Texas Football Recruiting: Longhorns back in top 10 rankings after 15th 2019 commit

After a nice end to the month of July for Texas football recruiting that featured five commitments, the 2019 class is now back in the top 10 rankings.

Texas football recruiting landed its 15th commitment for the 2019 class in four-star North Forest High School and Houston, TX, native offensive tackle Javonne Shepherd. This was also the second commitment in the past two days for the Longhorns, along with landing three-star outside linebacker Marcus Tillman Jr. on July 28.

With that 15th commitment coming from Shepherd on July 29, the 2019 Texas football recruiting class now ranks as the ninth best class in the nation, according to 247Sports Team Composite Rankings. The only Big 12 football program that remains ahead of the Horns still is the Oklahoma Sooners.

This is the ninth four-star commit for the Horns for the 2019 class. Shepherd is also the second offensive tackle commit for 2019 for Texas along with five-star Conroe, TX, lineman Tyler Johnson. Shepherd also chose the Horns over other favorites like the Texas A&M Aggies, Alabama Crimson Tide, and the Sooners.

It was the Aggies and Horns that were vying for Shepherd through most of his recruitment. Texas and Texas A&M seemed to go back and forth as the ultimate favorites to land the pledge from him. This is great for the Horns to get a victory on the recruiting trail over the Aggies with how well head coach Jimbo Fisher is doing in his first year with the program.

Shepherd is also the biggest commit that Texas has so far in terms of pure size. He registers in at 6-foot-6 and nearly 350 pounds as potentially the largest player on the entire Texas roster for 2019. Shepherd is also one of the biggest lineman in this recruiting cycle altogether.

There’s no question of size for this recruiting class for the Horns so far. That means that the size factor won’t inhibit these eventual incoming freshmen from getting some early playing time.

We’re just days away from the start of fall camp for the Horns, starting on August 3, and the 2019 recruiting class is looking pretty good heading into it. The head coach for Texas Tom Herman has to be happy about the recent results, helping out in the trenches on both sides of the ball two days in a row.

However, the precedent that was set by Herman last year with the third best 2018 class in the nation will be tough to match. A huge haul for the Georgia Bulldogs over the past 24 hours launched the program to hold the second best class in the nation now. Texas A&M fell to No. 3 and the Crimson Tide still sit at No. 1.

While Georgia has nearly the same number of commits for 2019 right now, it has a lot more five-stars in the class than the Horns do. Georgia has nearly one-third of its 16 commits rated as five-star prospects. Meanwhile, the Horns only have one.

More positive results could be on the way for the Horns, but only time will tell if the 2019 class can stay in the top 10 rankings until the start of the regular season. It does look as if some 2019 prospects are getting excited to commit before the start of fall camp.