Texas Recruiting Notes 2025: Duck Around and Find Out

[texifornia 56,990]

4 minutes ago, Hookem2147 said:

Texas 247 site posted this earlier today about Kade Phillips and Shea Dixon mentioned on the LSU On3 site in a discussion about flips that if LSU was going to flip a prospect currently committed to another school, he would feel most confident in Phillips.

LSU has continued to recruit Phillips behind the scenes since he committed to Texas on July 6th.

Although he's listed as a cornerback by 247Sports, Phillips committed to Blake Gideon and Texas to play safety with the possibility that he could one day be moved to star or cornerback due to the athleticism, length, and versatility Phillips possesses.

Texas was the only program among Phillips' 30 offers that pursued him to play the safety position, whereas LSU and every single other school besides Texas always recruited Phillips to play cornerback.

I do see it as a possibility that Phillips could flip to LSU before early signing day as the Bayou Bengals will not be giving up on him at all this fall as they'll be "recruiting through the whistle". Up to this point I've felt as if the current group of commitments Texas holds has been pretty solid with their pledges, but upon hearing of the dialogue that's continued between LSU and the Phillips camp since the Texas commitment I felt as if it was worth it to get this posted on the board.

I'm unaware of the defensive back board over at LSU, but depending on timing, I do think *if* Phillips were to flip to LSU then it could swing the door wide open for Texas and Aidan Anding once again. Again, I am unaware of the LSU DB board, but I do think there's a chance *if* Phillips were to flip to LSU, than Anding's spot at LSU *might* be taken which could make Texas the expected landing spot for Anding once again. Anding is still planning on making his decision before the season starts, so it would have to happen sooner rather than later if that hypothetical scenario of Phillips to LSU and Anding to Texas was to happen.

So their absolute best case scenario is we split our DB targets? Alrighty then.

[Hookem2147 21,331]

3 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

That sounds like a lot of fan fiction meant to stir a response from Texas.

Sorry, may not have been clear. The article is from Scruggs on 247. 

[Getafix 28,677]

 

Posting for the lulz ... 

 

 

 

[Henry Hill 3,156]

7 hours ago, Dr. Teeth said:

Either he is 6’9 or he is going up against Peter Dinklage. 

[texifornia 56,990]

1 minute ago, Henry Hill said:

I have two Peter Dinklage stories:

My college roommate went to Delbarton (the all-boys Catholic high school PD went to), but well after he'd been there. Said he was renowned as a campus god. Star of the drama department, incredibly popular on a personal level, and he'd pull the hottest girls from their sister schools for every prom.

I ran into him one morning in Chelsea. Had a baby stroller and a dog taller than him. Made it look natural. Didn't give a single fuck.

Cool dude.

[hornian 5,219]

Neither of those really qualifies as a “story”

[futureman 22,473]

8 minutes ago, hornian said:

Neither of those really qualifies as a “story”

anecdotes?

[JohnnyRage 1,617]

*notes

[ClubWhatever 12,144]

I don't care who you are it's embarrassing for an adult to be pushed in a baby stroller

[tokamak 6,431]

How do y'all compare Brooks to Fasusi and Lamont Rogers? I haven't watched Brooks's tape yet.

[Hookem2147 21,331]

Fong on some Texas targets

Spoiler

Latest regarding Jonah Williams

My On3 RPM is on Texas A&M and the Aggies remain in communication with the nation’s No. 1 safety Jonah Williams, but LSU, Texas and USC appear to be in better standing ahead of his Aug. 24 commitment date.

Maybe the intel favors the Longhorns but I’m not discounting LSU and feel he really likes the new defensive staff at USC as well.

Williams is the No. 10 overall prospect in the country. Oregon rounds out the finalists and they are actually the On3 RPM favorite.

Williams father Billy told On3 all five are still in play on Wednesday night.

Less than a week until 5-star Michael Fasusi comes off the board

The buzz is starting to favor Oklahoma for the On3 Industry’s No. 3 offensive tackle and No. 12 prospect overall in Michael Fasusi. Texas A&M is working to change that narrative. They’re having regular dialogue with Fasusi.

Texas rounds out what I view to be the top three. 

Alabama has a commitment from On3’s No. 2 and No. 8 offensive tackles in Ty Haywood and Jackson Lloyd. If the Sooners can grab Fasusi they’d pair him with the nation’s No. 9 offensive tackle Ryan Fodje. 

Texas trending for two

I like where Texas stands with Jacksonville (Fla.) Mandarin receiver Jaime Ffrench and my On3 RPM reflects that for the five-star prospect. Miami, LSU and Tennessee are the other finalists.

The Longhorns are also the favorite to land the nation’s No. 1 athlete Michael Terry III. Oregon and Nebraska continue to battle to change that.

Joined colleague Chad Simmons in logging a new On3 RPM in favor of Texas for Loganville (Ga.) Grayson On300 offensive tackle Nick Brooks. He will announce his decision on Aug. 23. USC is working to change that pulse.

 

[Getafix 28,677]

 

 

 

[ousux 5,597]

I don't care who you are it's embarrassing for an adult to be pushed in a baby stroller

Especially if a large dog is pushing said stroller.

[sith_horn 2,406]

12 hours ago, texifornia said:

Looks like this is more "go offer all the DL commits for the teams that are definitely firing their coaches this year"

They also both happen to be out of Georgia, Kenny Baker's old stomping grounds.

[Scholz 11,944]

2 hours ago, tokamak said:

How do y'all compare Brooks to Fasusi and Lamont Rogers? I haven't watched Brooks's tape yet.

Depends. Whichever one ends up with us is by far the best and is serious about football. The ones who don’t are dumb/just want to party.

[Bevo 13,578]

4 minutes ago, Scholz said:

Depends. Whichever one ends up with us is by far the best and is serious about football. The ones who don’t are dumb/just want to party.

 

Not totally true - I went to Texas and was dumb and just wanted to party.

 

 

[Scholz 11,944]

4 minutes ago, Bevo said:

Not totally true - I went to Texas and was dumb and just wanted to party.

Valid but that shit doesn’t fly anymore. Pretty sure 80% of my UT friends wouldn’t be going there these days.

[BornAndRaised 12,291]

I dont remember the dynsmic, but wasn't it a thing that Fasusi and Brooks didnt want to go to the same school? Or was it Turntine?

[MirrOlure 14,790]

13 hours ago, texifornia said:

Texas was the only program among Phillips' 30 offers that pursued him to play the safety position, whereas LSU and every single other school besides Texas always recruited Phillips to play cornerback.

That shit reads like my 7th Grade essays where I stretched 175 good words so I could meet the 250 word minimum....

[Funk Doctor Spock 12,410]

I think Gerry said if we got Fasusi that it would hurt getting Turntine 

[RollLeft 5,045]

12 hours ago, hornian said:

Neither of those really qualifies as a “story”

They were short stories.

[General Specific 3,262]

Still waiting for “Dear Penthouse, I didn’t think it could happen to me…”

[Horn75 193]

He gone

[Vertigo 20,290]

21 minutes ago, Spider2YBanana said:

I think Gerry said if we got Fasusi that it would hurt getting Turntine 

I would rather have Brooks and Turntine over Fasusi. He is a better prospect and we have quality tackles in the program that can man the ship for a year or two. 

[Elmer_Fudd 22,274]

Guess Phillips didn't watch any of that shitty LSU defense last year.

[Funk Doctor Spock 12,410]

3 minutes ago, Vertigo said:

I would rather have Brooks and Turntine over Fasusi. He is a better prospect and we have quality tackles in the program that can man the ship for a year or two. 

Agreed. I would also rather have Turntine. Gerry said he was the best T regardless of class, and it gives separation between him and Goosby, who apparently is coming on really well. 

But yeah, if we got Fasusi I wouldn't complain, but if I have a choice it's for Turntine. Dude has been to campus like 6 times this year or something. He absolutely loves Texas. 

Brooks is going to absolutely destroy people. I don't know shit from fuck, but I saw his highlights and he just crushes people. His size and awareness were great. He's going to be a problem. 

Edited August 15 by Spider2YBanana

[Mother mopar 3,319]

I would rather have Brooks and Turntine over Fasusi. He is a better prospect and we have quality tackles in the program that can man the ship for a year or two. 

Plus, isn't Fasusi not in love with football or something to that effect.

[walker 175]

27 minutes ago, Horn75 said:

He gone

Wondering if the staff should just be a bit more flexible w what they tell recruits.  Feel like other teams are just willing to cater to what the recruit wants then let them figure it out on campus.  Didn't Billy Bowman decommit to play receiver at OU?  

[totallynotabuttpirate 5,400]

He went to OU because his "girlfriend" was going there. Also, he wanted more opportunities to get the D. 

[Foosters 17,858]

2 minutes ago, walker said:

Wondering if the staff should just be a bit more flexible w what they tell recruits.  Feel like other teams are just willing to cater to what the recruit wants then let them figure it out on campus.  Didn't Billy Bowman decommit to play receiver at OU?  

I thought we were the only team willing to let him try and play the position he wants? 

[Hookem2147 21,331]

99% of what Geoff Ketchum writes is garbage and I would never bring it here, but I do think he makes a few somewhat interesting points when it comes to the NIL 'dead money' when talking about Fasusi

Spoiler

Before we get knee-deep into the discussion specific to the looming announcement of Lewisville offensive tackle Michael Fasusi, there are a few important pieces of context that need to be acknowledged:

1. Sourcing from a couple of months ago confirmed that the Longhorns were somewhere in the 15-20 million range with regards to NIL commitments to football for the 2024 year, which ranks among the largest numbers in the entire sport.

2. Texas still has a very serious NIL donor problem. While bills keep getting paid, it's not because Texas is rivaling its peers in the SEC like Georgia and Ole Miss when it comes to donor contributions. There are seemingly a million reasons why this is the case, but the bottom line is the bottom line- not enough people are giving money to the NIL cause and too much NIL weight is falling on too few shoulders.

3. Although the recent NCAA lawsuit settlement has language in it that will allow schools to start paying players, and thus start taking a lot of the NIL weight off of the shoulders of the collectives that currently do so much of the work, the system won't be place in time to supplement needs during the rest of 2024. Most expect it to be in place by 2025, but that's still a ways off when you consider that a lot of NIL payments are due... right now.

Over the course of the last few weeks, one of the things that a number of sources have pointed out to me in conversations is that everyone in the sport is learning of a new cardinal sin in college football... dead money.

It's a very NFL phrase and while it's not apples to apples inside of college football because there is no salary cap, which is what dead money in the NFL is specifically connected to, the principles are similar. In college football, the concept of dead money refers to money that has been invested in NIL that isn't actually contributing in real time towards the immediate season.

As time goes by, the sport is learning that there's not an endless pot of gold to pay players from... at least not until the pressure put on the collectives to raise tens of millions has subsided. Where schools once piled up rosters with as many elite prospects as possible (see Alabama and Georgia in the last decade), there are consequences that are just being learned in 2024 when that same aggressive approach is implemented.

For instance, in the old days (and by old I mean 2-3 years ago) the idea of having an offensive line loaded with elite prospects (including five-stars) along the second- and third-teams was seen as the ultimate flex. What could reflect the strength of a program more than having more five-stars on the bench than most teams have in their starting line-ups?

Again, it's a very Alabama-under-Saban thing to witness.

Yet, in the era of NIL, can a program really afford to have multiple 5-stars sitting on the bench developing and not playing? From a football sense, hell yes. From a financial sense, having multiple 5-stars on the bench means that roughly 1-2 million dollars (5-10% of a 20-million NIL budget) is being unused and I'm telling you right now... in 2024... that kind of excess dollars doesn't exist.

More and more, I keep hearing that when NIL dollars are being invested, the heaviest investment needs to be in the right here and now. Not in tomorrow, even if that makes the most sense from a long-term building standpoint. Maybe in short order we'll get to a point where programs like Texas can ably invest in its infrastructures in such a way, but that type of NIL financial runway doesn't currently exist for 99% of the sport.

It doesn't exist. I feel like some of you need to re-read that part at least 10 times.

So, let's move to the subject of Fasusi. The word on the street is that he's going to get a million dollars in NIL, which would represent more NIL money than any current player on the Texas roster outside of possibly Quinn Ewers (who doesn't need to rely on collectives to earn that much). Just yesterday, a report from On3 said that 4-star offensive guard Josh Petty had secured a three-year roster deal from Georgia Tech that is worth at last $800,000 per year.

This dude isn't in Fasusi's galaxy as a prospect and he's getting $800,000 a year.

If Fasusi picks Texas, it's way more likely that he would need multiple seasons before he's able to slide into a starting spot. The landscape that Kelvin Banks entered in 2022 doesn't exist at the moment. The expectation is that Trevor Goosby will be the starter at left tackle in 2025 (and possibly 2026), while the right tackle position could include Cam Williams, third-year player Andre Cojo (currently running second-team) and 2024 5-star tackle Brandon Baker.

Texas absolutely needs Fasusi. Make no mistake about that. Yet, it doesn't immediately need him. Just like it doesn't immediately need Baker.

I've been told that the Longhorns haven't yet made a big NIL push with most of its top targets and won't until the last few months of the 2024 recruiting process. That decision-making is apparently part of an evolved strategy that the staff has put together based on what it believes it has leaned in the most recent recruiting cycles, but it also makes sense to wait until you flex your NIL muscle until you know exactly how you need to flex that muscle.

It's possible that the 2025 budget is hard to piece together in the summer of 2024. It's expensive to have a Top 5 team these days and I'm not sure that Texas knows exactly who is coming and going from the roster at this point, let alone how much money it has to spend and who will cover the bill. Maybe a bunch of guys will turn pro and it will open up millions in unofficial NIL cap space. Or maybe fewer guys go pro than anticipated and you have less money available.

This new conversation in college football takes on even more significance if there is a shortfall in NIL contributions. The last thing anyone will want to do when there's already not enough money available to handle all of the current costs is agree to take on even larger costs.

We know this.... Fasusi announces his college commitment in 6 days and up until this very second, significant NIL discussions haven't taken place with the Longhorns.

One source mentioned to me this weekend that it might make a lot more financial sense for the Longhorns to wait until the 2026 recruiting cycle to take a 5-star level offensive tackle prospect because that player would enter the program only needing to wait one season before starting once Goosby departs instead of two. If that player costs a million dollars in NIL money to acquire, it would mean not having to potentially spend 2 million (or more) in dead money for the 2025 and 2026 seasons. It would just be one season.

All of this might be a moot point in short time once schools are handling the majority of NIL costs, but we aren't there yet and until we are, conversations like this will continue to take place, even if we haven't been having them on places like message boards until right now.

 

[Hookem2147 21,331]

1 minute ago, Foosters said:

I thought we were the only team willing to let him try and play the position he wants? 

Most schools, including LSU, were recruiting him solely at CB. Texas recruited him at safety while saying they would give him a shot at CB first.

[kwood4408 765]

Plus, isn't Fasusi not in love with football or something to that effect.

Listened to Gerry’s interview with Fasusi and that guy seems to be all about OU.

[FloridaHorn 4,766]

18 minutes ago, totallynotabuttpirate said:

He went to OU because his "girlfriend" was going there. Also, he wanted more opportunities to get the D. 

He had to follow her because she is the better player of the two.

[Gucci_Suit 2,645]

12 minutes ago, kwood4408 said:

Listened to Gerry’s interview with Fasusi and that guy seems to be all about OU.

So he sucks

[Teryor 4,474]

58 minutes ago, Elmer_Fudd said:

Guess Phillips didn't watch any of that shitty LSU defense last year.

I mean, they have an entirely new defensive staff

[6th Street 6,413]

Hopefully some NIL $ earmarked for those two DTs they just offered 

[RollLeft 5,045]

Texas  Errbody still has a very serious NIL donor problem...

fiffatty

[Elmer_Fudd 22,274]

2 hours ago, Teryor said:

I mean, they have an entirely new defensive staff

I'm sure they'll improve on that side of the ball.  Would be hard not to.  But will it be enough to offset the drop in offense they'll have?  I think they lose 4-5 game this year, including the opener against USC.

[HtownHorn 14,720]

30 minutes ago, Elmer_Fudd said:

I'm sure they'll improve on that side of the ball.  Would be hard not to.  But will it be enough to offset the drop in offense they'll have?  I think they lose 4-5 game this year, including the opener against USC.

I agree. Brian Kelly makes a lot of bad hires on defense. For instance, their current DC was a graduate assistant at Texas under Manny Diaz.

Edited August 15 by HtownHorn

[Vertigo 20,290]

3 hours ago, Hookem2147 said:

99% of what Geoff Ketchum writes is garbage and I would never bring it here, but I do think he makes a few somewhat interesting points when it comes to the NIL 'dead money' when talking about Fasusi

  Hide contents

Before we get knee-deep into the discussion specific to the looming announcement of Lewisville offensive tackle Michael Fasusi, there are a few important pieces of context that need to be acknowledged:

1. Sourcing from a couple of months ago confirmed that the Longhorns were somewhere in the 15-20 million range with regards to NIL commitments to football for the 2024 year, which ranks among the largest numbers in the entire sport.

2. Texas still has a very serious NIL donor problem. While bills keep getting paid, it's not because Texas is rivaling its peers in the SEC like Georgia and Ole Miss when it comes to donor contributions. There are seemingly a million reasons why this is the case, but the bottom line is the bottom line- not enough people are giving money to the NIL cause and too much NIL weight is falling on too few shoulders.

3. Although the recent NCAA lawsuit settlement has language in it that will allow schools to start paying players, and thus start taking a lot of the NIL weight off of the shoulders of the collectives that currently do so much of the work, the system won't be place in time to supplement needs during the rest of 2024. Most expect it to be in place by 2025, but that's still a ways off when you consider that a lot of NIL payments are due... right now.

Over the course of the last few weeks, one of the things that a number of sources have pointed out to me in conversations is that everyone in the sport is learning of a new cardinal sin in college football... dead money.

It's a very NFL phrase and while it's not apples to apples inside of college football because there is no salary cap, which is what dead money in the NFL is specifically connected to, the principles are similar. In college football, the concept of dead money refers to money that has been invested in NIL that isn't actually contributing in real time towards the immediate season.

As time goes by, the sport is learning that there's not an endless pot of gold to pay players from... at least not until the pressure put on the collectives to raise tens of millions has subsided. Where schools once piled up rosters with as many elite prospects as possible (see Alabama and Georgia in the last decade), there are consequences that are just being learned in 2024 when that same aggressive approach is implemented.

For instance, in the old days (and by old I mean 2-3 years ago) the idea of having an offensive line loaded with elite prospects (including five-stars) along the second- and third-teams was seen as the ultimate flex. What could reflect the strength of a program more than having more five-stars on the bench than most teams have in their starting line-ups?

Again, it's a very Alabama-under-Saban thing to witness.

Yet, in the era of NIL, can a program really afford to have multiple 5-stars sitting on the bench developing and not playing? From a football sense, hell yes. From a financial sense, having multiple 5-stars on the bench means that roughly 1-2 million dollars (5-10% of a 20-million NIL budget) is being unused and I'm telling you right now... in 2024... that kind of excess dollars doesn't exist.

More and more, I keep hearing that when NIL dollars are being invested, the heaviest investment needs to be in the right here and now. Not in tomorrow, even if that makes the most sense from a long-term building standpoint. Maybe in short order we'll get to a point where programs like Texas can ably invest in its infrastructures in such a way, but that type of NIL financial runway doesn't currently exist for 99% of the sport.

It doesn't exist. I feel like some of you need to re-read that part at least 10 times.

So, let's move to the subject of Fasusi. The word on the street is that he's going to get a million dollars in NIL, which would represent more NIL money than any current player on the Texas roster outside of possibly Quinn Ewers (who doesn't need to rely on collectives to earn that much). Just yesterday, a report from On3 said that 4-star offensive guard Josh Petty had secured a three-year roster deal from Georgia Tech that is worth at last $800,000 per year.

This dude isn't in Fasusi's galaxy as a prospect and he's getting $800,000 a year.

If Fasusi picks Texas, it's way more likely that he would need multiple seasons before he's able to slide into a starting spot. The landscape that Kelvin Banks entered in 2022 doesn't exist at the moment. The expectation is that Trevor Goosby will be the starter at left tackle in 2025 (and possibly 2026), while the right tackle position could include Cam Williams, third-year player Andre Cojo (currently running second-team) and 2024 5-star tackle Brandon Baker.

Texas absolutely needs Fasusi. Make no mistake about that. Yet, it doesn't immediately need him. Just like it doesn't immediately need Baker.

I've been told that the Longhorns haven't yet made a big NIL push with most of its top targets and won't until the last few months of the 2024 recruiting process. That decision-making is apparently part of an evolved strategy that the staff has put together based on what it believes it has leaned in the most recent recruiting cycles, but it also makes sense to wait until you flex your NIL muscle until you know exactly how you need to flex that muscle.

It's possible that the 2025 budget is hard to piece together in the summer of 2024. It's expensive to have a Top 5 team these days and I'm not sure that Texas knows exactly who is coming and going from the roster at this point, let alone how much money it has to spend and who will cover the bill. Maybe a bunch of guys will turn pro and it will open up millions in unofficial NIL cap space. Or maybe fewer guys go pro than anticipated and you have less money available.

This new conversation in college football takes on even more significance if there is a shortfall in NIL contributions. The last thing anyone will want to do when there's already not enough money available to handle all of the current costs is agree to take on even larger costs.

We know this.... Fasusi announces his college commitment in 6 days and up until this very second, significant NIL discussions haven't taken place with the Longhorns.

One source mentioned to me this weekend that it might make a lot more financial sense for the Longhorns to wait until the 2026 recruiting cycle to take a 5-star level offensive tackle prospect because that player would enter the program only needing to wait one season before starting once Goosby departs instead of two. If that player costs a million dollars in NIL money to acquire, it would mean not having to potentially spend 2 million (or more) in dead money for the 2025 and 2026 seasons. It would just be one season.

All of this might be a moot point in short time once schools are handling the majority of NIL costs, but we aren't there yet and until we are, conversations like this will continue to take place, even if we haven't been having them on places like message boards until right now.

 

I can't speak to the accuracy of his numbers, but on the whole this actually isn't a bad read. 

[Cairn Horn88 8,272]

4 hours ago, RollLeft said:

They were short stories.

They were short….

[irishtexan 11,521]

15 minutes ago, Vertigo said:

I can't speak to the accuracy of his numbers, but on the whole this actually isn't a bad read. 

I do not believe he wrote it. But I do believe he put his name on it. 

[RollLeft 5,045]

4 hours ago, Hookem2147 said:

99% of what Geoff Ketchum writes is garbage and I would never bring it here, but I do think he makes a few somewhat interesting points when it comes to the NIL 'dead money' when talking about Fasusi

  Hide contents

Before we get knee-deep into the discussion specific to the looming announcement of Lewisville offensive tackle Michael Fasusi, there are a few important pieces of context that need to be acknowledged:

1. Sourcing from a couple of months ago confirmed that the Longhorns were somewhere in the 15-20 million range with regards to NIL commitments to football for the 2024 year, which ranks among the largest numbers in the entire sport.

2. Texas still has a very serious NIL donor problem. While bills keep getting paid, it's not because Texas is rivaling its peers in the SEC like Georgia and Ole Miss when it comes to donor contributions. There are seemingly a million reasons why this is the case, but the bottom line is the bottom line- not enough people are giving money to the NIL cause and too much NIL weight is falling on too few shoulders.

3. Although the recent NCAA lawsuit settlement has language in it that will allow schools to start paying players, and thus start taking a lot of the NIL weight off of the shoulders of the collectives that currently do so much of the work, the system won't be place in time to supplement needs during the rest of 2024. Most expect it to be in place by 2025, but that's still a ways off when you consider that a lot of NIL payments are due... right now.

Over the course of the last few weeks, one of the things that a number of sources have pointed out to me in conversations is that everyone in the sport is learning of a new cardinal sin in college football... dead money.

It's a very NFL phrase and while it's not apples to apples inside of college football because there is no salary cap, which is what dead money in the NFL is specifically connected to, the principles are similar. In college football, the concept of dead money refers to money that has been invested in NIL that isn't actually contributing in real time towards the immediate season.

As time goes by, the sport is learning that there's not an endless pot of gold to pay players from... at least not until the pressure put on the collectives to raise tens of millions has subsided. Where schools once piled up rosters with as many elite prospects as possible (see Alabama and Georgia in the last decade), there are consequences that are just being learned in 2024 when that same aggressive approach is implemented.

For instance, in the old days (and by old I mean 2-3 years ago) the idea of having an offensive line loaded with elite prospects (including five-stars) along the second- and third-teams was seen as the ultimate flex. What could reflect the strength of a program more than having more five-stars on the bench than most teams have in their starting line-ups?

Again, it's a very Alabama-under-Saban thing to witness.

Yet, in the era of NIL, can a program really afford to have multiple 5-stars sitting on the bench developing and not playing? From a football sense, hell yes. From a financial sense, having multiple 5-stars on the bench means that roughly 1-2 million dollars (5-10% of a 20-million NIL budget) is being unused and I'm telling you right now... in 2024... that kind of excess dollars doesn't exist.

More and more, I keep hearing that when NIL dollars are being invested, the heaviest investment needs to be in the right here and now. Not in tomorrow, even if that makes the most sense from a long-term building standpoint. Maybe in short order we'll get to a point where programs like Texas can ably invest in its infrastructures in such a way, but that type of NIL financial runway doesn't currently exist for 99% of the sport.

It doesn't exist. I feel like some of you need to re-read that part at least 10 times.

So, let's move to the subject of Fasusi. The word on the street is that he's going to get a million dollars in NIL, which would represent more NIL money than any current player on the Texas roster outside of possibly Quinn Ewers (who doesn't need to rely on collectives to earn that much). Just yesterday, a report from On3 said that 4-star offensive guard Josh Petty had secured a three-year roster deal from Georgia Tech that is worth at last $800,000 per year.

This dude isn't in Fasusi's galaxy as a prospect and he's getting $800,000 a year.

If Fasusi picks Texas, it's way more likely that he would need multiple seasons before he's able to slide into a starting spot. The landscape that Kelvin Banks entered in 2022 doesn't exist at the moment. The expectation is that Trevor Goosby will be the starter at left tackle in 2025 (and possibly 2026), while the right tackle position could include Cam Williams, third-year player Andre Cojo (currently running second-team) and 2024 5-star tackle Brandon Baker.

Texas absolutely needs Fasusi. Make no mistake about that. Yet, it doesn't immediately need him. Just like it doesn't immediately need Baker.

I've been told that the Longhorns haven't yet made a big NIL push with most of its top targets and won't until the last few months of the 2024 recruiting process. That decision-making is apparently part of an evolved strategy that the staff has put together based on what it believes it has leaned in the most recent recruiting cycles, but it also makes sense to wait until you flex your NIL muscle until you know exactly how you need to flex that muscle.

It's possible that the 2025 budget is hard to piece together in the summer of 2024. It's expensive to have a Top 5 team these days and I'm not sure that Texas knows exactly who is coming and going from the roster at this point, let alone how much money it has to spend and who will cover the bill. Maybe a bunch of guys will turn pro and it will open up millions in unofficial NIL cap space. Or maybe fewer guys go pro than anticipated and you have less money available.

This new conversation in college football takes on even more significance if there is a shortfall in NIL contributions. The last thing anyone will want to do when there's already not enough money available to handle all of the current costs is agree to take on even larger costs.

We know this.... Fasusi announces his college commitment in 6 days and up until this very second, significant NIL discussions haven't taken place with the Longhorns.

One source mentioned to me this weekend that it might make a lot more financial sense for the Longhorns to wait until the 2026 recruiting cycle to take a 5-star level offensive tackle prospect because that player would enter the program only needing to wait one season before starting once Goosby departs instead of two. If that player costs a million dollars in NIL money to acquire, it would mean not having to potentially spend 2 million (or more) in dead money for the 2025 and 2026 seasons. It would just be one season.

All of this might be a moot point in short time once schools are handling the majority of NIL costs, but we aren't there yet and until we are, conversations like this will continue to take place, even if we haven't been having them on places like message boards until right now.

 

"...there are more people in line at other schools ready to write checks....Texas has less of those donors....Ole Miss has more!" -Chad Hastings clarifying Fat Guy (listen for yourself at minute 39) Someone buy this guy a ham sandwich so he can stfu. 

regarding NIL " Texas is behind aTm. They have more donors." @minute 49  

 

Edited August 15 by RollLeft

[HtownHorn 14,720]

10 minutes ago, RollLeft said:

"...there are more people in line at other schools ready to write checks....Texas has less of those donors....Ole Miss has more!" -Chad Hastings clarifying Fat Guy (listen for yourself at minute 39) Someone buy this guy a ham sandwich so he can stfu. 

 

Holy shit, why would anyone pay to hear those two skin heads talk about anything.

[RollLeft 5,045]

4 hours ago, Hookem2147 said:

99% of what Geoff Ketchum writes is garbage and I would never bring it here, but I do think he makes a few somewhat interesting points when it comes to the NIL 'dead money' when talking about Fasusi

  Reveal hidden contents

Before we get knee-deep into the discussion specific to the looming announcement of Lewisville offensive tackle Michael Fasusi, there are a few important pieces of context that need to be acknowledged:

1. Sourcing from a couple of months ago confirmed that the Longhorns were somewhere in the 15-20 million range with regards to NIL commitments to football for the 2024 year, which ranks among the largest numbers in the entire sport.

2. Texas still has a very serious NIL donor problem. While bills keep getting paid, it's not because Texas is rivaling its peers in the SEC like Georgia and Ole Miss when it comes to donor contributions. There are seemingly a million reasons why this is the case, but the bottom line is the bottom line- not enough people are giving money to the NIL cause and too much NIL weight is falling on too few shoulders.

3. Although the recent NCAA lawsuit settlement has language in it that will allow schools to start paying players, and thus start taking a lot of the NIL weight off of the shoulders of the collectives that currently do so much of the work, the system won't be place in time to supplement needs during the rest of 2024. Most expect it to be in place by 2025, but that's still a ways off when you consider that a lot of NIL payments are due... right now.

Over the course of the last few weeks, one of the things that a number of sources have pointed out to me in conversations is that everyone in the sport is learning of a new cardinal sin in college football... dead money.

It's a very NFL phrase and while it's not apples to apples inside of college football because there is no salary cap, which is what dead money in the NFL is specifically connected to, the principles are similar. In college football, the concept of dead money refers to money that has been invested in NIL that isn't actually contributing in real time towards the immediate season.

As time goes by, the sport is learning that there's not an endless pot of gold to pay players from... at least not until the pressure put on the collectives to raise tens of millions has subsided. Where schools once piled up rosters with as many elite prospects as possible (see Alabama and Georgia in the last decade), there are consequences that are just being learned in 2024 when that same aggressive approach is implemented.

For instance, in the old days (and by old I mean 2-3 years ago) the idea of having an offensive line loaded with elite prospects (including five-stars) along the second- and third-teams was seen as the ultimate flex. What could reflect the strength of a program more than having more five-stars on the bench than most teams have in their starting line-ups?

Again, it's a very Alabama-under-Saban thing to witness.

Yet, in the era of NIL, can a program really afford to have multiple 5-stars sitting on the bench developing and not playing? From a football sense, hell yes. From a financial sense, having multiple 5-stars on the bench means that roughly 1-2 million dollars (5-10% of a 20-million NIL budget) is being unused and I'm telling you right now... in 2024... that kind of excess dollars doesn't exist.

More and more, I keep hearing that when NIL dollars are being invested, the heaviest investment needs to be in the right here and now. Not in tomorrow, even if that makes the most sense from a long-term building standpoint. Maybe in short order we'll get to a point where programs like Texas can ably invest in its infrastructures in such a way, but that type of NIL financial runway doesn't currently exist for 99% of the sport.

It doesn't exist. I feel like some of you need to re-read that part at least 10 times.

So, let's move to the subject of Fasusi. The word on the street is that he's going to get a million dollars in NIL, which would represent more NIL money than any current player on the Texas roster outside of possibly Quinn Ewers (who doesn't need to rely on collectives to earn that much). Just yesterday, a report from On3 said that 4-star offensive guard Josh Petty had secured a three-year roster deal from Georgia Tech that is worth at last $800,000 per year.

This dude isn't in Fasusi's galaxy as a prospect and he's getting $800,000 a year.

If Fasusi picks Texas, it's way more likely that he would need multiple seasons before he's able to slide into a starting spot. The landscape that Kelvin Banks entered in 2022 doesn't exist at the moment. The expectation is that Trevor Goosby will be the starter at left tackle in 2025 (and possibly 2026), while the right tackle position could include Cam Williams, third-year player Andre Cojo (currently running second-team) and 2024 5-star tackle Brandon Baker.

Texas absolutely needs Fasusi. Make no mistake about that. Yet, it doesn't immediately need him. Just like it doesn't immediately need Baker.

I've been told that the Longhorns haven't yet made a big NIL push with most of its top targets and won't until the last few months of the 2024 recruiting process. That decision-making is apparently part of an evolved strategy that the staff has put together based on what it believes it has leaned in the most recent recruiting cycles, but it also makes sense to wait until you flex your NIL muscle until you know exactly how you need to flex that muscle.

It's possible that the 2025 budget is hard to piece together in the summer of 2024. It's expensive to have a Top 5 team these days and I'm not sure that Texas knows exactly who is coming and going from the roster at this point, let alone how much money it has to spend and who will cover the bill. Maybe a bunch of guys will turn pro and it will open up millions in unofficial NIL cap space. Or maybe fewer guys go pro than anticipated and you have less money available.

This new conversation in college football takes on even more significance if there is a shortfall in NIL contributions. The last thing anyone will want to do when there's already not enough money available to handle all of the current costs is agree to take on even larger costs.

We know this.... Fasusi announces his college commitment in 6 days and up until this very second, significant NIL discussions haven't taken place with the Longhorns.

One source mentioned to me this weekend that it might make a lot more financial sense for the Longhorns to wait until the 2026 recruiting cycle to take a 5-star level offensive tackle prospect because that player would enter the program only needing to wait one season before starting once Goosby departs instead of two. If that player costs a million dollars in NIL money to acquire, it would mean not having to potentially spend 2 million (or more) in dead money for the 2025 and 2026 seasons. It would just be one season.

All of this might be a moot point in short time once schools are handling the majority of NIL costs, but we aren't there yet and until we are, conversations like this will continue to take place, even if we haven't been having them on places like message boards until right now.

 

fok u man.  i just went down a 20 minute rabbit hole listening to that garbage.  

[TexasRenegade 2,448]

17 hours ago, texifornia said:

I have two Peter Dinklage stories:

My college roommate went to Delbarton (the all-boys Catholic high school PD went to), but well after he'd been there. Said he was renowned as a campus god. Star of the drama department, incredibly popular on a personal level, and he'd pull the hottest girls from their sister schools for every prom.

I ran into him one morning in Chelsea. Had a baby stroller and a dog taller than him. Made it look natural. Didn't give a single fuck.

Cool dude.

[Thiefery 5,011]

 

[Radical Larry 28,636]

27 minutes ago, Thiefery said:

 

 

[Davis Lane 5,586]

1 hour ago, RollLeft said:

"...there are more people in line at other schools ready to write checks....Texas has less of those donors....Ole Miss has more!" -Chad Hastings clarifying Fat Guy (listen for yourself at minute 39) Someone buy this guy a ham sandwich so he can stfu. 

regarding NIL " Texas is behind aTm. They have more donors." @minute 49  

 

Nope.