Why doesn't Texas just make its entire 2026 class out of five-stars?
Take a look around any recent discussion related to college football recruiting and you’ll find fans from programs around the nation accusing Steve Sarkisian and Texas of solely buying players for its 2026 recruiting class via deep-pocketed donors supporting robust Name, Image, and Likeness efforts and absconding any desire to develop relationships.
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Just check out the quote tweets and responses.
Most of these have to do with the Longhorns’ recent successes in areas that typically are mined by other Southeastern Conference schools that are closer to the Atlantic Coast. Texas grabbing five-star linebacker Tyler Atkinson from Grayson High School, which is just down the road from Athens, Ga., was the first annoying piece of news for fans around the SEC. Then on that same day, Texas flipped Georgia defensive tackle pledge James Johnson from Miami (Fla.) Northwestern. Not only did Texas get one across on the Bulldogs, they stepped into a place Miami thought it would occupy as the preferred flip location. Finally, Texas pulled Derrek Cooper out of Hollywood (Fla.) Chaminade-Madonna. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back for both Georgia and Miami fans, with other fans joining the chorus, considering Cooper never took an official visit to Texas.
Their complaints centered on the fact that Texas just showed up in a location not historically recruited by the Longhorns and “stole” recruits from schools that traditionally pull the best prospects from that area. And the accusations often said that the pledges were made solely because of money, which is now no longer illicit by the way.
Well, if that’s the case, why doesn’t Texas just make the whole class out of five-star prospects?
How does this class sound?
QB: Dia Bell, Jared Curtis, Faizon Brandon, Keisean Henderson, Ryder Lyons
RB: Savion Hiter
WR: Tristen Keys, Chris Henry Jr., Cederian Morgan, Calvin Russell
TE: Mark Bowman, Kendre Harrison, Kaiden Prothro
OL: Jackson Cantwell, Immanuel Iheanacho, Felix Ojo, Keenyi Pepe, Darius Gray
EDGE: Zion Elee, Rodney Dunham, Richard Wesley, Anthony Jones, Carter Meadows
DT: Lamar Brown
LB: Tyler Atkinson, Xavier Griffin
DB: Brandon Arrington, Jett Washington, Jireh Edwards, Bralan Womack, Chauncey Kennon, Jorden Edmonds
There are a few positions that aren’t well-represented, and Texas would upset the quarterback room if four joined AJ Milwee‘s position (or three, considering Lyons will go on a mission). Plus, Kenny Baker might need to hit the portal again for defensive tackles considering just one in Brown is a five-star.
But since Texas is just buying players up without much care for relationships or development, that should be on the table, right?
Of course not.
There’s no denying Texas has deep pockets when it comes to NIL and has made use of those pockets despite there being uncertainty about what the future of NIL via third-party collectives looks like. And as much as people like to mistakenly point at On3’s NIL Valuations as salary figures (they aren’t that), it’d be head-in-the-sand ignorance to think that training with Derrick Johnson in Austin was the No. 1 reason Atkinson committed to Texas; to think the April unofficial visit by itself was enough to get Cooper’s attention; to think Johnson just had a sudden change of heart.
But to pin everything on money and “buying players” misses how Texas has done plenty to set itself up as a program that is a launching pad for NFL careers. It misses how the Longhorns have been one of four teams left standing over the past two seasons. It misses how Texas is a good place to go to school, and Austin is a good place to live.
It also misses minutiae that college football fans and reporters are just now learning how to deal with. Texas’ roster without the 2026 class is already one of the more talented in the nation, with high profile players at EDGE, linebacker, and safety. A well known player in Anthony Hill plays linebacker, and is off to the NFL after this season most likely. Guess what position Atkinson plays?
Why hasn’t Chris Jackson added Keys, Henry Jr., Morgan, and Russell in the 2026 class? Why did Jalen Lott and Kaydon Finley get away? Doesn’t Texas have money that can overcome what people like to call “REALationships?”
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Each class is informed by needs. Each class is also informed by NIL budgeting, and that’s before even looking at direct-from-school revenue sharing that’s subject to the $20.5 million cap. When Kaliq Lockett, Jaime Ffrench, Daylan McCutcheon, and Michael Terry are on the roster, they didn’t get there for free. And make no mistake: Texas’ doesn’t have unlimited money. Even if it did, it has a good grasp of when the returns for the asking prices out there are not worth it.
Paul Wadlington likes to always say that you are at the mercy of your most irrational opponent when it comes to the NIL bidding arena. There’s a whole dang chapter about it in his season preview. If Texas was as deep pocketed as it’s said to be, why is Ojo committed to Texas Tech?
Why can’t people believe Sarkisian when he says things like this at SEC Media Days?
I think sometimes, quite frankly, it hurts us a little bit in recruiting in the fact that, when kids come on our campus, one of the first things we do, we don’t talk about NIL. We don’t talk about NIL or revenue sharing or publicity rights until the very end, and that may hurt us on some kids, but if a kid is coming to Texas for that reason, we don’t want him anyway. We want kids that want to be at the University of Texas because of the school, the coaches, the team, the culture, all those things that go into it, and, oh, by the way, you can get publicity rights or revenue share and so on and so forth.
Why do observers cast doubt when Sarkisian says things like this at the Texas High School Coaches Association’s Coaching School?
If it was all just about money, then I might sign a decent class but they’re not made of the right stuff I’m looking for and might be better somewhere else. We’d be remiss to push that to the side and say it’s all transactional because at that point now we’re just accumulating talented people and we’re not formulating a really good team. Teams win championships.
Part of it has to do with a Texas team that’s new to the SEC block recruiting like a team that’s won multiple national championships in the past decade, and doing so via the new rules. As much as SEC rivals and powers may try to discount Texas’ first-year successes, it doesn’t mean they weren’t successes. Texas made it to a place Texas A&M never has with a decade head start, and are recruiting with methods more comfortable for the powers that be in Austin.
It also doesn’t mean Texas’ wins on the trail are diminished. Money is a pretty good motivator, after all. Texas players have even mentioned that the arrival of NIL makes it a bit easier to get up and go work out in the mornings in the winter and in the afternoons in the summer knowing a nice addition to their checking account is part of that process.
Also, considering where most of the complaints are coming from, were there similar complaints about Georgia’s 2018 recruiting class? Georgia’s 2017 was better than Texas’ 2024 season, sure. But would it have been unfair at the time to say that the Bulldogs’ 2017 standout season that didn’t end in a national title, with a loss to Kirby Smart‘s mentor no less, was nothing more than a flash in the pan? It had been over a decade since UGA won the SEC in 2017. Then they add eight five-star prospects? Including Justin Fields? Before Georgia even played in the national championship game?
NIL isn’t a consideration in Miami?
It’s not difficult to say Texas has accomplished quite a bit in the past two seasons. It’s not difficult to say that other programs have accomplished as much or more and have a longer track record.
But it’s ignorant for anyone related to those schools to pin losing recruiting battles to Texas solely on money, over the table money at that. Money’s green everywhere. Sometimes, credit is due to the program built by Sarkisian and his own recruiting efforts and not just dollars and cents, much as it may not make sense to others.
