Where the 2026 Class Calls Home (Wednesday Noon)

[CJ Vogel]

On Texas Football coverage of SEC Media Days is brought to you by Vonlane, Flat Creek Estate Winery, Advanced Pain Care and South Point Dodge.

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Texas continues to make a dent in the heart of the SEC with its recruiting push. Tuesday being a prime example of just that.

Adding prospects from Florida and Georgia continue the trend of the national approach Steve Sarkisian and his staff have taken on the recruiting trail.

The current class sits at 20 commits after the Tuesday explosion. And it is possible the Longhorns reach that 21 number our @Bobby Burton has been alluding to by the weekend. Among those 20 commits, there are eight states representing half of the members in the Texas class currently.

• 10 – Texas
• 2 – Florida
• 2 – Georgia
• 2 – Louisiana
• 1 – Alabama
• 1 – California
• 1 – Louisiana
• 1 – North Carolina

Of course, RB Derrick Cooper hails from Hollywood, Florida as well. 

Going off of the 43 official visitors in the month of June, only 17 called Texas home. For the first time in my Texas-recruiting-life, the majority of official visitors traveled to Austin from outside the state of Texas.

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I asked Steve Sarkisian on Tuesday how does he and the staff go about balancing the national approach with making sure that his backyard is kept in check. For what it is worth, I don't think anyone will care where prospect X comes from if he arrives in Austin and provides a positive impact.

"It's hard, I think now more than ever – I will try to make it as not longwinded as I can.

16 years ago or so, this thing called Twitter started. And I really believe that around 2008 or 2009, the landscape of recruiting really started to shift. The ability to connect two players directly for coaches – and for y'all that cover recruiting – dramatically changed. Because of that connection, players were more apt to travel.

I think after COVID, it accelerated it even more. Players (were thinking) I can go somewhere, I can see (the campus). Because they spent a year there where they couldn't go anywhere.

And so now, when you add in revenue sharing and publicity rights, things of that nature, NIL. And now people have resources to reach out. 

But, you can't take them all. At the end of the day, we try to make really strategic decisions based on our roster. We think we have a really good roster this season and think we will have a really good roster next year. But I also try to foresee the forest through the trees of where the gaps in issues we may have coming up. We can't recruit them all, and I would love to.

I would love to take every player in the state of Texas and say 'Come be a Longhorn,' but it wouldn't be feasible. The reality of it is we have some really good football players, we have a great brand right now – it is a national brand right now – and the exposure our program has gotten over the past couple of years has been huge for us.

Some of the best players in the country have some real interest in us. But again, we don't try to recruit all of those either. I don't know how everybody does all of that. I don't have the time or the energy to do all of those things.

But what we do is we narrow our pool down pretty good based off of the ability, then the person and the family, and if they will be a good fit for us."

[Migas & Fajitas]

Nice read. This ain’t our father’s college football landscape any longer…

[Califashorn75]

I look forward to the day we sign a kid from Mexico. 

[CJ Vogel]

2 minutes ago, Califashorn75 said:

I look forward to the day we sign a kid from Mexico. 

Haha, I am ready for that recruiting trip

[Born Burnt Orange]

9 minutes ago, Califashorn75 said:

I look forward to the day we sign a kid from Mexico. 

Kicker?  I think Tony Zendejas of the Houston Oilers was from Mexico if I recall correctly.   

[Brandon Spaur]

@CJ Vogel Isn’t Wells from Mississippi?

[VaHorn]

Mack Brown really only recruited Texas. Schools used to negative recruit Texas with out of state prospects, saying that they wouldn’t be favored. 
 

2006 class - Texas 20, Colorado 1, SC 1

2007 - Texas 23, California 1

2008 - Texas 19, Colorado 1

2009 - Texas 19, Arkansas 1

2010 - Texas 22, Louisiana 1, Ohio 1, Oklahoma 1

[Migas & Fajitas]

1 hour ago, VaHorn said:

Mack Brown really only recruited Texas. Schools used to negative recruit Texas with out of state prospects, saying that they wouldn’t be favored. 
 

2006 class - Texas 20, Colorado 1, SC 1

2007 - Texas 23, California 1

2008 - Texas 19, Colorado 1

2009 - Texas 19, Arkansas 1

2010 - Texas 22, Louisiana 1, Ohio 1, Oklahoma 1

Didn’t all our coaches until Sark mostly recruit Texas?

[VaHorn]

3 hours ago, Migas & Fajitas said:

Didn’t all our coaches until Sark mostly recruit Texas?

No, not really. Of course everyone’s going to have a majority of the players from Texas, including Sark. But Strong and Herman were less Texas centric than Mack. 

[Migas & Fajitas]

11 minutes ago, VaHorn said:

No, not really. Of course everyone’s going to have a majority of the players from Texas, including Sark. But Strong and Herman were less Texas centric than Mack. 

I think you need to recheck the classes. There may have been a few more oos recruits under Herman or Strong but those classes were all still mostly Texas recruits. Sark is on pace to have as many if not more oos recruits than Texas recruits this cycle. 

Edited 7 minutes ago by Migas & Fajitas