Texas Football: Longhorns offer Oregon 2021 4-Star athlete target

An emerging target of the 2021 Texas football recruiting class, 4-Star Lincoln athlete Julien Simon, received his offer from the Longhorns on Jan. 27.

One target that just received an official scholarship offer from the 2021 Texas football recruiting class, four-star Lincoln and Tacoma, WA, athlete Julien Simon came just a little too late it seems. Unless there’s a lot of traction between head coach Tom Herman and the Washington native Simon during the 2020 offseason, then he might be too locked in with a handful of PAC-12 programs.

However, the Texas Longhorns football program still decided to send one more offer out to potentially add to their 2021 recruiting class with the 6-foot-2 and 220 pound Simon. He ranks as the nation’s No. 72 2021 high school prospect and the No. 6 athlete.

Texas is the first Division I program to offer Simon since the turn of the calendar year. And he could be yet another versatile talent that Herman adds in the classification of “athlete” for his 2021 recruiting class.

https://twitter.com/_JulienSimon/status/1221871505140641793

But this could be a time for the Longhorns coaching staff to turn a new level and start building up the pipeline of talent to match up their new schemes. Texas hired former Ohio State Buckeyes passing game coordinator Mike Yurcich to replace Tim Beck as their next offensive coordinator for 2020. Former analyst and Kansas State Wildcats co-offensive coordinator Andre Coleman was promoted to be the next Texas wide receivers coach.

The post for Simon on his Twitter timeline about the offer he received from the Longhorns on Jan. 27 showed that it stemmed from a conversation with Coleman. That could also mean that the Longhorns intend to bring Simon aboard as a wide receiver.

At the moment, Simon plays at wide receiver and linebacker at Lincoln High School. Depending on the program that is recruiting him, he’s getting attention at linebacker, wide receiver, and occasionally defensive back. Any defense that plays more physical in the secondary and uses something like a nickelback in their packages could slot Simon in.

Simon is reportedly keeping active this offseason by competing in a few Pylon 7 v. 7 tournaments, especially in the Pacific Northwest region of the country. Two programs that kept in close contact with Simon of late were the Oregon Ducks and Washington Huskies. Recently promoted UW head coach Jimmy Lake had Simon on campus for their Junior Day and he’s been up to Eugene to visit Oregon on a number of occasions.

He’s drawing frequent comparisons with the former UCLA Bruins standout two-way player Myles Jack. At one point, Jack was drawing Heisman hype when he was producing at a high level as a running back with UCLA.

Moreover, Simon is now drawing very close to 20 schools on his growing offer sheet. The highlights of his offer sheet (outside of the three aforementioned schools) includes the Penn State Nittany Lions, Stanford Cardinal, Florida Gators, Michigan Wolverines, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Tennessee Volunteers, and USC Trojans.

The goal for the Longhorns coaching staff during the recruitment of Simon should be to get him to the Forty Acres soon. He’s getting attention from college football blue bloods coast-to-coast, so they have to find their niche in his eyes in the near future.