For years, even before we finally got into the old SWC, and more recently as the Big12 pondered expansion, the problem (admittedly) the other Texas schools have had with admitting Houston is the fact that the Houston area is the most fertile recruiting ground in the entire state. They DID NOT want to hand over a recruiting advantage to U of H. And What The Fudge! To my knowledge Holgerson hasn’t capitalized on that built in advantage to any degree. In fact, if anything, he has probably alienated local high school coaches and players. He should be fired on that failure alone.
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Been watching since the 50’s I’ve never seen UH successfully recruit Houston area big time in football, even CBY couldn’t do it. Only Men’s Basketball & Track. Still waiting on football.
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Heard this forever and we still have never out recruited anybody no matter who the coach was.
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Didn’t we pick up some nice 4 star receivers?
Anyways, we have the talent. McCaskil is probably going to declare after next season.
Look at the positives:
- Newbie in P5 conference
- Good facilities and getting better with new football facility
- 4th largest city; plenty to do outside of school
- Great corporate networking
- Play close to home
- Earlier opportunities to play and contribute
There is no reason UH should be struggling. I keep asking myself “What if CDH is the closer?” I then get depressed.
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Herman was an excellent recruiter.
UH has really never had a recruiting advantage in the Houston area and I don’t expect we ever will.
If we can just get a few good ones and a few underrated kids I’m happy.
Going into the Big 12 will help but we are not going to take elite 5 star athletes away from Texas, Agy and other national powere regardless of who the head coach is
Is this a joke?
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No. He recruited very well while he was here. Granted, he took many of those recruits with him to Austin, but good players wanted to play for him.
His recruiting was the reason we were playing catch up on the lines for 3-4 yrs after his departure. He was an awful recruiter.
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We did a few times back in the 70s and early 80s. The only national recruiting publication in 1977 ranked us third nationally behind Notre Dame and UCLA. We also did very well in 1973 and we national top 25 in '80 and '81.
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Levine was an excellent recruiter that made Herman look good
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Bob Stoops won a national championship with all of John Blake’s players…
Herman recruited based on position and not need
His classes were alot higher than Dana’s but he didn’t recruit as many players.
I think when he was here we always had less than the max amount and now we have the max.
Herman did not recruit his almost 2 years here. He won with Levine recruits.
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Interesting tidbit; did those highly prized classes come from Houston area, Texas centric, or regional talent ?
The whole recruitment thing is a mixed box of chocolates. Obviously Aggie didn’t do so well
with their prize class and UT didn’t meet expectations with years of great classes. Not to
say star ratings are irrelevant, because you clearly need speedy athletic guys.
The ‘73 bunch was incredible and made possible IMO because those kids would be seniors when we started SWC play in ‘76.
Two of our greatest recruits never made it to ‘76 as Canalito finished his career with a horrible knee injury and Jeff the Jet Bergeron was sent packing for fighting a teammate.
Bergeron was arguably the most sought back in the country, and certainly in Texas, while Lee and Wilson Whitley would have given us best tackle combo in the country.
Canalito would have joined Whitley as a first round pick had he had two good knees.
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He was excellent for a G5 but not for a power conference lol.
We need a couple of Ed Oliver’s with around 10-12 Alton McCaskill’s.
Just need to get rid of Dana. Hes never been a great recruiter from the High School stand point.
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Some came from Greater Houston. We got three blue chips from Yates in the early 80s. Canalito was from Houston Sterling. So we held our own in Houston in the 70s and early 80s. But probably most of the top recruits we got were from East Texas.
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Don’t forget we got Anthony Francis from Sterling also. Same team as Canalito.