Steve Sarkisian has eyes on Houston in 2023, future classes

Joe Cookby:Joe Cook•05/31/22•

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The Texas football program signed three players from the Houston area in its 2022 signing class. Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian aims to increase that number in future classes.

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“Houston is obviously a very fertile recruiting ground,” Sarkisian said at the Touchdown Club of Houston on May 18. “There’s a lot of great players who have come from the Houston area that have come to UT and that haven’t come to UT. I think the key for us is to be diligent in our work ethic here. We’ve got great coaches that recruit. We staff recruit a lot of what we do. For some guys, this is part of their area that they have, but at the end of the day we’ve got to forge great relationships with the high school coaches, ultimately get connected to the players, their families, (and) everybody involved.”

The three signees in Texas’ 2022 class from H-Town were Klein Cain running back Jaydon Blue, Humble Summer Creek offensive lineman Kelvin Banks, and Galena Park North Shore defensive lineman Kristopher Ross. While that’s a low number, it’s not even the lowest in the past decade.

  • 2012 – 3 Houston area signees
  • 2013 – 1
  • 2014 – 6
  • 2015 – 4
  • 2016 – 5
  • 2017 – 3
  • 2018 – 11
  • 2019 – 6
  • 2020 – 3
  • 2021 – 4
  • 2022 – 3

One class stands out from the rest: the class of 2018. Then head coach Tom Herman leveraged his pre-existing relationships with Houston-area prospects and took advantage of the early signing period plus a coaching change at Texas A&M to sign 11 prospects out of Houston.

Since then, Texas A&M and Jimbo Fisher have had success recruiting Houston, which is just under 100 miles from College Station. The Aggies signed eight players from Houston in 2019, six in 2020, nine in 2021, and 10 in 2022.

Texas A&M has made life difficult in Houston for the Longhorns, but so has Texas’ own struggles over the past few years. In order to get the most from an area that has sent the likes of Vince Young, Rodrique Wright, Brian Orakpo, and Joseph Ossai to Texas, Sarkisian wants to sign great players from Houston, not just players from Houston.

“I’d like to sign more than three players from the Houston area, but at the end of the day I don’t want to sacrifice numbers for quality,” Sarkisian said. “I think the kids that we’ve signed out of the Houston area, and anticipating them coming, are going to be very good football players for us. Ideally, we can raise that number some, but I don’t want to just take numbers. I want to make sure we’re getting quality people and quality players.”

So far in the 2023 class, Sarkisian is making progress toward his goal. He already has two commitments who hail from the greater Houston area in C.E. King defensive lineman Dylan Spencer and Aldine Eisenhower wide receiver Ryan Niblett. According to the On3 Consensus, Spencer is the No. 28 prospect in Texas while Niblett is the No. 18 prospect.

Spencer and Niblett make up two of the 17 offers sent to Houston-area prospects. The other 15 are

Of those 15 prospects, Texas is either the leader or in a contending second-place position in the On3 Recruiting Prediction Machine (RPM) for nine targets with just over six months to go until the early signing period.

Staking a claim in Houston won’t be an easy task with the way Texas A&M is recruiting, plus the regular attempted intrusions from programs such as LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Ole Miss among countless others.

Sarkisian realizes in order to get the Longhorn football program back to championship contention, he’ll need assistance from one of the best cities for football talent in the country. His efforts in 2023 are evidence of him working to sign more high-end talent from just over two hours away.

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