QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

AS OUR TAX ACCOUNTANTS tell us every year, the numbers don’t lie. But we all know numbers can be interpreted in different ways. When head coach Mack Brown unveiled the Longhorns’ 15-player 2013 signing class, he emphasized that while the number of players looks small, their impact could prove massive. Texas’ class comes in as the smallest group since 2005 and the lowest-ranked since recruiting services Rivals.com and Scout.com started ranking national classes 13 years ago.

The Longhorns’ 2013 class is ranked No. 15 by ESPN, No. 23 Rivals and 22nd by Scout. The amount of scholarships made …

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available by Texas — not the top-rated players’ disinterest in coming to Austin — determined the size of this year’s class. “You can only sign 28 [recruits] in a class, and we had 28 last year,” Brown said. “You can sign 50 over a two-year period. We had 22 three years ago. You have to stay at 85 [scholarships] or
under when the guys report in August. We had 16 left to get to 85. [With the 2013 class], we’ve awarded 84 scholarships.”

Of the 15 recruits, six were selected to play in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, one participated in the Under Armour All-America Game, one in the International Bowl and two in the Semper Fidelis All-American Bowl. Five of the players are listed among ESPN’s Top 150 national prospects, and eight are in the Top 300.

A quintet of players who originally committed to the Longhorns changed their minds during the past year, with two of them ending up at Texas A&M, one at Notre Dame, one at Alabama and the final player went to TCU. “If a player starts looking, to me, he’s looking for something different than what you’ve got,” Brown said. “I’m going to look for something different than what I’ve got. It’s dog-eat-dog out there. What we found is the 15 [players] who are passionate about being at Texas. That’s what
you want.”
By comparison, Texas A&M’s signing class (with 31 players) was ranked 11th by Rivals, sixth by Scout and eighth by ESPN. The highest-ranked Big 12 Conference team was Oklahoma (with 24 players), which ended up 15th in the Rivals and Scout rankings and 16th — one place behind Texas — in the ESPN list. “We all get excited about signing day,”
Brown said.

“We have had some top-ranked signing classes here that haven’t panned out. We need to evaluate this class four or five years from now and see who’s playing. A lot of times perception isn’t reality with these guys. Our job is to fit our needs.”

Here’s a look at the Longhorns’ 2013 signing class, complete with comments from coach Brown.

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