Thinking Out Loud | Texas' National Approach Begins Early

Very nice overview, CJ.  Recruiting in the SEC will not be for the faint of heart.  I'm already imagining the dozens of toes upon which the Longhorns are already stepping.

If you think the Big 12 hated us...lol

5 hours ago, CJ Vogel said:

I am very excited to get to know most of the new faces on the board as we progress into the offseason. For those who are new to following my coverage of Texas Football, just know there are times where I get stuck in random rabbit holes looking for obscure facts and tidbits across both team coverage and the recruiting world.

And for you all on this beautiful Tuesday afternoon, I have ventured back into a rabbit hole of recruiting.

We have talked about the national approach we have seen Texas take in year's past, especially with the current staff. It will continue to be a focal point of the recruiting approach.

Last July, I went through the offers extended by state to get an idea of where Texas is recruiting. I will touch on two points here in this article – 1. Where those offers are going and 2. When those are offers are handed out.

I would not call this piece anything groundbreaking. Texas extends offers to where talent is present, that is no surprise. However, I was a bit surprise at how quickly they were able to identify that talent, with the staff clearly turning focus to the season in the mid-summer months.

A look at the top ten states by offers extended by the Texas staff in the 2024 cycle:

1. Texas (55)
2. Florida (28)
3. Georgia (25)
4. California (21)
5. Louisiana (8)
6. Alabama (8)
7. Mississippi (7)
8. Arizona (6)
9. Missouri (4)
10. Washington (3)

Off the bat, no surprises here. Texas is taking a heavy look in its backyard and extending into the recruiting hot spots of California, Florida and Georgia.I was a bit surprised to see only eight offers extended to Louisiana, however, the Longhorns have a much deeper impact in the state as a result of landing Arch Manning, Derek Williams, Wardell Mack and Melvin Hills in previous cycles.

But this got me thinking.

Of course, the origins of this thought process stemmed from the early July run of commitments. I originally went through this list during July of 2023 and the numbers then don't look all too different from the final numbers I posted from today.

Offers by state from July 2023:

1. Texas (53)
2. Georgia (23)
3. Florida (22)
4. California (19)
5. Louisiana (8)
6. Alabama (7)
7. Arizona (6)
8. Missouri (4)
9. Mississippi (3)
10. Washington (2)

Of the top ten states Texas extended offers to in the 2024 cycle, 91.5% of them were extended by essentially July 4th.

Texas gets their out of state evaluations out early and often. I expect to see Texas much more active in the out of state recruiting in 2025 cycle as well. As a result of the Longhorns coming off of a College Football Playoff run, the Longhorns will be able to toss more lures in the water from a national perspective and see a few more nibbles of interest.

Already in the 2025 cycle, the Longhorns have extended 149 offers right as we sit right at the end of January. In the entirety of the 2024 cycle, the Longhorn staff extended 191 offers with a pair of them going to specialists. 

Maybe later in the week I will dig into the position by position approach, but Texas offered 35 defensive linemen last cycle, something I expect to see changed from a philosophical approach now that Kenny Baker is on campus to take over for Bo Davis.

At the end of the day, the player personnel department is doing a mighty fine job of finding talent early on and the Texas staff is active to extend offers. Feel free to dive into the rabbit hole with me and if you have any wild or wacky thoughts of your own you would like to see me jump into, feel free to let me know. 

 

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Love the rabbit hole CJ, I routinely go down then at work and outside of work. Sometimes you find some very interesting things down them. It'll be interesting to see how this compares this next and if the CFP run has an impact on both the numbers and percentages or just one. Maybe another strong season might slightly lower the percentage, but I doubt it cause Sark seems to be on most early this cycle. 

Another rabbit hole you might be able to help me with is the hit rate by metro area Rod was talking about Sunday on the live stream. I did a brief cursory look but couldn't find them, could you post me in the right direction as that is one I'd like to go down.

I love the table CJ. I would love it even more if it had the signee number next to the offer number.

Across CFB, It seems to me players are already committing earlier in 2024 than 2023 (or prior years). Wondering if the data backs that up. Couldn’t access 247’s API, and I’m on iPad so I gave up.

Good stuff! This is meat on the bone!