Houston Recruiting Confidential: Who recruits the key Texas talent hub best?

Cougar Recruiting
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Behind paywall but good article to do the free trial for

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I refuse to pay a dime to the athletic. Can you sum up the results of the article? Thank you.

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Won’t pay a dime for access to the article, but asking someone else to share the news on their dime?

Fascinating.

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What do you care? You don’t agree? Send me a PM and I will explain. Got it?

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Sam Khan is an excellent writer for the Athletic. He anonymously interviewed 8 high school head coaches and assistant coaches about college recruiting, who they see a lot, who are good recruiters, what out of state programs do you see, etc.

Major takeaways:

  • Reading between the lines, the last UH football staff was asleep at the wheel with Houston recruiting.
  • Some coaches just “check the boxes”, recruiting high school athletes and getting to know high school coaches, but the effective ones have genuine personalities and try and get to know the recruits and their families.
  • UT’s Steve Sarkisian is considered a top recruiter. Personable, knows what he wants and relentless. Jeff Traylor and Jeff McGuire also mentioned
  • Conversely, Jimbo Fisher rarely was seen in Houston, taking a more national approach and seemed to chase star ratings rather than vetting athletes to the culture.
  • Various assistant coaches were named as good recruiters. Shawn Bell new to UH was named.
  • NIL has made a huge impact in recruiting, but high school coaches are generally not part of the NIL discussion between the college and athlete.
  • As for out-of-state programs, Oklahoma and LSU have a strong presence in Houston and Utah and the Arizona schools. I was surprised Colorado does not have a strong presence in Houston.

More tidbits if you subscribe.

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You say the guy is an excellent writer and put in the work , but then you give a good chunk for free because someone won’t pay a dollar? ( excuse me, a dime).

Not really cool IMO.

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Tread lightly Goose……no telling what might happen in a “PM” :joy:

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Thank you JLCoog I appreciate it. This is no surprise. This shows how we are all disconnected to reality. Recruiting is a huge part of the HC job. That alone is a major question for Chris to answer. I have always liked Chris but this dh lacklustre attitude did not start yesterday. We heard the same thing coming out of WV.

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Yep, if you play it right, you can get The Athletic for basically nothing. The 12 mos subscrip I’m on rt now, i paid like 11 or 12.00 total.

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Shame that Sam was let go by espn.

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If numbnutts was just dropping by the schools what was the purpose? That guy had no internal fire to build a champion. He was just retiring on UH’s dime.

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Ultimately, it’s the Big 12 that’s going to get screwed in recruiting.

You either pay up for the high ranking recruits, or you hope to develop players into stars and eventually lose them to the B1G/SEC because of NIL

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I can’t stand how we just call it “NIL deal” when all it is is just payment to the player to play.

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One coach said the previous staff was around but just one.
Most said they haven’t heard squat from Colorado, period.
A few coaches mentioned Willie and staff being all over the place and one felt Willie will end up being the best recruiter that is a Head Coach.
Utah has a recruiter it seems everyone knows

You could sense biases in the answers but not overt.

One felt that the SEC would not only gobble up the upper end of top recruits but also the development kids too making it hard for anyone else to compete.
I kinda think that is bunk and not someone who’s thought it through past surface information.

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One of OU’s best recruiters just left for SMU.

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In HCWF I trust.

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