Macro Recruiting Thoughts: Texas' New Rivals, Bidding Wars, Portal & Roster Management

A few big picture thoughts as we work through the new recruiting landscape.

You may have heard the first one from me a few times…

IN A PURE BIDDING WAR, YOU’RE AT THE MERCY OF YOUR DUMBEST COMPETITOR

There’s a reason I chose to write a feature article about roster management in the age of the portal and NIL in my 2025 Longhorn & SEC Football Preview.

Get the best 2025 Texas and SEC football preview that money can buy.

Here’s a relevant excerpt:

With respect to NIL bidding wars for any one athlete, you’re at the mercy of your dumbest competitor. We must apply this framing hammer of wisdom to thick skulls until it is universally acknowledged because the uptake on this has been poor. Until those subtle taps penetrate, we’ll continue to be subjected to endless commentary any time that Texas loses out to School X for any individual player. The idea isn’t to win every bidding war, no matter the cost. Overpriced wins are organizational losses.

If you want to switch out the word dumbest with the most desperate, or perhaps, the cheatingest, fine.

Desperate and dumb competitors are eventually punished over time, but they’re a massive short to mid term pain in the ass. If you own a hardware store, it’s going to mess with your supply chain if your competitors like to pay triple over market on hammers.

As for cheating, I’m not sure how that’s punished in this new era, aside from the degree to which it also foments desperate and dumb.

THE NEW RECRUITING RIVALS

The overlap between Florida, Notre Dame, and Texas on so many guys is telling.

Florida is having to defend against us in their state, we’re having to defend against them in ours, and neutral battlegrounds like Georgia and Louisiana are already hard enough with home state options Georgia and LSU, along with every other national program.

Notre Dame is a true national recruiter, but Freeman is smart enough to understand that there are parts of his grocery list that can’t be filled in the Midwest. So he hits Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Consequently, the Irish have a different kind of athlete on their roster now. The kind we haven’t seen there in over three decades.

Texas, Florida and the Irish profile similar athletic traits and apparently the same basic citizenship standards. Similar program tastes. What we term “an obvious Texas guy” in terms of athletic character also profiles on the Irish boards as “an obvious Notre Dame guy,”

I don’t see these battles stopping and Napier and Freeman are worthy adversaries on the trail. It would be good for us if Florida fell apart, but I regret to inform you that they’ll probably be good this year. We will have to see how “good” shows up in terms of wins and losses against a rigorous schedule, though. I suspect well. The why is in my preview if you’re curious.

As for the charismatic Freeman, he easily weathered humiliating losses to Northern Illinois, Marshall and Stanford before getting them to the title game and the new landscape is favorable to them. Bulletproof.

What about Texas Tech? A wildcard. And sort of a rival now for high end splash commitments, though the battle is primarily with their wallet. They come in late over the top to prevent counter-recruiting, effectively bidding against themselves, whenever they feel like it. They don’t even need to be in a recruit’s Top 5. Throw it out there and see who bites.

Paying an incoming freshman developmental position who may not start until 2027 more than the entire starting unit combined may not be advisable salary cap management or great for the locker room, but who says anyone is required to care about or feel subject to either? Hypothetically.

The player is still gone. It’s up to Texas to cultivate alternatives.

THE REAL PORTAL OPPORTUNITY: CHAOS

For Texas, the best portal opportunities will come from firings and disarray. Not pure bidding wars.

A quieter portal last year certainly signaled that everyone is getting better at playing defense, but the lack of open desirable jobs was also a big part of it. A portal window opening up when a coach loses his job is where the real harvesting can take place. Stanford and Purdue, two teams that were a combined 4-20 last year, were picked clean like bones in the Sahara with players going to Texas, Oregon and Ohio State. And yes, Texas Tech. One of these things, not like the others.

Even bad teams have desirable players.

I think we see more movement this year. If four or five decent to good jobs come open – at programs much better than Stanford and Purdue – that usually guarantees that four or five additional jobs open to replace those openings, and so on. The daisy chain ends with coordinator hires, FCS coaches, and the NFL. That daisy chain simply wasn’t set off last year.

Texas prioritized three receivers that I’m aware of for offseason portal acquisition. All three schools that Texas targeted were stable and defended their playmakers. Then Stanford opened up and we took their best available WR. If those schools had coaching changes, Texas grabs one of them.

Harvesting a program in disarray, not trying to woo athletes from stable programs, is the real portal gold mine. 

2026 OFFENSIVE TACKLE

Texas can secure players when there are large roster gaps, irrespective of the larger environment. Witness the Longhorn defensive tackle portal haul. They just basically took everybody and will throw numbers at the problem.

Texas will have to take at least one portal offensive tackle in 2026. After reviewing our roster pretty thoroughly over the last six weeks, it may even be two. A clean one or two year rental for a proven starter is a better financial decision than paying a 18 year old to spend two years developing before you even know what you have.

Long term prudence isn’t the current vibe out there right now. Stay frosty.