Texas Football: Analyzing 5 Junior Day visitors to watch this weekend

This coming weekend will bring about one of the bigger visitor lists of the early portion of the offseason for head coach Steve Sarkisian and the Texas football program. Texas is set to host well over a couple dozen visiting recruits, namely in the 2024 and 2025 classes.

The Junior Day festivities this weekend will be the second time Sark and the Longhorns have hosted this sort of event this offseason. The first Texas Junior Day of the offseason came back on the weekend of Jan. 21.

Texas hosted more than three dozen big-time visitors among priority recruits in the 2024, 2025, and 2026 classes. And while this weekend’s Junior Day visitor list might not be as loaded or filled with the number of recruits that the Longhorns hosted a couple of months ago, this one is still chalked full of key-blue chips that are big for Texas to hit big with.

So far this offseason, the Longhorns hold commitments from two recruits in the 2024 class. And the Longhorns are still seeking out the first commit in the 2025 class. It’s clear why the spring will be so big for the Longhorns on the recruiting trail, specifically this weekend for the second Junior Day of 2023.

Colin Simmons and the top recruits to watch visiting Texas football for Junior Day this weekend

Here’s a look at an analysis of five Junior Day visitors to watch for the Longhorns this weekend.

Joshua Lair, S

One of the newest Texas offers heading into Junior Day weekend is one of the hottest recruits in the entire country at the moment in the 2024 class, Missouri City Fort Bend Marshall (TX) safety Joshua Lair. The 6-foot-2 and 185-pound Lair has essentially received all of his FBS offers in the last few months.

That’s ultra-impressive considering the fact that Lair now has more than 20 FBS schools on his ever-growing offer sheet. Texas was one of the latest schools to jump into one of the recruitments that are heating up faster than any other this spring in the 2024 class.

It goes without saying that this is a good spring evaluation for the Longhorns. Lair is a physically-gifted safety with excellent length and a real nose for finding the football. He brings insane closing speed to the table and has a ton of pop in the pads once he finds the ball-carrier.

On film, it looks like there is a magnet between Lair’s shoulder and the football. He does a really nice job of laying the lumber on the ball carrier and separating them to create turnovers.

Just because Lair is a hard hitter doesn’t mean that he isn’t a sure-tackler, though. Once Lair gets a read on the ball carrier, he’s going to bring them down more often than not. Despite the hard-hitting nature of his game, Lair is still a good fundamental tackler from what I’ve seen in early film studies of the rising in-state safety recruit.

To put it simply, Lair has the instincts and ability to fight through the chaos at the line of scrimmage that you would expect from a will linebacker. But he’s got the range and closing speed of a standout boundary safety that can contest space well and blow up plays in the opposing team’s backfield.

I would like to see more film from Lair that shows off his coverage skills. From what I have seen, it looks like Lair’s ranginess in the defensive backfield along with his lengthy frame still allows him to make a lot of plays in coverage. He registered two interceptions and five breakups during his junior season at Fort Bend Marshall (per MaxPreps), so he’s clearly got at least decent instincts in pass coverage.

Moreover, the Junior Day visit will be Lair’s first trip to the Forty Acres in the midst of what’s amounted to a very busy spring schedule for the rising high school senior. He’s also visited the Texas A&M Aggies, Baylor Bears, LSU Tigers, and Houston Cougars, in the last couple of months.

This recruitment is obviously still very much in its early stages. But this weekend will serve as a big-time opportunity for the Longhorns to make a solid impression on Lair after he received the Texas offer a couple of days ago.