Texas Football: 5 most underrated recruits in Longhorns history

D’Onta Foreman, RB

Recruiting ranking: No. 1,049 in 2014 class

The 2014 recruiting class was loaded with blue-chip running back talent. All-Americans and eventual early-round NFL Draft picks such as Georgia’s Nick Chubb, Florida State’s Dalvin Cook, LSU’s Leonard Fournette, Georgia’s Sony Michel, Oregon’s Royce Freeman, and Oklahoma’s Samaje Perine highlighted one of the best running back classes of the last decade in college football.

Low-three-star Texas City (TX) running back D’Onta Foreman was also one of the best at his position in this class. He was also one of the most underrated. In fact, Foreman was the only Power Five running back from the 2014 class that had a 2,000 rushing-yard season in college.

The only other running back from this class to rush for over 2,000 yards in a single season was fellow low-three-star recruit San Diego State’s Rashaad Penny (per Sports Reference).

Moreover, in the mid-to-late 2010s, the Longhorns got some tremendous value offensive recruits pegged as low three-stars by the major recruiting services. Cosmi was one of the All-Americans for the Longhorns that wasn’t even rated among the top 1,000 recruits in the nation in his cycle in the 247Sports Composite.

Another high-value recruit rated outside the top 1,000 national prospects in his class was Foreman. Texas signed Foreman in a class that also featured four-star running back Duke Catalon, who was rated much higher than D’Onta as a top 200 recruit in the nation in the 2014 class.

Foreman might be the best player from this class for the Longhorns, as he boasted one of the great running back seasons at Texas during the 2016 campaign. Foreman rushed for over 2,000 yards and 15 touchdowns en route to finishing in the top 10 in the Heisman voting.