On Texas Football - State of the Program: Position switch, UT's strong recruiting staff

Steve Habelby:Steve Habel02/08/23

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On the latest edition of On Texas Football’s State of the Program, Inside Texas’s Bobby Burton and Eric Nahlin give an update on the overall recruiting prowess of the Longhorns’ staff, on the status of Texas and Oklahoma’s move to the Southeastern Conference and position change on the Texas offense.

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The signing on Thursday on safety Warren Roberson from Red Oak was Texas’s latest recruiting success.

“If Texas is gonna take a guy that they view as a pure safety, it says a lot about him because they are not super high on true safeties,” Nahlin said. “They would rather take, you know, athletic defensive backs that are versatile and smart and tough, and then eventually move them to safety. 

“Roberson’s got ball-hawk ability,” Nahlin continued. “He’s a pretty athletic guy. He’s a three phase player in high school. He’s kind of got some similar similarities to Jordan Whittington, and you know, most people thought Jordan Whittington would be a safety actually. He put his foot down and said he’d be a wide receiver. Just an all-around really good football player.”

Burton opined that Texas coach Steve Sarkisian has assembled a coaching staff that has active, successful recruiters across the board. 

“I think it’s interesting,” Burton said. “I just feel like the best staffs tend not to be too top heavy with one or two guys being prominent. And that goes back not only to the guys you hire, but also the management of that staff.”

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“They’ve signed players that earned a five star at every position outside of D-line or Edge,” Nahlin concurred. “So that just tells you that the overall staff is recruiting at a high level. It’s hard to find good coaches, and to me, a good coach is someone that can coach on the field but also in recruiting at least hold his own. You know, most coaches are one or the other, or a lot of them are. 

“This is a staff that that are at least good coaches and at least good recruiters. Some of them are great in one of the regards. There’s not really a weak spot on the whole staff.”

Both Burton and Nahlin said they believe that the move to the SEC will come before the 2024 season despite reports to the contrary and the pushback from Fox on the Big 12’s television rights.

“I still believe it’s 2024,” Nahlin said. “You know, we’re trying to be the flies on the wall and be accurate on this but it’s convoluted. There’s a whole lot of moving parts. There’s a lot of people involved in the move and the more interested people involved, the more lawyers that are involved. There’s a lot of money involved. And so you know, that explains things.”

There’s plenty more to learn from the dynamic duo, so listen to the whole video for the entire scoop.

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