The last few weekends have been a whirlwind, as high caliber recruits and their families made the trip to Austin to be wined and dined by Steve Sarkisian and his staff for the summer official visit window. Yesterday marked the end of the third and final official visit weekend of the summer window, as we now head into the dead period and recruits head into decision mode before entering their senior seasons.
The final recruiting weekend was headlined by five-star wide receiver commit Easton Royal, five-star Indianapolis (IN) Lawrence North wide receiver Monshun Sales, and one of the nation’s top running backs in Fort Bend (TX) Randle four-star Landen Williams-Callis.
On top of that, the Longhorns hosted five-star Gilmer (TX) offensive tackle Ismael Camara for an unofficial visit. Camara previously canceled all official visits for this summer so that he could focus on academics, so getting him on the campus prior to the dead period is a benefit for the Longhorns.
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With several high priority targets on campus, the Longhorn staff called in some favors to co-sign their recruiting pitches, and even got an assist from an unexpected place.
No you are not in the Twilight Zone. That is former Alabama wide receiver Jaylen Waddle, who played for Steve Sarkisian and Jeff Banks during his time in Tuscaloosa. While I’m sure Waddle wasn’t giving a sales pitch on behalf of Texas over the weekend, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a guy like him who can speak to the credibility of what the offensive staff is pitching.
Waddle wasn’t the only former player of the staff that made his presence felt. Texas offensive line coach Kyle Flood had one of his star pupils in New Orleans Saints offensive tackle Kelvin Banks chat up Orange (TX) Lutheran three-star offensive linemen Lucas Rhoa over the weekend.
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Needless to say Texas was putting its chips in the middle of the table over the weekend.
So where do things stand coming out of the weekend? Lets start with Royal, who has been feverishly pursued by both Florida and LSU for months. When asked what his commitment status was coming out of the weekend, Royal didn’t say his recruitment was shut down completely, but described his commitment with the Longhorns as “firm”.
Royal has taken his visits over the months with the blessing of the Texas staff and has never come off his commitment to Texas. With that said, this will likely be treated as a live recruitment until the ink is dry with Royal publicly still keeping options open and on the table.
Speaking of high end wideouts who are keeping their options open, Texas appears to have moved the needle with Monshun Sales. Sales gave his visit to Austin high marks and pointed out the marketing opportunities that Texas and the city of Austin provided, so that part of the pitch certainly appears to have landed with him and his camp.
The Longhorn staff is also pitching Sales and Royal as a potential dynamic duo in Austin. That would certainly be a very high NIL price tag to pull off that kind of coup, but that has not tempered the Texas staff’s enthusiasm in trying to pull it off.
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Sales said post-visit that a decision could come in July.
With the official visit blitz now in the rearview, we start tracking trend patterns for commitments as we round out the month of June and head into July. Coming out of this final weekend, Texas has already picked up steam in the recruitments of DeSoto (TX) cornerback Dhillon McGee, who announced a commitment date for this week as well as Atascocita (TX) defensive tackle Jason Johnson.
The Longhorns had a productive month of June on the recruiting trail, but now they look to follow it up with a productive month of July by being able to get some big recruitments over the finish line.
