Texas Football: ASU making things interesting with 4-Star Ja’Kobi Lane

One of the targets that head coach Steve Sarkisian and wide receivers coach/passing game coordinator Brennan Marion made a late run at in the 2023 Texas football recruiting class is the highly touted four-star Red Mountain Mesa wide receiver and USC Trojans commit Ja’Kobi Lane. Texas made a big late move this cycle for Lane, but it ultimately wound up being all for naught.

At least, that appears to be the case at the moment with the first Early National Signing Day giving us plenty to talk about on Dec. 21.

The school that appears to be making the recruitment of Lane really interesting in the midst of the first signing day is the Arizona State Sun Devils. New head coach Kenny Dillingham and the Sun Devils have really made a strong impression on Lane and his camp in the last few weeks.

A lot of credit must be paid to the former Texas assistant wide receivers coach and LA Rams running backs coach Ra’Shaad Samples for establishing a really good connection with Lane in a short order of time. Samples was hired earlier this month as the new Arizona State wide receivers coach/passing game coordinator.

Samples is making a huge push for Lane in the last couple of weeks. And that has likely played a role in why Lane has yet to sign on the dotted line on the first signing day on Dec. 21.

In fact, as of 2 p.m. CT on Dec. 21, Lane is the only USC commit in the 2023 class that has yet to sign his National Letter of Intent.

There continues to be a lot of speculation as to whether Arizona State was able to do enough to convince Lane either to flip his commitment from USC or at least delay his LOI.

It’s also worth noting that a teammate of Lane’s, three-star Mesa wideout Lenox Lawson, just signed with the Sun Devils (confirmed by a 247Sports report).

For the time being, it looks like the buzz is swaying in Arizona State’s direction. And the longer we go on signing day without a signed LOI from Lane, the more that likely favors the Sun Devils.

Lane is a four-star wide receiver recruit hailing out of Red Mountain Mesa High School in Arizona. He holds 17 offers from the likes of the Oregon Ducks, Auburn Tigers, Utah Utes, Colorado Buffaloes, Texas A&M Aggies, Arizona State, Texas, and USC.