Recruiting — Steve Sarkisian vs Mack Brown

[VaHorn]

Sark seems to be the first real competitor to Mack Brown when it comes to recruiting. I recognize that this is a different era with NIL, but both coaches excelled at roster building over multiple recruiting cycles. I’m interested in everyone’s thoughts on the two when it comes to recruiting.

From my perspective, Mack changed the recruiting landscape with his emphasis on early recruiting, and locking down the state of Texas. People sometimes point to A&M joining the SEC as opening the floodgates to out of state schools, but if you look at the old Austin statesman rankings, the floodgates were open in the 1990s also. But I always wonder what might have been if Mack didn’t handcuff himself. Once a player a recruited to another school, he stopped recruiting, at least in the early years. He didn’t like JUCOs. He was also focused on building recruiting momentum, and the percentage of offers extended to offers accepted. So we often ended up with a lot of commitments from the early camps and seemed to cast our net too narrowly. Just looking at Gerry’s post on the recent nationwide DL offers demonstrates the difference in approach.  I like recruiting to the whistle but it can be nerveracking at times. We desperately needed OL in the 2022 class and at times it look like we would fall far short. 

[Neil Leininger]

Mack and his coaching staffs were awful at scouting and relied too heavily on recruiting rankings.

[Gerry Hamilton]

Mack Brown is the best recruiter Texas has ever had. 

He would be virtually unbeatable in his prime with Texas NIL behind him. 

[VaHorn]

I think that is definitely true. My main question, however, is what he could have achieved without his self imposed constraints on recruiting. At times, he was more interested in being genteel than successful. 
 

[GoHorns1]

21 hours ago, Gerry Hamilton said:

Mack Brown is the best recruiter Texas has ever had. 

He would be virtually unbeatable in his prime with Texas NIL behind him. 

But limited his pool to recruit. Should have recruited much more nationally 

[horns96]

How Mack Brown and Texas built a prestigious (and perilous) early recruiting phenomenon

☝️ great summary of how Mack changed the recruiting game (for the youngs like @CJ Vogel 😆)

[horns96]

1 hour ago, GoHorns1 said:

But limited his pool to recruit. Should have recruited much more nationally 

Recruiting Texas was essential to his pitch.  I was living in Philadelphia and working with a couple of former college athletes when Mack won his national championship.  Everyone knew I was a UT alum and everyone watched that game.  The first thing those former athletes said the next morning? How cool it was that Mack thanked Texas HS coaches with that trophy in his hand.