UT prospects praise program

Lone Texas native with offer at RB says Herman has fun — but gets job done.

Running back isn’t the most dire recruiting need for Texas. The Longhorns signed two Houston-area backs in February, including four-star prospect Toneil Carter, who’s already on campus.

They can afford to be picky. And UT’s early offers seem to back that up: Texas has made offers to only four running backs so far — one is from the state, and two are already committed somewhere else.

That lone Texan — Carthage’s Keaontay Ingram, a 5-foot-11, 190pound four-star prospect — participated at the Opening in Dallas on Sunday, one week after visiting UT on junior day. It’s becoming clear that Ingram is the Longhorns’ top priority at running back and that he is just as interested in the Longhorns.

The two most important words of Shaka Smart’s upcoming offseason? Never again. Results like these aren’t supposed to happen at the University of Texas. Just ask his buddy Charlie Strong, who got run off after three sub-.500 football seasons.

Smart isn’t likely to go down that same road, but he must quickly place this nightmare year in the “aberration” file. That will only come with some grownman bounce-back in 2018. Losing seasons create more doubt than hope, and it’s safe to say his honeymoon in Austin ended quite some time ago. An 11-22 season with a 4-14 Big 12 mark can stain the prettiest of wedding dresses. So what happens now? Smart gets back to work. He takes a long, hard look at his role in all of

CHARLIE RIEDEL / AP Texas sophomore Kerwin Roach, colliding Thursday with West Virginia’s Nathan Adrian in the quarterfinal round of the Big 12 tourney in Kansas City, missed too many easy shots to count this season, as did teammate Eric Davis.

JAMIE SQUIRE / GETTY IMAGES Texas coach Shaka Smart knows there’s much work to be done after the Horns tied a school record with 22 losses.

Carthage’s Keaontay Ingram seems to be UT’s top priority at RB.