High school recruits still form teams’ ‘foundation’

The transfer portal and name, image and likeness (NIL) have greatly impacted college football the past couple of years, but Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said there’s one area that has not changed in trying to win titles:

Counting on high school coaches in the state of Texas to provide his program with quality players.

“We are going to continue to build our roster from the ground up, from the foundation, from the high school ranks,” Sarkisian said Sunday in the George R. Brown Convention Center. “That’s why high school recruiting is so important to us. That is why this is so important to us.”

“This” on Sunday was the 91st Texas High School Coaches Association convention and coaching school, and Sarkisian was enveloped by thousands of coaches — what he considers a two-way street on the information front.

“What I try to pick up on is, what are they hearing?” Sarkisian said of his exchanges with high school coaches at the conference. “We don’t always know (what’s going on), we think we know, but until we ask, ‘What do you hear, what’s going on, what’s happening in your world?’ That then dictates sometimes a shift in what we do, and why we do what we do.”

The Longhorns, coming off an 8-5 finish including an Alamo Bowl loss to Washington, open their third season under Sarkisian on Sept. 2 against Rice at Royal-Memorial Stadium. UT is favored to win the Big 12 in its last year in the league, as Texas and Oklahoma are set to enter the Southeastern Conference in one year.

“I’m excited for where we’re at,” Sarkisian said.

Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher was scheduled to speak on Sunday at the conference, but according to an A&M spokesman a “family commitment” prompted Aggies defensive line coach Elijah Robinson to step in for Fisher.

“The first thing you want to do is take care of home, and we’re going to take care of our backyard before anything else,” Robinson said of the Aggies’ recruiting philosophy and starting with the state of Texas. “All of our staff have parts of Houston, parts of Dallas (in recruiting) … we’re going to take care of home before we do anything else.

“It has to be a fit, wherever you go, and the first thing you want to do is take care of our kids right here in our home state.”

The Aggies are coming off a 5-7 finish that included a home loss to Appalachian State and six straight losses in a season for the first time in 50 years. A&M started the season ranked sixth in the Associated Press poll for a second consecutive year before finishing unranked for a second straight year.

“Our biggest thing is we cannot allow expectations to predict the way we perform,” Robinson said. “As a staff and as players we understand that we did not finish the way we needed to finish last year, and this year (that) has to change.

“Our players are ready for that and our staff is ready for that, and we know we have to get better.”