3 blue-chip 2023 commits Texas football could land in November

Markis Deal, DL

One of the top remaining defensive line targets for the Longhorns 2023 class is the highly touted four-star Garland Naaman Forest defensive lineman Markis Deal. Defensive line coach Bo Davis and the Longhorns are making a final push in November to try and make a big move with Deal to lock up this recruitment ahead of signing day.

Davis and the Longhorns look to be in a dogfight with the TCU Horned Frogs and Georgia Bulldogs in the latter stages of the race to land a commitment from Deal.

Georgia hosted Deal for an official visit to Athens on Sep. 23. And there was some buzz between Deal’s camp and Georgia coming out of that official visit weekend a couple of months ago.

TCU hosted Deal for an official visit to Fort Worth back in late May 2022. He hasn’t made it back to Fort Worth a whole lot since the spring. But TCU definitely remains in the running to keep the Dallas-Forth Worth lineman local to home.

Moreover, Deal has a decisive official visit scheduled for the weekend of Nov .11, which is the week Texas is set to host TCU for a critical Big 12 matchup at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin. If Texas can pull out a big win under the lights at DKR in a key primetime game against TCU, that would likely make a major impact on Deal’s decision.

At the moment, it looks like Texas at least holds a slight edge over TCU and Georgia among the top schools in Deal’s recruitment. Texas will definitely have to fight to continue to set the pace in this recruitment as TCU and Georgia aren’t going to go away quietly.

If Texas can seal the deal with Deal in the near future, that could round out the defensive line recruiting for Davis and the Longhorns in the 2023 class. Texas is continuing to add a couple of other defensive line recruits to the big board late in this cycle. But Deal and the elite five-star Katy Paetow DL David Hicks are probably the top two targets for the staff at this point of the fall.