Assessing 5 biggest visiting recruits for Texas football vs. Alabama

Tausili Akana (2023), EDGE

Another one of the official visitors set to make his way to campus this weekend in Austin for the Texas-Alabama game on Sep. 10 is the highly touted four-star Sky Ridge (UT) edge rusher/linebacker Tausili Akana. Texas will get the first of four official visits that are on the books for Akana this fall.

Akana is also set to officially visit LSU (Oct. 7), Oklahoma (Oct. 14), and Texas A&M (Nov. 4). This will give co-DCs/LB coaches Pete Kwiatkowski and Jeff Choate the opportunity to set the tone in the recruitment of Akana this fall.

Texas is one of the hot schools trending in a positive direction right now in the race to land a commitment from Akana. In fact, it feels like PK, Choate, and the Longhorns found a spark of momentum on the recruiting trail with Akana since his June 8 unofficial visit to Austin.

Yet, this is also a recruitment that has taken a few twists and turns with no clear frontrunner in the last few months for Akana.

Texas originally had an edge in this recruitment among Akana’s top schools thanks to the relationship that he and his camp had with former Horns assistant Jake Langi. Last month, though, Langi left the program after spending multiple years as a staffer that had clearly built some strong relationships around the Forty Acres and specifically on the recruiting trail.

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Texas will get a chance to strengthen the connection with Akana this weekend following the departure of Langi. If PK and Choate can really hit a home run with the pitch they give Akana and his camp this weekend, along with having a good atmosphere on gameday, I would imagine that would really move the needle in this recruitment.

This will be an enormous weekend for Texas in pursuit of one of their top defensive targets this fall in the 2023 class.