Does Kyler Murray Hold The Key To Texas’ Recruiting Class?
A few months ago Charlie Strong and the Texas staff seemed to be on the ropes with a lot of ground to cover. Now fast forward to days just before National Signing Day and now things are trending towards the Longhorns landing the best recruiting class they have had since they reeled in Texas legend Vince Young in 2002.
It blows my mind to see the position Strong and his staff have put themselves in with only days to go till National Signing Day. Texas has gone from fighting to assemble a Top 15 class, to potentially assembling a class that could end up inside the Top 5. Players that seemed to have written off the Longhorns months ago are suddenly back in the picture with a little over a week until NSD.
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Within the last week Kyler Murray, Damarkus Lodge, Daylon Mack, and Soso Jamabo have all made their way to Austin and met with the coaching staff and have placed the Longhorns in the mix for their signatures. All of those recruits listed have been linked to in state rival Texas A&M and three of the four have been committed to A&M or were committed to A&M at one point in the recruiting cycle.
That in particular is very interesting because for awhile Texas A&M was riding a serious wave of momentum in recruiting and that was especially prevalent in the state of Texas. Now the Longhorns have a chance to not only steal back the recruiting momentum inside Texas, but they have a chance to announce to the entire country that they are not going to continue to take it on the chin.
Can Strong and his staff close the deal? That’s the million dollar question everyone is trying to answer. There are so many factors at play will the prospects remaining on the board, so it’s going to be interesting to see how it play out exactly. The word behind the scenes is that Texas has only helped themselves with the uncommitted players they have hosted on campus over the past few weeks, and the buzz among recruits both committed and uncommitted continues to grow.
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From the looks of things, Murray holds the key to how well this Texas recruiting class will finish. Murray has been rainmaker on the recruiting trail for the A&M and has been essential to landing big time recruits such as Christian Kirk. Recruits are very aware how good of a player Murray is and know what kind of effect he will have on a program’s offensive trajectory; land him, others will follow.
Many of the recruits I’ve mentioned have long talked about playing together at the college level and for the longest it looked like that would happen at Texas A&M. Fast forward to the present, and now Malik Jefferson has enrolled in classes at Texas, Jamabo is down to UCLA and Texas, and Murray, Mack and Lodge are now seriously considering the Horns. The final three could all still end up playing together in College Station, but if this group wants to stay together their only chance to do that is at Texas.
Jefferson has been a key cog in recruiting the bunch to Austin, and it seems like his commitment to Texas has suddenly sparked a resurgence on the recruiting trail for the Horns. The importance of landing him and teammate DeAndre McNeal can’t be understated, without them none of this is happening.
So again I ask, can Strong and Texas pull off the impossible on NSD and land the blue chippers remaining on their board? It’s a very loaded question that can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. What I will say is that things seem to be trending in a positive direction for Texas and that folks are quietly optimistic that NSD will be a big day for Strong and his staff. With one weekend left before signing day, the coaches will make their final pitches before the dead period; after that is the waiting game. Like everyone else, I am anxiously waiting to see how everything unfolds next Wednesday.