Texas football offers talented 2022 4-Star RB Jovante Barnes

The 2022 Texas football recruiting class is now drawing close to a double-digit number of running back prospects offered after 4-Star Jovantae Barnes.

At this point, the ideal “big board’ at each position group for the 2022 Texas football recruiting class should be starting to form. Texas has now sent out more than 80 offers to 2022 high school prospects alone, including eight at the running back position. Of those eight offers sent out to running backs, seven were to true prospects at the position and one was to an all-purpose running back (three-star St. Francis product Max Garrison).

The most recent offer sent out to a 2022 running back prospect by the Longhorns was received by four-star Desert Pines product and Las Vegas, NV, native Jovantae Barnes. As the fourth out-of-state running back prospect for the 2022 cycle to receive a Texas offer, Barnes is starting to fit into a certain niche for head coach Tom Herman.

Moreover, Barnes is the sixth four-star 2022 running back prospect to get a Texas offer. He is also the third out-of-state four-star running back to be offered at this point in time. And Barnes officially announced he had received his scholarship offer from Texas on his Twitter timeline on July 17.

The specific position coach that is recruiting Barnes is the long-time Texas running backs coach Stay Drayton. Barnes mentioned Drayton firsthand among the Texas coaches in the tweet he posted over the weekend.

Texas is also the most recent offer that Barnes received. The other program to offer Barnes this month was the Mississippi State Bulldogs and recently hired head coach Mike Leach. There are 26 other schools that currently sit on Barnes’ offer sheet too.

Most of the programs that offered the Nevada native thus far either hail out of the SEC, Big 12, or PAC-12. The other highlighting schools on his offer sheet as of the afternoon of July 20 includes the Alabama Crimson Tide, Auburn Tigers, Florida Gators, Florida State Seminoles, LSU Tigers, Michigan Wolverines, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Oklahoma Sooners, Oregon Ducks, Penn State Nittany Lions, Tennessee Volunteers, Texas A&M Aggies, USC Trojans, and Washington Huskies.

Texas is currently one of four Big 12 programs to have sent Barnes a scholarship offer. The other three are the Kansas State Wildcats, West Virginia Mountaineers, and Oklahoma.

The 5-foot-10 and 185 pound Barnes ranks as the nation’s No. 108 2022 high school prospect, No. 7 running back, and No. 3 prospect out of Nevada (247Sports Composite). The Top247 slots him as the nation’s No. 131 high school prospect, No. 12 running back, and No. 4 prospect out of Nevada.

There are no picks in yet for the 247Sports Crystal Ball Predictions or Rivals FutureCast as to where Barnes could be leaning early for his commitment decision. But there is plenty of time that Barnes has to make that decision.

Texas has yet to still land their first commitment of their 2022 recruiting class. Barnes might not be the first to land in their 2022 class, but he is certainly a talented running back for them to target from here on out.