Welcome to the Inside Texas Football YouTube channel powered by InsideTexas.com. I'm Joe Cook at Eric Knoplin, Paul Wallington, Ian Boyd. We are here for another Monday live episode. We're coming off a big official visit weekend. The news is rolling on Inside Texas, and we are going to talk a lot about recruiting. Obviously, make sure you like this video, subscribe to the channel, help us get to 8,000 subscribers, and also head to InsideTexas.com. You can use a promo code IT1. I'll get you two months of Inside Texas access for just $1. Eric, official visit season is always a lot of fun. There were only a handful who made it to campus this past weekend, but like you noted over on Inside Texas, even with the small amount of prospects visiting, it was still an important and successful weekend for the Longhorns. Yeah, they had a number of priorities on campus, guys, that they really need for this class to maximize. Josiah Sharma, JVian Hillson, Myron Charles, big bodies, guys from places that kind of backfilling what the state doesn't produce. You got to get big guys, and they had a number of quality players that they'd love to have in the class. Michael Terry, that recruitment took a fun turn. Caleb Chester, priority cornerback was on campus. Caleb Edwards, just to the kinds was a bit of a surprise, though I shouldn't have been caught slipping like that. Wider Siever out of Spring to Candy. So yeah, it was a small group, but there was plenty storylines. Paul, the big stir that started on Friday was Josiah Sharma took to Instagram, starts taking videos of what he's seeing out in front of Texas, and there are a lot of really nice cars out in front of the Longhorns, the facility that angered some rivals, but that's one of those if you don't hate the player, hate the game moments for me. Lions laying down with lambos. Yeah, it was interesting. Look, I mean, that's where we are now. You know, the fact is, if we were on the other side of it, we'd probably be saying that's not what college football's about. And there were some amusing people that opined on Twitter that this needs to get out of college football, which, wow, those people don't own mirrors in their house, apparently. But yeah, I mean, it's just, that's the state of the game. It is what it is. It's about swag. And, you know, look, these guys are going to college, particularly these high-level recruits, they're going to college for the hopes of playing in the NFL one day. And if they can't make the NFL, there's still an opportunity for them to set themselves up pretty nicely for their lives. You know, I don't know about you, but it would have been nice to graduate Texas with a couple hundred grand in the bank and a fat down payment on a house and a car. That would have been a nice way to start my life. There's a very key term that you use there, and it was graduate. And I think from all the people watching this on social media or all those videos, they probably saw that and thought like, well, they're just handing them out to these kids from, you know, all over the country when that's clearly not the case and clearly ill had formed. Make sure you get some questions in. We'll be answering them throughout the course of the live, but we always go to the inside Texas message board for our first couple questions as things start to trickle in. Great ones from NBW629. In the big 12, Texas was the top scheduled target nearly every team that were game planned accordingly. This probably won't be the case in the SEC, but the level of competition jumps up considerably. Which do you think is tougher? Every team in a conference spending months game planning for you is their biggest game. Every team in a conference having more NFL caliber talent. Ian, I'll throw this one to you first considering you're a lot of studying you've done on the big 12. Where do you fall on this one? I think that's going to depend on the coaching staff at Texas. I think if the coaching staff at Texas was oriented around just getting as much talent on the field as possible, the big 12 strategy may have been a bigger hang up than if they are a top coaching strategy group that can game plan week to week. Although, honestly, we never really saw either in the last 10 years. Like this last SARC season was the only time we saw a Texas team that actually was able to stack talent on the field, and it went pretty well against all those clever big 12 teams. I think ultimately the SEC is going to be meaningfully more difficult. Paul, you've written about this a few different times over on inside Texas. I think aside from maybe the novelty factor, it's going to be the NFL talent in your opinion that that is what makes this more challenging than other teams like Iowa State claiming to be your rival. Yeah, so one thing to emphasize is, I mean, that is a real thing, and there was a sports media professor who did a bunch of polling at different college football fan bases, and 11 different schools considered Texas their primary rival. The next runner up was three or four, I can't recall. So there was something going on there, and as a Texas fan, you're probably actually struggling to come up, like you could come up with the first four or five, and then you're actually struggling to get to eight and nine, and that's when you realize, oh my God, Iowa State cares more about us than freaking Iowa. Their traditional rival, for the vaunted Cyhawk trophy. So yeah, I mean, it's going to be a change, but to Ian's point, talent is the more important part. I think the more subtle part of this that's interesting is that Texas fans sometimes in their hubris assume that that's going to continue, that we're going to be everyone's big circle game, and I wrote an article specifically sort of dispelling that. Yeah, Texas is going to be a big deal because Texas is a big historic team, and Texas is good. So if they're traveling to your town, and you're, as Ian likes to say, a mid SEC program, that's going to be a big deal. Kentucky will sell out Commonwealth Stadium for that game in Lexington, but they don't care more about that game than Louisville. They don't care more about that game if they host Georgia three weeks later, like people need to get over that nonsense. And you know, I remember mentioning Florida, and people were like, well, you know, they're going to have our game circled. And I'm like, no, they're not. They're playing Georgia LSU Florida State. They're playing Tennessee. I mean, they're not circling Texas. Now, will A&M have Texas circled? Yes. Well, oh, you always have Texas circled? Yes. Well, Arkansas, usually, particularly when you travel to them, will they have Texas circled? Sure. But part of that is the function of the schedule, too, right? Just how it falls. So the larger point is we're playing better teams now, but these teams have other fish to fry. And so Texas fans need to get off the assumption that they're the biggest game on the schedule for every team. It's just not true. It's just not the fact. So I think that'll be an interesting adjustment for Texas fans. That said, Texas come into your SEC town, especially the first couple of times when there's novelty, it'll be a big deal. Eric, the bottom half of the screen talked a lot about the on field aspect. But how does that sometimes play out on the recruiting trail? Because when Texas is going against, as it was, often during some, some troubling times for the program, TCU and even Oklahoma State, they would sometimes not succeed against those programs, started to do so more and more as Steve Sarkeesian's tenure goes on. But now that you're recruiting against SEC schools, how does that, how does that whole, I guess, way things work? The world is escaping? Yeah, they're going to be recruiting against the teams they play. They're not going to be playing the big 12 teams anymore. So they're not going to be recruiting against them. And they really, they'd left them behind, really in SARC's first full class. But yeah, you're right. For a long time, we did have to pay attention to who Baylor was going after. TCU, Oklahoma State, those guys, those teams you mentioned were all thorns in Texas aside at times. But that's no longer the case. I think something that's missed. And I do agree with Paul, like 90% of the way. I think there's something to be said for how maniacal the Southeast is about football. And so maybe those individual teams aren't circling Texas necessarily, but they're circling their calendar more just in general because it's football and they take it more serious in the South. It's an eye-opening experience to go to games down there versus, you know, going to Ames and Ames was fun. Don't get me wrong. But I think that just the the level of focus that they have on football, resources and all these other things, which leads to better recruiting, which leads to better facilities and just a better product, is going to make it a very difficult schedule even if these these teams aren't necessarily circling Texas. Games and Ames can lead you to missing flights as one of us knows. Oh man, that was nice. Got a good question. We'll get to some more from the Inside Texas Members Board. We got a good question from Peyton Ross. Interesting. Interestingly enough, not about an official visitor at Texas this weekend, but one to LSU. What could LSU have done different to now be right back and the thick of it? It seems like Decorian Moore decommitted for a reason. Is Texas that reason? Eric, I mean, you you had some insight on just the whole dynamic of this recruitment and what Decorian Moore might have wanted to do entering visit season. Yeah, I think that was a sympathy visit. And I don't think that LSU is right back in the thick of it. So it's hard for me to entertain that question. I think Texas is in a good spot. Obviously, he's coming in this weekend for an official visit, still has Oregon. Plenty of work left to do. I don't think Texas is going to have to beat LSU to get its commitment. Seems like it's got Texas, Oregon and Ohio State, not seems like those are the the top three at this point and LSU got got the visit, but maybe not much more than that. Trying to look through other things got a good question here from other one from MBW629 on the board. And Eric, this kind of goes back to what you just wrote over the weekend. It seems like Silas Bolden is an afterthought from the winter portal since he couldn't play spring ball, but last year he had about 70 touches and 1,000 all-purpose yards with eight touchdowns for the beavers. Surely he didn't transfer to UT to be a gadget player and be the next Keelan Robinson. So how does Stark utilize him this year? And what does our offense look like if his production matches his last year at Oregon State? You kind of wrote this about you wrote about this in the humidor and you've heard a lot of positive reviews about Bolden. Yeah, I mean, he was kind of an afterthought because he wasn't on campus. You know, there's not much to talk about if he's not on campus. He was, you know, I think when he committed everybody was pretty excited about him because he's not just a little gadget guy. He can get vertical. He attacks the ball in the air. He's got better ball skills than most of those guys to the side. I think he's not just trending holiday out there, which is just like a one trick pony. But yeah, now I'm a lot more excited after talking to people after his first week of working out and being in seven on sevens. He's extremely fast. He's short, but he's long. He's got long arms for his height. They kind of compensate for him. But really, you know, he can run. He can literally run almost as fast as Xavier Worthy is what I was told. Based on what I'm hearing, he's got to be one of the two or three fastest guys on the team. And then we know he's got some of those software wide receiver skills that you don't normally size in those smaller packages. You don't normally see in those smaller packages. They did bring him in with expanding the playbook in mind. They do want to do some gadget stuff, but you can go vertical with them as well. So yeah, I mean, based on that first week, I expect, I expect some production out of him for sure. Ian, does that maybe alter how you thought they may use Silas Bolden this year? Obviously, he's going to have an impact on special teams. He doesn't have the running back traits that Keel and Robinson had, but do you anticipate, how do you anticipate them maybe using Silas Bolden now that you know this additional detail? Well, I've always pictured him being in the slot. I thought he'd end up being the starting slot until, you know, DeAndre Moore, and who some of their guys are having really good springs at that position. But I still think he'll just end up taking that spot. Now they like to move guys around. He could probably play out tonight because Sarac has a lot of ways to help guys get open. But what I saw from Oregon State was if he's lined up on the line outside against a big legitimate corner, he will have some struggles because of his lack of size. But if you just let him play off the line a little bit, he's like, you know, quintessential terrorist college slot. It's just impossible to deal with. So I, it should be extremely easy to get him involved, especially in this offense where they'll, you know, they'll stack receivers, they'll motion them around. It's really hard to get. I mean, they, they helped Xavier worthy quite a bit. It'll be interesting to see how he does with the Chiefs because they're just moving guys around and putting them in an advantageous spot so often. So many, so many posts you want to go back to you after somebody posted a tweet from Ian from February noting Bolden's long speed saying that most of these guys don't normally have that sprinter speed and more quicker than fast. So, so that's some Ian picked up on in February. And, and somebody brought that to the board the other day. I thought that was pretty, pretty prescient. Paul? Yeah, one thing to mention about him more than height is he's about 30 pounds south of Keel and Robinson, right? He's, he's about 160 pounds soaking wet after a meal. So, the height thing, you know, he's not Rondale Moore. That's kind of the, you know, he's not 190 pounds squat and 550. So, that's, that's a difference too. But Ian's exactly right. He's not just like a quick guy. He's, he's fast. Like he separates. And there's a couple of highlights of him like going deep and laying out for a ball, like catching it over a shoulder. It's like, it's not what you expect from a guy that you people, I think, think of him as like Cabante Turpin from TCU, if you remember that guy. So, that's one, that's one part. The other factor is, it's really weird that we might do something entirely different from SARC's predilections, which is SARC typically wants to find his three guys at wide receiver. And they're, they're in there the whole game, right? They come off the field if they tweak something. That's about it. So, our depth at wide receiver is far better after losing two guys that were high NFL drafts. I mean, we've got six dudes that I'm very confident in. And so one, that's great, because a couple of these guys do have, you know, histories of soft tissue injuries and just playing football, you know, you're going to get injured in tweaks here and there. So that's, it's not a big deal week to week if someone's out. And then second, I mean, talk about enforcing a vitality curve, right? I mean, these guys are all going to be competing, making each other better. But then the question still remains, is SARC going to rotate receivers? And I think it's going to just come down to playbook. I don't think it's going to necessarily come down to a slight talent difference. I think it's going to be like, who's the most in their playbook and who is the most reliable? And that will probably be the way that SARC probably, you know, makes his selection. It's the guys who self-select by not knowing what to do in certain formations or play goals. So, I know you all don't like the being thrown and asked the comparison question. So I'll present one to you all and see if it makes sense. You mentioned Cavante Turpin. I like that. What about Hakeen Grant, the Texas Tech Mighty Might, who had 1200 yards with Pat Mahomes? Is that a good comparison for Silas Bolden? Ian? Yeah, that's about right. I think I know what you're talking about. He was like 5'7" and they would send him vertical quite a bit. I think that's about right. I believe that guy was pretty decent hands too. I mean, the thing with these guys is they do need to play in either a lot of motion or more of a spread concept so that you don't let somebody put like a Kwame Lasseter or somebody and press coverage on them and then they can't get up to speed because they can't get where they want to be on the field. But that sounds about right to me. You know, they actually in 2019, Sark had Henry Ruggs, Jerry Judy, Jalen Waddell, Devontae Smith, all on the same team and managed to get a decent amount of work for all of them. And then a few other guys on the bench like John Metche. So that's maybe the closest we've seen to him trying to work that many talented guys onto the field. I'm curious how he did it then because I'm pretty sure he didn't play all those guys at the same time very often. No, he had the... Waddell got injured and that allowed Metche on the field. He kind of got let go. No, that was 2020 though, 2019 in the year before when he was talking about it. So they actually, I mean, they just did it by seniority. I mean, those get like, you know, Henry Ruggs and guys like that were just, you know, when they were younger, they just sat and the understanding was when you replace these guys, you'll get all the snaps. So hang tight. But I think we have a, we don't have that disparity in seniority. We've got a bunch of guys who are either super talented or they're just super seasoned or they fit a specific role really well like a Silas Bolden. So one thing to mention about Bolden too is, you know, he does, he is going to have a role as a kick returner. You can pencil that in right now. We got over 1,200, almost 1,300 people watching right now. Thank you for tuning in. Before we continue on, Paul, I'm going to toss it to you. Need a little help thanking our sponsor Gabe Winslow. Our friend in the mortgage industry, Gabe Winslow. Make him your friend in the mortgage industry, Gabe Winslow. You can call him at 832-557-1095, a die-hard Longhorn. I was just texting with him a moment ago about what's going on. And he is a gentleman that lives and dies at the horns just as we do. He also lives and dies serving his customers. If you want, and you just want an impartial review of what Gabe does, go pull up Google reviews. You'll see about 150, all five stars with paragraph after paragraph about the complexity of the problem that he saw for them that no other mortgage guy could provide. If you are in the market for a house, and I know it was the summer, a lot of you are moving, kids are out of school, you need to give him a call. 832-557-1095. He's not your very first call. Make sure he's your last call because at the very minimum, he's a cool dude and he'll look at your deal and he'll tell you if it's actually doable because sometimes mortgage guys will sell you a bill of goods and then hope the market turns in their favor so they don't have to deliver the news two weeks later that all the things they promised you were empty. So, give Gabe a call. He's not going to do you that way. 832-557-1095. I appreciate that one. Got a really solid question here from our friend Brett Nelson. Thank you all as always for the super chat. Do you all expect anything from Ryan Niblet and Aaron Bryant this year? So, let's go with that. We kind of just talked about that with the wide receiver rotation. Niblet someone, Eric, whose athleticism has always been very highly complimented throughout the program but a lot of the guys that they brought in were brought in because maybe there wasn't as much trust in someone like Niblet for this upcoming season. Yeah, I don't expect a ton out of them this year. I do think you'll get on the field. But we just laid out the studly group that they have. They're too deep across the board. There's not going to be a whole lot of receptions available or targets available for Niblet. He just needs to stick with the program. He was never going to be an early contributor. He played an athlete position in high school. It was a little much more raw. He does have some innate football in this to him. He understands the game but he's still learning the ropes at the position. Aaron Bryant, they brought in a lot of competition through the portal. He's going to play this year. There's no doubt about it. I don't know how much and I don't know what to expect because we don't even know what to expect out of Jermaine Lole who just got on campus last week. He's looking bigger than Aaron Bryant from what I have understand. They had T.S. of Ann Bill Norton before that. I don't know what to expect out of him. He will play this year. But how much is to be determined? I think he's the portal guys coming in. Definitely you're going to steal some reps from him. What about as far as regional rivals N.I.L. set up? It kind of seems like with the SEC, everybody's mostly got their ducks in a row. They may not have the financial backing that Texas has but it doesn't seem like there's a lot of infighting among collectives as you've seen it places like maybe USC or I mean any other spots. It looks like everybody's got an organized system but as far as financial backing maybe it's tough to compete with Texas on that front. Well I mean it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. Everybody wants to win. The will to win is definitely never going to be questioned in the SEC. So everybody has the will to win. I think it took a little bit longer for some of those schools to get their N.I.L. set up and running functionally and to the letter of the law. But you know you can see the schools like Ole Miss or a wash with cash. You can tell by just their actions in the portal. A&M's always going to have money. Alabama is everybody's trying to keep the dynasty alive in Alabama. So you're going to see them continuing to get good players. They're not going to fall off. They have a lot of people bought in right now. Probably more so. Nick Saban retiring probably woke some donors that figured hey Nick's got this. I don't they don't need me. A lot of guys are coming off the bench in Alabama. So you know they're going to be perfectly fine. LSU that's one you know I don't know how organized they are. And you know that's that's why you saw them lose out on defensive tackle after defensive tackle in the portal. But for the most part you know everybody's talking about these cars. I've seen you pushing cars. I've seen Nick Saban bragging about Ferraris. That's just you know that was a that was a made-up tempest in the teapot. I wouldn't pay much attention. What was it the whenever they they made the last charger the Alabama football program shed a small tear in the locker room. Yeah I mean give me a break that they're famous for all that stuff that was going on you know 2008 to you know 2014 probably that everybody had chargers. It's yeah just hypocritical. Ian got a question for you from our friend David Williams. What do you think about Trey Moore Colton Vosick and Colin Simmons all getting up to 250 and rotating at weak defensive in or buck and moving Ethan Burke over to Jack to rotate with Sorrel and Finkely. It's a good idea. I think that that's exactly what they will try to do. I guess a lot of that depends on Burke being strong enough against the run for that to be a viable solution. Or alternatively Vosick could be that guy. He looked pretty good in the spring we finally got to see what Vosick looks like. He was playing on both sides. He looked strong. He's explosive into the backfield. He got to go up against some weaker competition. It wasn't going up against you know banks and Williams but he had like didn't you have one series where it was like tackle for loss. Hit the quarterback with the quarterback got to throw off. It wouldn't have counted and then just straight up sack the quarterback the next one. He looks like he won't be ready. And he's definitely and he's probably already up there. Eric do you know is he up to 250 yet? Vosick he's he's north of 250. Yeah so it could be Burke. It could also be Vosick the same. He's going to figure his win too. To which the list of guys essentially. Vosick will play the NFL north of 270, 275. He's going to be a stud but probably a year away before him moving over but he's on the conveyor belt right behind Burke. So expect Burke to go over to to Jack which is right on time with Vosick coming back obviously got more in Simmons too. So yeah they're in a very good position at Edge. Paul I think the the days where I can use the the phrase we're paying for the sins of Paul or Tom Todd Orlando are about to be over after he basically did not recruit the position for a while and now Texas is able to replenish that that room thanks to good effort from Sarkeesian and also Piquit Kowski. Yeah I mean this is where skiing matters right if you run that tight front you're not going to have a bunch of traditional edges on a you know technically a two four five however you want to call it. So we've restocked that we've punished it. Edge was a weakness last year frankly particularly on past rushing downs of situational football end to path end of game right. It's a strength I mean it's deep. You just saw those six names that were put up there on the question and the guy that's the least talented of the six is Justice Finkley who's a veteran guy who's played a lot of football for Texas. So the way you know a room is upgrading is when guys would previously played a lot of football for you. You look at the name and you're like oh if I power rank to be six he's the six least talented guy of that group. I mean that's that's clear evidence for your eyes that you're not just subjectively falling for the height. You actually can look at it and go okay well we're getting better there and I think that's pretty obvious. Going to talk a little bit about official visits but guys we got to talk about Florida official visits. This picture from a quarterback who is visiting Gainesville over the course of the weekend officially. Remember on official visits they can put you up in in hotel rooms. Usually each college town has like one nice one. I don't know what we're looking at here. This is that's a quarterback right a four star quarterback. Correct the four star quarterback. I'm not saying it's an hourly rate hotel but it's not much better than that. You know you might still consider taking his shoes off if he's going to get in bed. That's pretty wild. I mean do you think they put Derek Lagway in there? There's no way right. That Lagway had a different room. Lagway had a private house or something man. There's just no way. That looks like where they filmed the first 48. Hey at least he got some gum you know they're really going all out with the amenities. Would you rather be criticized for having 15 lambos which you know in Lambo you have a you have a nice relationship with Lambo. You're just doing your part to help help endorse them and sponsor them or or this. Do you think UF has a deal with this hotel chain? Oh man if they do it's they need to reconsider it. Maybe they need to reconsider there. Give me a comment. Give me the crocodile tears on Lambo's over over this hotel. Looks like downward apartment says someone in the mat. I love that. Good job. That's a good one. That does not compare to the four seasons where Texas gets to take their recruits on official visits. And speaking of official visits like we talked about Texas had about seven in over the course of the weekend. Eric we got some intel from J.V. on Hillston. I got to catch up with him at the airport and that was a Florida State commit who liked what he saw compared to Florida like what he saw talking about when when talking about Texas but it's uh it's gonna be one of those things where he's gonna give Florida State the opportunity to prove why he committed to the Seminoles even when you have mom talking about how much she enjoyed the visit. Well I loved your interview with them in combination with what we wrote before he visited. You know we had a very good source in the southeast that he actually thought the kid would end up at Texas. This is even before he visited. One of the things he's looking for is stability. He decommitted from Alabama because of Nick Saban. I think he's downplaying Florida if you look at Napier's situation and Florida State is not on the the firm's ground either you know they're in the ACC money's a little tight. I'm not 100% sure Norville is a long-term guy there and not because he won't win but just because he might look to upgrade. And so yeah Texas is quite appealing. Everything that he told you was very positive in my you know the city like the city. Everything is nice bigger and better in Texas all these things. So I think if everything works out in the final hours when he goes to decide uh yeah I really like you to use chances with them. For people who don't know he he's a very highly rated edge uh you know plays the same position as Colin but plays with a much more power I would say. Colin kind of wins wins with strength of course but also just how nimble he is. Uh this guy is a brute force out of out of uh buck so uh Texas is in good shape for that. We're gonna see how it goes with Florida State with him this week but uh yeah I think we're gonna be covering that one up until he decides. He's got UCF as well on his docket. He's also a teammate at least on a seven on seven program of Brandon Browns. Uh so the Texas commit who's taking visits uh seems to like everywhere he visits just saw LSU just saw Tennessee will be back at Texas this week. They've been talking. We'll see how that one goes. Got a little bit about Myron Charles. He was so elusive and that's right I sent a message to Myron like hey man can we chat? He's like I'm at my gate. So there went that one but uh another big successful or a big talented football player that that Texas had in this weekend that Eric even though we're we're working to get more that picture of him and Sharma in the car together outside of Littlefield Fountain was a pretty solid preview of what Texas hopes could be part of its defensive tackle class. Well I'm I'm disappointed in you for not putting a flight attendant or a or a pilot in sleeper hold and taking his badge in and uniform and getting that interview Joe. Uh you need to get more dedicated. We're gonna see how it plays out man. It's gonna be Texas in Miami. I think uh that a lot of the things going on with Hillsin resonate with Charles as well as far as uh Texas's chances of getting a guy out of Florida hostile territory. It sets up well. I mean there's not a lot of shine on Miami. Like I said Florida State has issues. Everybody knows that Napier might be out after this season. So uh the time is now to strike on these guys. Uh Texas has given a shot. So I think Myron I think it's it's a real recruitment. I had him at 40% before the visit which is pretty high. I would I would say. I don't have a lot to change it yet. I moved Hillsin from 35% to a coin flip. Um yeah I think uh I think Texas is in good shape for both. We'll see. We need to we need to keep working the phones and get some more intel on that one. Eric seems like circa is just mastered the vulture strategy of any time he needs some top recruits. He just goes to whichever programs coaches are on the hot seat. Yeah he builds ends and it seems like everything will fall if it pays off. Yeah there's there's definitely every year there's there's uh programs to bird dog and you know it's like if you need a linebacker go see who Utah's going after or defensive tackle go see what Utah's doing or up to. Uh the same goes with with coaches on the hot seat. He's he's benefited from so many times but right now you're right it's probably not a coincidence. Paul I mentioned Josiah Sharma who is from Folsom in the northern California area. I looked up the on through recruiting rankings and this speaks to something you've written about a lot. He is I think the number six player in California. The next highest ranked defensive tackle so the number two defensive tackle in California number 62 someone Texas has offered and then the number three one is in like the 100s so that kind of speaks to why Arizona Washington now Alabama after having those connections from Washington or after him and why Texas is trying to go to the west coast to get one of the best big men in California. Yeah outside of the southeast and into part of Texas you just can't find lots of big men and every now and then they crop up in Pennsylvania New Jersey and then those guys are just everyone swarms and descends on them from Michigan and Penn State and schools like that so uh you know those guys are going to always be hugely valued in California but the truth is they're valued everywhere. The thing about the California rankings is in the top 100 they have a rough parody towards the Texas top 100 once you get past that 100 actually Texas maintains quality and then California sort of falls off a cliff. Some of that has to do because a lot of the really good football in California is just played by a few schools but those few schools are loaded and then the other part is California is just not actually surprisingly not very well scouted. You just you have a lot of guys sort of fall through their cracks there and you know they go do a junior college stint or something and then they emerge and you got an Aaron Rodgers or something so yeah it's super interesting but there's a deficit of big men that can play all over and Texas is going to throw their hat in the ring everywhere and uh that that area you know one advantage that Texas has over many of these schools particularly in the SEC is that there's direct flights to Austin Texas from everywhere and not having to do a change you know doing a regional and all that it doesn't sound like much but when it comes to the players parents their family their ability to see the player it's a big deal to be able to jump on and have three different airline options that keep prices down and you could fly from Sacramento to Austin direct on a weekend for 330 bucks instead of you know a regional jet and then you're you're doing a layover in Atlanta and then flying to Gainesville or Tuscaloosa so you know all that stuff does add up and it matters and it is why Texas needs to not necessarily recruit states but outposts in the west. We absolutely should take advantage of the SEC and being open to those players but abandoning Salt Lake City, abandoning Phoenix, abandoning the little strip in Orange County of like four elite high school superpowers, Bishop Borman in Vegas. You want to still stay active and present because it doesn't take any effort frankly and also these are all direct flights it's really easy to get out there show your face and still maintain some continuity with those programs. A Folsom is one of those schools too. Jake Browning is from there they've got Rider Lions is the number one quarterback to some in the 2026 class Walker Lions brother. They've got a tight end committed to Alabama on that team that I was watching the other day. I don't know tight end or edge you could play either one I'll be interested to see what Utah does with them but that kid can play at Texas there's no doubt in my mind that I'm not saying he's the best option they've got good options at tight end I'm sure that guy got a thorough evaluation they've got talent in Folsom and it's an easy flight for the coaches and there's you know they've got Caleb Edwards right down the road there I think you know there's always been some talent here there in Sacramento based on my you know unprofessional I don't know that area well but I guess people are moving out of Sacramento and up into the hills a little bit and that's why we're seeing a little bit of a boom there. Yep Ian kind of to that point and not to veer too far out of football but Sharma has had there's been reports that a family member would move to Texas if he does end up at Texas with 2026 elite safety Zalas Hicks he's got an aunt who's involved in state politics in Texas to where his family's considered maybe a move as well for his college choice you're moving down here it seems like with all these different moves a lot of people flocking to Texas also flocking the Florida some other states some part of that migration is going to bring football players as well and Texas maybe trying to reap the benefits of it is that something that you've noticed? Yeah you know the state's population could be 50 million within our lifespan at the rate we're going the area I'm moving into is opening an elementary like every other year in north Austin it's crazy um demographically I mean I think it's a pretty diverse crowd that's coming down to Texas from all over the country there's a lot of different opportunities so it's going to manifest in some fresh football talent um and uh it's going to be interesting I think in that there's going to be areas of Texas that might look different football wise in the future as a result of that it'll be interesting the extent to which you know with with such massive migration is it assimilated into football first Texas culture or are there areas that were that's not really the case um from what I can tell in the Austin area it's actually just leading the people are being assimilated and you're getting more and more legitimate football powers in places where there weren't really before like a vanda grift lake travis you know used to be just west lake for the longest time and now there's like multiple powers in that area even round rock started to show some progress and all the you know south Austin um schools kind of in between here and sand marcus those are expanding six a schools and they're getting more and more sand marcus itself uh is a pretty good program as as eric can attest to from driving by it a good amount on the way up to Austin um anything else on that subject I got one more thing to close on before we don't get out of here yeah I've written about this quite a bit and it's the larger demographic trends in the United States right so people are flocking to the scc footprint Texas florida those are the obvious ones but then there's individual cities so for example Knoxville and Nashville are growing like wildfire just like Austin right just like Dallas just like Houston uh you've got South Carolina has had a massive uh demographic shift of people just coming in there for quality of life cheap houses and they like the living out there you know there's a beach and there's some hills and you're not that far uh and even sort of scc proximate you've got North Carolina you've got you know as as the federal government continuously expands Virginia continues to expand so you know these things are all trends that are just inexorable and you're going to see big ships in football as Ian said the issue is are these people adapting and adopting to the sort of local morays and folkways and the answer seems to be yes like that's kind of why they're choosing these areas they're trying to live in a different way and um you know there's some exceptions obviously but uh you know all the predictions of the end of football five ten years ago remember all that yeah yeah how periodically all the national sports writers try to end football every two or three years uh I noticed that no one else ever seems to notice that but I noticed it all the time hey what about uh Georgia is another one Paul tons of movements to Georgia yeah I mean Georgia's massive I mean Georgia I think is the seventh most populous state in the United States now yeah I mean that's big military influence there a lot a lot of movements uh and then I would say it's it's even beyond America we get a lot of movements from around the world uh west Africa uh if you go to southwest Houston there are athletes that are not you know their parents weren't born here a lot of them a lot of times where they're third generation second generation and yeah they're adopted they're adapting to to football not everybody does we just beat Pakistan in cricket uh Pakistan so yeah Americans weren't even aware we had a cricket team and then we beat Pakistan and you see USA people yeah so I knew we could do it and it's like really giant giant facility in a cypress right outside of Houston uh for for cricket so hey whoop maybe one day we'll be dominating that too well and you hit on an important point about the Nigerian and West African emigres uh the recent ones they are going to other communities where there's other Nigerians and other West Africans right and if you just look at the pure demographics they are they inordinately churn out not just athletes but NFL football players I mean far more than any other control that you might reasonably assume within their their demographic and it has to do there's there's all sorts of cultural reasons there's familial reasons there's demographic and genetic reasons uh you know the the best frienders in the world all hail from West Africa originally whatever diaspora they end up in whether that's Jamaica Canada US or West Africa uh and the best distance runners in the world all hail from a pretty small area in Africa but genetically completely different you know Africa has massive genetic diversity and most people don't know that because they have a sort of culturally conditioned idea of what culture or race is and it's actually under the genes it's got the most diversity and so because of that the sports that we favor in the United States favor genetic outliers like people on the far edges the bell curve and the more diversity you have the more success you'll have athletically so anyway it's an interesting aside maybe we should talk about it sometime we'll probably get banned for talking about like these things but it's all interesting if you have any interest in just looking at it or reading about it. I'm glad you mentioned the cultural discipline I think that's an important aspect that we know very well from Charles Menahou and Joseph Foci and players like that uh one last thing though guys I know y'all like football scoop got a lot of good stuff over there they put out an article that Texas is returning its head coach offensive coordinator defensive coordinator strength coach and starting quarterback ahead of the 2024 season the Longhorns Georgia Ole Miss and Florida all are in that category in the SEC. Ian I wrote on inside Texas about what this might mean it's happened a few times since the beginning of the Mac Brown era sometimes there was some Sims and Apple White fighting sometimes it was uh you know Charlie Strong but with Steve Sarkeesian Quinn Ewers, Pete Quicowski, Kyle Flood and his title as offensive coordinator all of them coming back Tory Beckton how much does that really affect things in the 2024 season in your opinion? A lot I think it's I mean in one sense it's just sort of an indicator of they haven't had to make a lot of changes because they've been successful right so obviously you have good guys in place that they've been able to have at least some degree of success in all these roles in order to maintain the continuity but I think something that you can really observe if you watch like Oklahoma over the years when they had Bob Stoops for 20 years and then they had Lincoln Riley and much the same staff intact after that is that when a staff is there for a long time they're able to adapt and problem solve and they have the same guys around so like when you have the same staff around they'll start to take a player and start to develop them towards solving a potential problem they've noted right and all the inputs into the program are being oriented towards things that they're observing over multiple years and then when you bring in a lot of change I mean sometimes you need change to shake things up sometimes you need change to upgrade but you can lose the benefits of continuity you can lose all the benefits of like the adaptation and solves that you've been working on for multiple seasons so it's not always you know it's not a sure thing that that's going to result in like a deep playoff or international championship or whatever but it's a good sign and I think it opens up possibilities I mean like like we were just talking about the edge room like we've never even gotten this be Pete Krikowski use edges the way that he would prefer to use them because they haven't had the room for it yet so we're going to get to see some benefits of that this season that we haven't seen before because he's had all this time to build it up. Paul I think when you look at the list of four that I mentioned yeah Texas, Georgia, Ole Miss, three teams going for it this year we also have Florida and that's not a program that's been you know the as we kind of dogged on a little bit the bastion of success over recent years with Billy Napier so when it doesn't work what is what does that say as well? I mean Florida whatever issues they're having they appear to be phenomenal recruiters I mean that staff and Napier himself they put a ton of emphasis on it and they're probably riding long term that the best way they're going to win again is recruit their way out of it and that's certainly what Auburn believes you know they didn't even do bull prep and they got humiliated and you know they freaking asked freeze about it and he's like yeah I've been just recruiting I didn't even look at the game plans I mean and you know it's a credit to the sophistication of fans that they didn't just immediately fire him right 20 years ago that's what would have happened to the guy. Auburn fans are like I'm mad about that but yeah I get it that's the only way we're going to get this program back so yeah I don't know what maybe did I miss the point of the question I was you were trying to say one thing's like not like the other or yeah well I'm trying to say see like why where there's three cases of success you know Georgia had a great year last year just didn't meet their super lofty expectations Texas had a great year Ole Miss had won 10 games but then you have Florida who just went you know just missed a bowl game again they still come back and nobody still a lot of it has to do with the schedule but no one expects much from them during this upcoming season even with all that continuity and I'm just wondering what it's just yeah it's exactly that they they put all of their emphasis on recruiting I mean Ian's made this observation before that many SEC position coaches are recruiters first and developer second to put it kindly some of them are recruiters first second and third and developers fourth so I think with Florida just everything is about I mean they begin their coaches meetings with let's talk about what you've done on the recruiting trail when's the last time you talk to so-and-so when's the last they're not talking about installs they're not talking about how they want to play you know Ezekiel's wheel when they play Texas right so that's it and Napier's always been known as a phenomenal recruiter so his belief is I can win enough that my recruits will come to fruition that I can stick around in year three four you'll start to see the talent in the field that I'm getting I think the more likely scenario is that his successor gets to bear the get the fruits of his recruiting the truth is with the portal and the way we structured everything unless that dramatically changes I think a lot of that talent will just leave and they'll just go somewhere else so it's I don't know if hiring the pure recruiter coach is quite as attractive as it used to be just five years ago Eric any thoughts on that subject because it's kind of funny looking through the teams that Texas had there's a 2018 Longhorns which had a great season but then there's a 2019 Longhorns which obviously underperformed well I mean it's up to the administrators to know whether or not the guy's the right the right man for the job you know when Sark went five and seven and everybody was freaking out we said everybody was doubling down on them everybody believes in them they're going to play the long game they're going to let them build it the right way and keep a crewing talent if you got the right guy that's what you got to do but it's up to them to realize whether or not they have the right guy and the win loss is not going to be the determination of it the process behind the scenes that they're going to have keen insight into is what they're going to have to use to determine whether or not they're the right guy it's not going to win some loss they can't give in a fan pressure the Texas administrators showed spine as they as they have numerous times in their time at UT they knew they had the right guy and they kept backing him you know Napier's will be lucky if he has that sort of support but he's also has to has to earn it you know he's got to earn it the right way so it'll be interesting to see a lot of administrators don't they'll do the they'll take the easy way out and make the change I was you know everybody's fortunate and happy now that that Texas stuck with with Sarkisian when you know there were a lot of doubters that first year especially right as A&M was putting together that recruiting class I can still hear the echoes from the board from that time period but I'm not sure Napier's the guy it doesn't look like it to me but I don't watch him every day good talk as always thank y'all so much for watching this episode make sure you like the video subscribe to the inside Texas football youtube channel we're on our way to 8,000 subscribers we'd love to get there before the season starts we'll have a ton of stuff over the course of season but also during official visit season here in june and july and then camp in august head to inside texas.com use the promo code IT1 that'll get you two months of premium access for just one dollar again got to thank our sponsor Gabe Winslow go to mortgages by gabe.com or call him at 832-557-1095 Eric Paul Ian thank y'all so much we'll see you next time on the inside Texas football youtube channel powered by inside texas.com [Music]
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