Assistant coach Chris Jackson honored by Rivals for Longhorns’ No. 1-ranked 2025 recruiting class
It takes a village to assemble the nation’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class. Texas has an army of coaches and support staffers wrangling blue-chip recruits from coast to coast. Rivals named Texas receivers coach Chris Jackson was named the recruiting site’s national recruiter of the year. The former NFL receiver turned coach helped land standout athletes […]
It takes a village to assemble the nation’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class. Texas has an army of coaches and support staffers wrangling blue-chip recruits from coast to coast.
Rivals named Texas receivers coach Chris Jackson was named the recruiting site’s national recruiter of the year.
The former NFL receiver turned coach helped land standout athletes like Kaliq Lockett, Jaime Ffrench and Daylan McCutcheon — all future targets for quarterback Arch Manning.
“When you look at the guys that you bring into Texas, you have to be more critical and selfish — if you don’t play in the NFL in three or four years, then why am I recruiting you?” Jackson told Rivals. “It’s an X-factor — and they all have it.”
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Jackson detailed some of the recruiting battles he faced trying to land these commitments.
For example, Lockett was offered by most major schools, but Jackson had been targeting the Sachse, Texas., product since he was a sophomore.
“We showed him genuine love and where he fits with the offense,” Jackson said. “It’s been a great journey building a relationship with him. He was a no-brainer.”
Jackson is a truth-teller, almost to his detriment. Rivals dug into the temporary friction between the coach and the recruit when Jackson noticed poor body language during a live evaluation and how Jackson mentioned that to Lockett’s father.
“We had to get back into good graces with him,” Jackson admitted to Rivals. “His growth and maturity is what separated him from the previous year. He wanted the numbers to compete on a national level – and we were with him. We saw his development … I’m proud of his development off the field.”
Jackson has high hopes for Ffrench, a Florida product, who was ranked as the 10th-best receiver in the nation by Rivals.
“He can run every route in the book,” Jackson said. “His elite body control – I’ve never seen that from a high school kid before. The get-up speed – it’s like a basketball coming off the rim. The 50-50 catches – he makes it look easy.
“He’s the total package being an outside WR that can get open and manipulate you during his routes.”
McCutcheon first committed to Florida State. But Jackson stayed in touch and was able to flip him to Texas.
“It’s the intangibles with him … you can’t put a finger on it,” Jackson told Rivals. “He’s a playmaker on the outside or the inside. His doesn’t-say-a-thing demeanor about him – he’s so even-keeled. He turns into such an opposite player as he is a person … He’s a dog. He’s a smart, high-IQ football player with position flexibility. He can do it all.”
