Analysis: Horns’ 19 early pledges bring pros and cons for 2014

Having received seven commitments in less than three weeks, Texas suddenly finds itself in a numbers crunch for its 2014 recruiting class.

The Longhorns now have 19 total pledges for next February’s national signing day — tied for the most of any school in the country at this point in the recruiting cycle — and they still have a lot of baited lines in the water with hopes of catching some pretty big fish.

While having 19 seniors-to-be already on board can be considered a good thing, it also leaves very little wiggle room for the next eight months.

Since the final days of May, Texas has added seven commitments for the 2014 class — all of them rated as three-star recruits — and turned a 13-player class with a lot of flexibility into one that now needs deliberate moves between now and signing day.

The Longhorns seem poised to start the 2013 season with 84 players on scholarship. The NCAA allows 85. Only 15 of those 84 are seniors, which means some roster attrition will already be needed before the fall of 2014 to fit the class that’s signed in February.

And as the 2014 class grows, so will the pinch on scholarship numbers in the 2014 off-season.

Texas’ lack of a national top-70 recruit makes the numbers crunch even more noticeable. Even in last year’s class — which could be considered relatively weak, at least by Texas’ standards — the Longhorns signed two players, Darius James and Kent Perkins, who were ranked among the top 40 in the country.