Inside Texas Football

IT Roundtable: Improving the Roster In the Portal, Texas' NFL Draft Success

Football doesn't stop just because spring ball ended. What is Sark doing in the portal and on the trail to improve this roster? Use Promo Code “IT1” To Get 2 Months of InsideTexas.com for Only $1: https://www.on3.com/teams/texas-longhorns/join/ Call your real estate expert, Laura Baker, at 512-784-0505 or email her at laura@andyallenteam.com. Listen to the Podcast: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3P0cwAUPNZrsNrTOKOfa6x Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-texas-football/id1721623113 Find Us On Social Media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/InsideTexas Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InsideTexas/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetexas/ https://www.on3.com/teams/texas-longhorns/

Duration:: 12m
Broadcast on:: 27 Apr 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Call your real estate expert, Laura Baker, at 512-784-0505 or email her at laura@andyallenteam.com.

Listen to the Podcast:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3P0cwAUPNZrsNrTOKOfa6x

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-texas-football/id1721623113

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https://www.on3.com/teams/texas-longhorns/

Good morning and happy Saturday. Welcome to the Saturday roundtable. We're coming to you live this morning. There's so much stuff flying around. Obviously, we've got the draft. Friends for Portals in Play and we're about to hit the road with our coaches on a heavy recruiting trail. Thank you for being here. This is sponsored obviously by InsideTexas.com and our friend Laura Baker. If you're looking to buy or sell your home in Central Texas, reach out to Laura Baker. Laura is a UT grad, an avid Longhorn fan and an IT member, so she's part of the family. She's also an elite member of the Andy Allen team with Keller Williams. So again, if you're in the area, you're looking for a home. We've got some testimonials from some people. One Ian Boyd worked with Laura so you know that she is top class. If you're thinking about moving now, give her a call today. Her number is 512-784-0505. Just one more time, that's 512-784-0505. Boys, we had five players drafted in the top 52. I mean, that's pretty big. I mean, if you really, I mean, let's not get too much in the numbers here. That's one in every 10. Roughly is a Longhorn. That's got to pretend well to how the program is being sold. Eric, I know the coaches are about to get on the trail a little bit, but let's talk about the draft. What does that mean? What does that mean about the state of the program and where we might be heading forward? We'll start with you, Eric. Yeah, I logged on inside Texas this morning. It's our glorious front page. It was so-and-so's going here, so-and-so's going there one after another. And it reminded me that's exactly what you expect to see when you cover the University of Texas. It's been far too long since they had this sort of success. I'm happy for the players, happy for the program. A lot of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears went into it. A lot of guys getting paid for filling their dreams. A very good day to be a Longhorn, but also just a statement and a testament to SARC's work so far where they went in the last year, but also, I think, where they're going. Joe, what are you seeing just in terms of, obviously, you're in Austin around the program a lot? What's the general vibe? It seems to be like, look, they're hyper-focused, but this is a-it's a really good place to be. I mean, we can all flashback even as early as five years ago and just walking around campus thinking about football. We were in a different place. What is the sense now when you're around the buildings and around the players? There's definitely a big buy-in from everybody, and five guys going in the first 52 helps coaches maintain that buy-in, and I think there's something to be said about the different paths that those guys took. I think it's a big buy-in Murphy. Some outlets rated him pretty highly. Some were kind of middling on him because of his size, three and out player. You look at Xavier Worthy, who was a top 60 prospect on pretty much everybody's board, three and out player. And then you have another example, like Tavondre Sweatt, who it took until his fifth year for him to really get going, and now he was picked by the Titans there in the second round. They have a lot of different stories to tell, and I think that's a good thing for the players to see, "Hey, you can come in and be this highly touted prospect and get out of there and chase your NFL dreams." But there's also something to be said for sticking around developing and maybe getting that last year of coaching. It worked for Tavondre Sweatt. And then today, we'll probably see another three and out player, or we will see another three and out player and Jotavian Sanders go, and then on the other side of that coin, you'll see a six year player and Christian Jones get drafted. So lots of different tales they can tell throughout the building for players to keep them around and keep them involved with trying to take Texas to a new level. One of the messages that obviously can go out, but let's be really frank, one of the knocks on Texas over the last few years when we were out in the desert was exactly what you're talking about Joe, that idea of development. You know, we were really good. We never really totally struggled with bringing in talented players just by virtue of being in Austin, the facilities, the brand. That was an attractive thing for players, but now we're getting those players in and we're making them better. We're taking three stars. We're making them NFL prospects. That's a new place to be. And as the coaches are hitting the trail here, Eric, how is that message being sent out? Where are they headed? Just give us a little bit of an update on what the boys are up to. Well, you know, going back to when they first got to Texas, I didn't coin the phrase, but I used it a lot when the staff got hired that its buildings don't develop players coaching staffs do, meaning whatever the coaches did or prior or didn't do before the staff didn't matter. They weren't there anymore. Their track records have nothing to do with the current staff that was assembled. I think Sark assembled a very good staff. When it comes to development, we're seeing the fruits of that labor now, but they can go on and say they can tell the same thing that they're telling their locker room that Joe just outlined to recruits. Hey, look, you know, we're going to develop you and we want to get you out in three years. That's a big selling point for Sark. We're trying to get you out as soon as possible. You know, I want to keep the train rolling. Keep the assembly line rolling. I've got a three three three not receiver coming in. I've got another one right behind them. And that's a huge selling point. Guys want to get out as soon as possible. They want to hear they're going to be developed. They want to hear how they're going to be developed. And right now, as bright as they're about to hit the hit the recruiting trail very hard ahead of the June official visit month. They're going to get a lot of people's attention price and people attention that they didn't have before. When we're when we're talking about the obviously the recruiting trail we've got the junior month opening up. We can't. I mean, this is this is what everybody's talking about right now is that transfer portal right and I think it's important because, first of all, this is new. I mean, I understand that we're we're in your two of this but still this is this is an evolution how teams are adjusting to this how they're not adjusting to it. That will be a storyline that will carry us through probably for several seasons to go. But I think if we could just do a quick tiny little primer because some of the fans, I think, don't understand some of the timelines. So Wednesday, Wednesday is an important day Joe. Can you explain why Wednesday is such a big deal in the transfer portal. Oh no, did I lose the sound. There we go. There's the spring window and that's when players can can jump into the transfer portal and then be immediately eligible, at least how the current rules are are structured with the NCAA. And there's a new twist that even grad transfers who used to be able to hop in and pretty much any time. I think the NCAA said they have to be in by the 30th now. That doesn't mean that they have to decide, although there is the whole factor of, you know, trying to get involved enrolled into summer school and get into classes, but that seems to be, you know, details that can be taken care of later. But as far as jumping into the portal, players have to go to their compliance office by the 30th and tell them and put them in. So, even on May 2nd, you can still see some new names pop up, but if they went in on Wednesday to put their name in that database, they're good. So, but that, like I said, that's not the deadline for a decision. That's just the deadline for deciding to jump into the portal and start to hear from opposing or even your own coaches again. And because now because of the way social media works and everybody having a platform, they can make these announcements. They can say, Hey, look, I'm entering the transfer portal. And maybe not actually even enter the transfer portal at that point. I think there's even as recent as this week we've had some Texas players who've announced that they're going into the portal but may not have actually entered the portal yet. What is, I mean, again, this is total speculation and I don't want to get us into any kind of trouble here, but what is the, you know, there's got to be a strategy to that right we saw that earlier with the defensive tackles right we had some specifically I'm going to talk about our UCLA player we don't need to go into names, but there was some leveraging that was going on there that wasn't necessarily obvious to everybody else right you've got somebody that's later in their collegiate career, it would make a little bit more sense for them to try to to move around but at the same time like leveraging is now a commodity is now an entity when we're moving into the transfer portal and I'm curious that you know again this is new Eric and, and obviously tell us as much as you can but with your sources how are they, is there any way to defend against that is there any way to prepare for that when you've got these these kids now playing the leveraging game. You know well behind the scenes you're going to have an idea how if you're getting leveraged just based on what they're asking for and you're going to a lot of times you're going to get an idea to dip out pretty quick. Other times they're going to take it down to the wire and maybe the kid is is you know I've had the same situation I had a job offer on the table. I was willing to leave I didn't necessarily want to leave but it was too good to not to pass up. The company met met that same demand and I stayed now I wasn't trying to leverage the company and you know a lot of these guys might not be trying to leverage school. They're just you know it's until they actually are willing to leave the school doesn't take them seriously. So I don't I'm not you know I don't I don't begrudge any of them but yeah on our end it sometimes is hard I broke my golden rule on Jay Toya by forgetting that you know you don't know what you don't know and you have to account for that. Especially when you're covering the portal. So when you're talking about Dominic Williams. You know I don't know I don't know how heavy Missouri is going to come on that on that recruitment you know they obviously are well healed right now they're making a lot of hay on the recruiting trail. And so I'm taking them seriously. You know I do think Texas isn't a good spot on that recruitment but but we'll see there's it's so hard to tell there's just so many moving pieces there's so many different people involved the more people involved the harder it is to get a read. Who's the actual ultimate decision maker how far some of these other schools willing to go. You don't know you know I don't think we'll know anything on that recruitment till the last hour or so. I think one thing that that fans specifically of of Texas and let's be really honest people that are that are reading inside Texas calm that are absorbing this level of information in May and April. You know they're very dedicated to the cause and you know one thing and again this is probably not my place to do it but you know Eric of amongst the pundits there are out there you swing a little bit more conservative in your picks you're. You really really want to be on the ball on that so it to me that's an indicator of the level of information that we're getting. And those curveballs can kind of come you just don't know I mean the sources are reliable. The sources think they're good everybody thinks it's good and then the next morning you know at the end of the day you're just dealing with. You're just dealing with the material nature of a young man and there's not much we can do about that. So let's talk about go ahead to that point I mean even SARCs talked about that to where let's take a recruitment like Colin Simmons where we had talked with Collins coaches at Duncanville and we had talked with you know his members of the family calling himself sources at Texas. That's a recruitment that had like a year and maybe even a little bit more I think Justin Wells went to one of his a you basketball tournaments with these portal recruitment. The coaches are like trying to lock these things up and like the span of three days. And so a lot of the data that you know might not be there in front of us like it is for a normal high school recruitment the coaches are dealing with the same thing and so the same thing heads downstream to us as well. A lot of times a lot of times we don't have those built in relationships like we do in high school like oh you know it's high school is a lot easier to cover and high school can be difficult columns wasn't the easiest recruitment I've ever covered. But you know we have built in relationships we know somebody in the area we probably know a family member from you know a previous recruitment. It's a lot more built in ties and then on these on these portal ones you're screaming like hey there's got to be a way we were talking about a yesterday group text we've got to be able to get to this guy there's got to be somebody who do you know who do you know you know usually we can crack it usually we can get in there and figure it out but it takes a lot of work and a lot of creativity so the coaches are doing the same thing like Joe said. Well, and again, this this alludes exactly to what savings.