plays aren't they just plays for them?

Posted
24 minutes ago, victory88 said:

Man these last few commits and guys we are after seem like JAGs and our plan B and C options.  This staff has shown the ability to find late risers and have hit on their fair share of 3 stars and players that were offered and evaluated late so I guess they get the benefit of doubt.  But yeah, taking guys from Standford, Cal, Minnesota doesn't seem like a recipe for success when we want to beat UGA and tOSU.

I think we are going to need to see the entire cycle play out before being able to draw conclusions.  If there is a concerted effort to focus more on transfers to fill holes, then I could get behind that strategy as I think that’s the way of the future.  But if this is indicative of the type of players we are now chasing in general, then I think the alarm bells are valid.

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