Texas Football: 4-Star ATH Denzel Burke lists Longhorns in top 10

The train of finalist lists keeps dropping, as 4-Star Saguaro ATH Denzel Burke included Texas football in his top 10 over the weekend.

Facing a daunting task of trying to scout out prospects without even so much as in-person contact during the NCAA mandated dead period that lasts through May 31, the 2021 Texas football recruiting class has a lot of work to do in the coming months. But Texas is not the only program in a difficult position like this at the moment.

Each coaching staff around the country, including with the Texas Longhorns football program, is facing this daunting task of trying to hit the recruiting trail at such a difficult time. The Longhorns are not the sole exclusion from this challenging process.

What’s helping the Longhorns get through this right now is the fact that so many finalist lists are dropping on social media. This helps head coach Tom Herman get an idea of where he’s at on the recruiting trail for his 2021 and 2022 classes. It seems like all of these finalist lists are dropping in bunches since the novel coronavirus pandemic caused the sports world to be placed on pause.

The latest finalist list that dropped on April 5 featuring a key target of the Texas 2021 recruiting class came from four-star Saguaro athlete Denzel Burke. This 6-foot and 190 pound Scottsdale, AZ, native dropped his top 10 finalist schools on his Twitter timeline on April 5.

Most of the finalists for Burke are made up of schools out of the PAC-12, which is the least bit surprising. There’s also two others from the Big Ten, and two from the SEC. The Longhorns were the only Big 12 school.

The nine other schools included amid Burke’s finalists are the Auburn Tigers, Nebraska Cornhuskers, LSU Tigers, Ohio State Buckeyes, Oregon Ducks, USC Trojans, Colorado Buffaloes, Arizona State Sun Devils, and Washington Huskies. Head coach Herm Edwards and the Sun Devils were the only program from Burke’s home state to get in his finalist schools.

Burke ranks as the nation’s No. 180 2021 high school prospect, No. 9 athlete, and No. 4 prospect out of Arizona. He holds offers from roughly two-dozen schools. The more significant of those schools that he cut includes the Arizona Wildcats, Oklahoma State Cowboys, Tennessee Volunteers, Utah Utes, and UCLA Bruins.

Moreover, the latest round of finalist cuts for Burke came just after he received a bevy of scholarship offers that were announced on April 3. He received offers from the Mississippi State Bulldogs, FCS Northern Arizona Lumberjacks, FCS Idaho Vandals, and Louisville Cardinals, all in a span of 24 hours.

The original offer that Burke received came back on Jan. 21. He received numerous offers from his finalist schools back in January, including one from head coach Ryan Day and Ohio State back on Jan. 27.

Burke mostly plays with Saguaro High School at wide receiver and cornerback. His speed, strength, and athleticism would allow him to thrive on either side of the ball. Being that multiple should help the new Texas coaching staff to find the best fit if he were to land on the Forty Acres.