Texas Football: Mack Brown says Adrian Peterson was hard recruiting miss

A big miss back in the day for a Texas football recruiting class and head coach Mack Brown was star running back Adrian Peterson.

Back in the early-to-mid 2000’s, the Texas football program usually reigned supreme on the recruiting trail under the direction of head coach Mack Brown. Texas and the rival Oklahoma Sooners were still battling it out with the Nebraska Cornhuskers for recruiting supremacy in the Big 12 in the early 2000’s. But Texas was usually one of the top two classes in the Big 12 for each recruiting cycle.

One notable miss on the recruiting trail back in the day for the Texas Longhorns football program involved seeing a top tier running back talent link up with former head coach Bob Stoops and the Sooners. Although the future Hall-of-Fame NFL running back Adrian Peterson got away from the Longhorns, it wasn’t the most detrimental recruiting miss on the Forty Acres in the end.

While AP was starring for the Sooners up in Norman, the Longhorns were developing a star running back of their own. Former Kansas City Chiefs star running back Jamaal Charles was producing at a high level for the Longhorns, as was Cedric Benson for one year, while AP was just starting to become a star in Norman.

However, Brown opened up on this recruiting miss when he was the Longhorns head coach back in 2003 in a recent interview with the Charlotte Observer. Here’s what he had to say on the matter.

"“I would say it was probably Adrian Peterson. He was a great running back at Oklahoma. He was from East Texas. That’s probably one that got away that I thought we had a chance to get,” “One of the reasons I love recruiting is you get to offer these families a scholarship,” Brown said. “You get to educate them about the (recruiting process). We use the high school coaches. A lot of people go third parties now, but that’s not our deal. We’re going to talk to directly to a high coach. We’re going to talk to every coach in North Carolina every year and then spot recruit in our footprint out of state and have a couple national kids.”"

Brown describes AP as “the one that got away” on the recruiting trail. Peterson was a big time target of the likes of the Longhorns, Sooners, Texas A&M Aggies, Miami Hurricanes, and USC Trojans, among others. He ranked as the top 2004 high school prospect in the nation (even ranks as a 247Sports Composite top 20 prospect of all-time), so he was a highly coveted recruiting target for the Longhorns.

AP was the star of Palestine High School, as a 6-foot-2 and 205 pound star rusher that amassed more than 2,000 yards and 32 rushing touchdowns during his senior season there. But he got away from Texas, despite Brown’s highly touted group at the skill positions that included Ramonce Taylor, Chris Ogbonnaya, and Jordan Shipley.

The only running back in the modern era of recruiting rankings that slotted higher all-time than AP was the former USC star Joe McKnight. Former LSU Tigers star Leonard Fournette had the same recruiting ranking as AP too.

During his three years playing in Norman for the Sooners, AP registered just over 4,000 rushing yards and 41 touchdowns on the ground. He averaged well over five yards per carry during his college career and finished second in the final Heisman voting in 2004.