After a quiet signing day, what's next for Texas football?
I’ve been covering recruiting professionally for 30 years. And yesterday was the first Wednesday in February in my career that was almost completely uneventful.
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The only “news” that came out of yesterday for the Horns was the canceling of Steve Sarkisian’s zoom conference call by the sports information department. In other words, the only news of the day was that there would be no news conference.
Nothing of note happened, knowingly at least.
Perhaps Red Oak safety Warren Roberson signed his Letter of Intent. But if he did, he’s still not expected to announce his decision until Friday at a signing ceremony at his high school.
Phoenix-area tight end Duce Robinson also delayed his decision, which I guess is a little bit of news, even though it was only further confirmation of what IT reported a couple of days ago.
Roberson, who is technically still committed to TCU, is thought to be deciding among Texas, USC and the Horned Frogs. Robinson is looking at USC, Georgia, Texas and the major league baseball draft.
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In talking with Eric Nahlin yesterday for our weekly State of the Program segment, I learned a little bit more about what the early enrollees and current Texas players are up to these days.
The first couple of weeks returning to school had been focused on getting back into shape, learning the ropes from a workout perspective as opposed to any true football work.
But this week that changes slightly. There will be more true football work going on.
Just a reminder: spring practice begins the first week of March, which is now just a month away.
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I wish there were exhibition college football games in the off-season. More than just a spring practice, something more akin to NFL pre-season perhaps. It would fill in the gaps of missing football.
It’s against NCAA rules, however. So we won’t see it barring something unforeseen, like a world-wide pandemic.
But I still think the idea has some merit. No reason the Horns couldn’t play a spring exhibition game in Houston, Dallas or elsewhere, and pair it with a couple of practices.
Just food for thought in case anyone ever decides to elect me college football commissioner or the NCAA decides to get serious about managing the sport.
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The 10th-ranked Horns’ basketball team gets on a plane and heads to the state of Kansas tomorrow for an important two-game set that will dictate the Big 12 leaderboard.
The first game is a tilt with No. 7-ranked Kansas State on Saturday at 3 p.m. The Horns then head over to Lawrence, Kan., to take on Kansas on Monday night.
The Horns are currently atop the conference with a 7-2 record. But there are four teams that all sit at 6-3 in conference play: K-State, Kansas, Iowa State and TCU.
The Wildcats ran Texas out of the gym earlier this year in Austin. We’ll see if the Texas D has made any adjustments or if K-State has come back down to earth.
As for the Jayhawks, it’ll be the teams’ first match-up of the season.
On a positive note, the Horns seemed to have finally found their footing post-Chris Beard. They’re showing some resiliency and starting to string together longer stretches of focused basketball. They’ll need a lot of that this weekend.
