Take Two: Should Tom Herman's immediate success be surprising?
Take Two returns this week as a daily offering tackling a handful of issues in the college football landscape. Rivals.com National Recruiting Analyst Adam Gorney lays out the situation and then receives takes from Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell and a local expert from the Rivals.com network of team sites.
MORE TAKE TWO: Alabama’s underwhelming 2018 class | Justin Fields
Storyline: Texas has the top-rated recruiting class in the Big 12 and the Longhorns come in fourth nationally before first-year coach Tom Herman has even coached a game in Austin.
And no one seems all that surprised.
Herman was the blockbuster coaching hire of the offseason but recruiting at Texas had dramatically stalled in recent years.
The former Houston coach has quickly changed things, landing commitments from three of the top five players in the Texas state rankings and the Longhorns are a top contender for five-star CB Anthony Cook, the top player in the state, who’s also high on Ohio State and others.
Here’s how well Texas is doing: The Longhorns have more four-star commits than any other team in the conference and if Oklahoma is taken out of the equation, they have more four-star pledges than the rest of the Big 12 teams combined.
Nationally, only Miami and Penn State have more four-star commitments. Ohio State is also ahead of the Longhorns in the national rankings mainly because of three five-star pledges.
In the 2017 recruiting class, not one of the top 16 players in the state signed with Texas, the first time in the Rivals.com era dating back to 2003 that the Longhorns landed none of the state’s top 10 players.
There is still work to be done, however. Most notably, Texas has not signed the top player in its own state since 2011. During that stretch, Florida State has come in and done it twice, including last cycle with five-star DT Marvin Wilson.
That’s one reason why Cook is such a high priority, and the next conquest for Herman on the recruiting trail.
First take: “I'm not surprised this Texas staff is having success in recruiting, but the magnitude of success they're enjoying has certainly surpassed my expectations. Herman, his assistant coaches and the support staff have done an incredible job in all phases - developing relationships, upgrading facilities, using social media to their advantage - and it's paying off in a big way.
“But mostly, it comes down to relationships and earning the trust of the top prospects on their recruiting board. The coaches did a good job of recruiting most of the in-state players while at Houston, and now that they're at Texas, it has carried over and paid dividends.
“Texas continues to chase other big fish, including Cook, and the Longhorns are squarely in the mix on that one as well. Cook is down to three, but this one feels like an Ohio State-Texas battle to me. I'd give the slightest of edges to the Buckeyes right now, but if Texas turns in a successful season this fall, the Longhorns have a very real chance to land the five-star corner.” – Jason Suchomel, Orangebloods.com
Second take: “Texas recruits itself to some extent, and then if you make the biggest offseason hire in the country, you’re going to have a good combination to get kids excited about things. He’s taking the approach locally. He was a GA at Texas, he recruited at Houston for a couple years, so this is a natural fit for Texas and they’re recruiting the way they should. Charlie Strong was a square peg in a round hole, while Herman fits right in, so I’m not surprised.” - Farrell