Texas has a 5-star at every position except D-line/Edge
Stars and player ratings do matter in the macro sense. They matter much less the closer you parse the numbers and the further you get from the elite players, the less the difference in rating matters. In my experience, very little differentiates a player rated 88 versus one rated 92. Still, on the whole you’d rather sign 24 recruits rated 92 than 24 rated 88.
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Texas has never truly struggled to recruit based on ratings and rankings, though there have been times they struggled to recruit based on things that don’t show up enough in the numbers, like mental evaluation.
While chronicling Steve Sarkisian, it’s hard to find too many bad mental evaluations that he’s signed. This excludes transfers because those were entirely different types of risk-reward scenarios.
The better the mental evaluation, the more likely a player is to maximize. The more players you have who maximize the better your team is going to be, especially when the accumulated players have a ton of talent.
After back to back Top 5 classes, the talent in Austin is undeniably on the uptick.
Heading into 2023, Texas has 12 players on its roster who were rated a five-star by at least one of the four main recruiting services. Texas only lost one five-star after the 2022 season, though it was a significant one in Bijan Robinson. Pretty convenient they could replace him with another five-star in Cedric Baxter.
If you’re adding five-stars faster than you’re losing them, your program is trending in the right direction, or at least recruiting is.
Wins should follow, but to what degree remains to be seen.
Here are the 12 five-stars on the Texas roster.
QB Arch Manning – 2023
247: No. 1
Rivals: No. 1
On3: No. 3
ESPN: No. 5
On3 Consensus: 99.53, overall five-star (No. 1)
QB Quinn Ewers – 2021
247: No. 1
Rivals: No. 1
On3: No. 2
ESPN: No. 2
*Odd year with Korey Foreman and J.C. Latham also extremely highly rated.
On3 Consensus: 99.24, overall five-star (No. 3)
OL DJ Campbell – 2022
ESPN: No. 10
Rivals: No. 14
247: No. 23
On3 Consensus: 98.26, overall five-star (No. 11)
TE Ja’Tavion Sanders – 2021
ESPN: 13
Rivals: 13
247: 29
On3 Consensus: 97.92, overall five-star (No. 12)
LB Anthony Hill – 2023
ESPN: No. 16
247: No. 17
Rivals: No. 22
On3 Consensus: 97.87, overall five-star (No. 16)
OL Kelvin Banks – 2022
On3: No. 6
247: No. 30
On3 Consensus: 97.49, overall five-star (No. 22)
RB Cedric Baxter – 2023
On3: No. 28
247: No. 30
On3 Consensus: 97.26, overall five-star (No. 30)
WR Johntay Cook – 2023
Rivals: No. 24
On3 Consensus: 97.23, overall five-star (No. 31)
DB Terrance Brooks – 2022
On3: No. 24
On3 Consensus: 95.90, overall four-star (No. 56)
DL Alfred Collins – 2020
247: No. 32
On3 Consensus: 94.63, overall four-star (No. 78)
WR Xavier Worthy – 2021
On3: No: 18
On3 Consensus: 95.76, overall four-star (No. 56)
WR Jordan Whittington – 2019
Note: Whittington was the last 247 Composite five-star despite not being rated a five-star by any of the services.
Composite: .9836
