Texas coach Steve Sarkisian explains his plan to attack recruiting in November before early signing day
Texas has four games remaining in the 2024 regular-season schedule but only two home games left — Nov. 9 against Florida and Nov. 23 against Kentucky. The Florida game is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. The Kentucky game could kickoff at either 2:30 p.m. or 7 p.m., according to the SEC office. The biggest […]
Texas has four games remaining in the 2024 regular-season schedule but only two home games left — Nov. 9 against Florida and Nov. 23 against Kentucky.
The Florida game is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. The Kentucky game could kickoff at either 2:30 p.m. or 7 p.m., according to the SEC office.
The biggest game left on Texas’ schedule is the Nov. 30 regular season finale against Texas A&M in College Station.
From a recruiting perspective, this isn’t an ideal setup for the Longhorns to stage huge recruiting weekends. In an ideal world, Texas would want to have guaranteed night games at Royal-Memorial Stadium against big rivals to showcase a revved-up environment.
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Texas coach Steve Sarkisian believes the Longhorns need to do one thing to bring in those last few recruits in the class of 2025 — keep winning. The early signing day is Dec. 4, three days before the SEC championship game.
“Recruiting is always at the forefront of a lot of what we do,” Sarkisian said. “We’ve been fortunate to get a lot of players, lot of kids, to games. Had a great turnout for the Georgia game. We’ll continue to stress and push getting players to our final two home games. Both should be great games, great environments. So that really doesn’t change.
“You know, as far as players coming to games, I think for the most part, all the guys we’re recruiting have at least been to one game here this season and gotten a sense and a feel for the environment, DKR, and so we feel comfortable with that.”
Sarkisian and his staff plan on fanning out across the nation this weekend to see high school recruits. The sixth-ranked Longhorns (7-1, 3-1 SEC) are idle this weekend.
If Texas can keep winning and get to the SEC title game, that will make up any perceived lost edge by not being able to host recruits at a big home game, at least in Sarkisian’s mind.
“Last year, we made the conference championship game, and it was still open to recruit,” Sarkisian said. “So at that point, you list the sacrifices that you make. I think recruits like to join really good teams and be part of teams that are competitive and tough, and they want to play with the best. They want to compete with the best on a daily basis.
“And so sometimes the best recruiting tool we have is being a successful football team to go along with the environment here at DKR, to go along with the education and the city of Austin and all the things that we have.”
Texas’ 2025 recruiting class currently ranks sixth nationally, according to On3’s composite industry rankings. The Horns have 21 commitments so far, including 14 five- and four-star prospects.
“You can’t do everything all the time, because if you're trying to do everything, you're probably not good at anything,” Sarkisian said. “And so the best thing we can do is play really good football on top of when we have our moments to recruit, do a great job at that.”
