Texas Football: Big commit arrives during OV weekend in Anthony Jones

What was expected to be a really big weekend for the 2022 Texas football recruiting class is what transpired for new head coach Steve Sarkisian. Texas hosted a good number of visitors for their second weekend during official visit season this month. The month of June was going to be a really busy time for this new Texas coaching staff, and this weekend looked like it was going to be the one that hosted the most critical set of visitors.

Texas did land their first rated high school prospect of the visit season this weekend in the form of the under-the-radar three-star Liberty (NV) athlete Anthony Jones. This 6-foot-5 and 245-pound is the first commit (outside of Williams Field long snapper Lance St. Louis) in more than one month. The previous commit in the 2022 class was the four-star Brophy College Prep defensive lineman Zac Swanson.

The commitment of Jones came courtesy of his Twitter timeline on the night of June 12. His commitment came in the hours following the busiest day of the official visit schedule this weekend. And it gave Sark and the Longhorns some real momentum heading into the second half of the visit season this month.

https://twitter.com/anthonyjones015/status/1403892397860392961

The 2022 Texas football recruiting class moving the right way again after landing 3-Star ATH Anthony Jones

This product hailing out of Henderson, NV, started to gain some real traction with the Longhorns following the hire of the new co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Pete Kwiatkowski. Jones was favored to land with head coach Jimmy Lake and the Washington Huskies prior to Sark and the Longhorns hiring away Kwiatkowski.

That connection looks to be what won over the commitment of Jones to Texas when it was all said and done.

This commitment from Jones came during his official visit with the Longhorns, specifically set for June 11. Texas had one of three official visits on the books with Jones for the month of June. The other two were with the Miami Hurricanes (June 4) and Oregon Ducks (June 25).

But the official visit Jones had scheduled with the Ducks now has some of its importance diminished.

Texas is starting to add some real multiplicity with the non-blue chip commits in their 2022 class. That could be something that is valuable down the road since that utility can fill out the depth chart in unique ways down the road.

Yet, Jones is anticipated to either play at either tight end or along the front seven for the Longhorns moving forward. Kwiatkowski has long recruited Jones since his days on the Washington coaching staff. He likely knows well where he plans to use Jones on the defensive side of the ball.

If Jones does wind up playing in the front seven for the Longhorns, that means that around half of the commits in the 2022 class now fit into that description. Just a few months ago, some question marks loomed about where the direction of the front seven could go in the 2022 class. A lot of those question marks have now been answered by the trio of Sark, Kwiatkowski, and fellow co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Jeff Choate.

Jones wound up committing to Texas over offers from nine other schools. Some of the other significant schools on his offer sheet are Oregon, Miami, Washington, Arizona Wildcats, Colorado Buffaloes, and USC Trojans.

Moreover, Jones ranks as the nation’s No. 567 2022 high school prospect, No. 48 athlete, and No. 11 prospect out of Nevada (247Sports Composite). And the Top247 ranks him as the No. 42 athlete and No. 10 prospect out of Nevada.

According to the 247Sports Team Composite Rankings, the 2022 Texas recruiting class now ranks at No. 8 in the nation and in the second spot in the Big 12 behind the Oklahoma Sooners. Texas now has 10 commits in their 2022 class, with the highest-rated being four-star Junipero Serra quarterback Maalik Murphy.