Texas Football: 3 Horns summer enrollees pushing for early playing time
By Shane Black
We have hit the dog days of summer where Texas football recruiting news runs rampant, but discourse around the players who will be suiting up this fall seemingly dies down.
In today’s day and age of college football, most top recruits skip their final semester of high school and enroll in college in January. There are many benefits for players to be an “early enrollee.”
These student-athletes have an entire semester to acclimate to their academic course load, discover how to balance academics and football, get started in a rigorous strength and conditioning program, dial in their nutrition, and compete in spring practice. All these things, among other factors, help players transition from high school to college.
While being an early enrollee is highly beneficial, specifically when competing for reps in the fall, it does not secure you a spot atop the depth chart. Sure, you can say summer enrollees are “six months behind” their early-enrollee counterparts, but that has not stopped the truly elite players from standing out.
Look at Kelvin Banks. The Summer Creek High School graduate enrolled on the Forty Acres in June of 2022. Three months later, he was the starting left tackle against No. 1 Alabama in front of 100,000+ fans.
While I don’t know if this summer enrollee class has someone quite like Banks, I believe some players can make an immediate impact this fall.