Texas Football: 3 biggest 2024 recruiting misses for the Longhorns so far

The movement on the recruiting trail for Texas football and head coach Steve Sarkisian in the 2024 class is pretty still at the moment. Texas holds commitments from just three recruits in the 2024 class just a few months ahead of the start of the 2023 season.

Outside of landing a commitment from the nation’s top-ranked punter recruit in the 2024 class (per the 247Sports Composite), Sark and the Longhorns staff haven’t reeled in any pledges in roughly six months. The most recent non-special teams commit for the Longhorns in the 2024 class is the touted four-star Cypress (TX) Cy-Fair quarterback Trey Owens, who gave his pledge to Texas on Jan. 11, 2023.

Sark and his staff are playing a very patient game building out the 2024 class this offseason. And while it looks like the Longhorns are in a good position with a lot of its top targets in the 2024 class heading into the summer, this patient strategy on the recruiting trail can still be a risky one.

Texas football’s biggest recruiting misses in the 2024 class so far

Texas has already lost out on some key recruitments, especially for some blue-chip in-state targets, that it was once prioritizing early in this cycle. Here’s a look at three of the biggest 2024 recruiting misses so far in the cycle for the Longhorns.

Payton Pierce, LB

One of the important early linebacker recruitments for the 2024 cycle for the Longhorns and co-defensive coordinators/linebackers coaches Jeff Choate and Pete Kwiatkowski was the highly touted four-star Lucas (TX) Lovejoy product Payton Pierce. The 6-foot-2 and 215-pound in-state blue-chip linebacker recruit Pierce was one of the early priority targets that visited Texas multiple times since last offseason.

Going back to the beginning of the 2022 offseason, Pierce visited Austin unofficially a half-dozen times. The last visit he made was an unofficial trip for the first Junior Day of the offseason on Jan. 21.

Texas looked to be one of the top schools in the race to land a commitment from Piece during the winter of 2023. He had multiple successful visits to Texas late last summer through the first Junior Day of this offseason. Pierce and his family also made good connections with the Texas coaches.

An early offseason offer from the Ohio State Buckeyes changed the nature of this recruitment heading into the spring, though. Ohio State made an enormous move in the race to land a commitment from Pierce during a late March unofficial visit (specifically on March 25).

The Buckeyes pulled ahead of the likes of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Arkansas Razorbacks, and Texas for good coming out of that late March visit to Columbus to see Ohio State. Pierce committed to Ohio State on April 12, 2023.