Texas football gets SEC-sized DL commit in 4-Star Sydir Mitchell

The momentum train kept on chugging along for the 2023 Texas football recruiting class with the 18th commit on the evening of July 3. Second-year head coach Steve Sarkisian and defensive line coach Bo Davis landed a commitment from the sizable and touted four-star Bergen Catholic (NJ) defensive lineman Sydir Mitchell.

Texas landed the 6-foot-5 and 345-pound Mitchell via an announcement on CBS Sports HQ on the evening of July 3. This commitment arrived for the Longhorns 2023 class over other top schools for Mitchell such as the Georgia Bulldogs, Miami Hurricanes, and Texas A&M Aggies.

This is clearly a massive win on the recruiting trail for Davis and the Longhorns as it didn’t look very realistic for Texas to reel in a commitment from Mitchell as recently as a few months ago. Georgia looked to be the favorite to land a commitment from Mitchell throughout much of the offseason to date.

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But a major late push from Texas got allowed them to make a huge move with Mitchell to eventually get him as a centerpiece of this 2023 defensive line class. And he will certainly fit the bill of a defensive lineman that can be a centerpiece of this front for years to come.

We’ve already done an evaluation of what Mitchell brings to the table in terms of his skill set. You can view that analysis here.

Texas football gets massive 4-Star DL commit in Sydir Mitchell

What we will talk about here, though, is how the commitment of Mitchell impacts the Longhorns 2023 class moving forward and how this came to fruition.

First off, Texas clearly made a big impression on Mitchell during his official visit to Austin back on the weekend of June 17. Texas took advantage of getting the final official visit among the summer trips for Mitchell by shutting this recruitment down when he was originally anticipated to be a fairly heavy Georgia lean.

Davis and the Longhorns staff did an amazing job on the recruiting trail with Mitchell and his camp building this relationship in a pretty short span of time all things considered. Mitchell clearly buys into Davis’ pitch to him in terms of his development for the NFL. That says so much about the job Davis did here as he was able to beat out an NFL defensive lineman factory in Georgia to land this commitment from Mitchell.

One interesting factor in Texas’ pitch to Mitchell was how this staff thinks he has the scheme versatility to thrive in multiple different spots along the defensive line. Texas pitched Mitchell as a guy that won’t just play as a nose tackle anchoring the defensive line. Davis and this staff gave him the pitch that they can utilize his sneaky speed for a big-bodied DL and move him to different spots in the trenches to make him a matchup nightmare for opposing offensive lines.

And with the way that Mitchell moves in his film, it’s clear that Texas should be able to find multiple spots along the defensive line for him to make a big impact defending the run and rushing the passer.

Moreover, knowing how important Mitchell could be to this defensive line for years to come, how does his commitment impact the rest of the defensive line targets for the Longhorns’ 2023 class?

The first name worth noting that Texas is still going to make a top priority is the elite five-star Katy-Paetow defensive lineman David Hicks. Landing a commitment from Mitchell isn’t going to change the fact that Davis and the Longhorns staff are making Hicks a top priority on the defensive side of the ball in this 2023 class.

Hicks and Mitchell also bring different skill sets to the table, and both would obviously be very welcome in the 2023 class.

Other key blue-chip defensive line targets in the 2023 class such as four-star Cy Woods product Terrance Green, four-star Moss Point (MS) product Jamarious Brown, and four-star Hewitt-Trussville product Hunter Osborne might see their spots start to get a little bit shakier. I still believe Green would be a take for this class.

But Texas might wind up allocating their resources on the recruiting trail elsewhere moving forward instead of making big pushes for Brown and/or Osborne heading into the fall.

All in all, Texas is in a good spot along the defensive line in the 2023 class this summer. Texas holds two key blue-chip defensive line commits in the 2023 class between four-star C.E. King product Dylan Spencer and now Mitchell.

I’d imagine Texas would only want to take one or two more true defensive linemen in this class, leaving more room for numbers among linebackers and edge rushers. Those are the two positions in the 2023 class that are being prioritized above the rest on the defensive side of the ball.

Texas has now landed more than a dozen commits in the 2023 class going back to June 13, bringing this group up to 18 recruits in total. That still places Texas as the third-ranked recruiting class in the nation in the 247Sports Team Composite Rankings.