Texas Longhorns Recruits

Hasn't Texas had a pretty loaded roster for men's distance for the last several years. Obviously Worley is perhaps the best incoming distance recruit in the country so he will be good.What about the development of the others? It's not like they have not had the talent.

Texas Men's have recruited well in Distance. They had two blue chip in Garek B and Spencer Dodds. Also recruited Texas XC state champ. Wish the coach would do a better job with development. Even Alex Rogers and Destiny Collins haven't made any noise.

Women's side needs to recruit blue chip sprinters. They are looking pretty bare right now.

Garek B. is not good right now. He ran 4:18 in a field full of sub elites in May.

Spencer Dodds threw the biggest hissy fit after finishing dead last in the Texas Relays mile where a high schooler (Worley) beat Leo. What did Spencer run that day, 4:21? Herbster hasn't done a very good job there.

4:26 and struggling academically too.... transfering?

Texas' top female jump recruits for the past three years all transferred after their first year: Chyna Ries 2014 to Tennessee, Asa Garcia 2015 to Florida, and Teesa Mpagi 2016 (granted release but hasn't yet signed). What's going on appears to be a lack of confidence in the jumps program.

CoachWag wrote:

Texas' top female jump recruits for the past three years all transferred after their first year: Chyna Ries 2014 to Tennessee, Asa Garcia 2015 to Florida, and Teesa Mpagi 2016 (granted release but hasn't yet signed). What's going on appears to be a lack of confidence in the jumps program.

Ries went backwards after transferring. Didn't jump six meters last year at Tennessee. Garcia produced basically nothing at Florida this year. It's very hard to get it right recruiting female jumpers.

Many of their female sprinters have transferred as well. Teahna Daniels is the ONLY elite sprinter Texas was able to recruit. The recruiting is no where the same during Beverly Kearney era. What is going on at Texas?

Interesting. That's the first time I've ever heard that out of all track and field athletes female jumpers are uniquely difficult to recruit and/or coach. Certainly not my experience.

Facts are Facts @ CoachWag! Where are your female jumpers? Where are your female sprinters? Why so many transferred? Texas was known as a sprinting powerhouse, especially on the women side. Baylor has recruited better than Texas in the sprints area.

Perhaps you meant to address your statements to a different post. I wasn't disagreeing with you - my point was that if recruiting female jumpers is so inherently difficult, Texas would not be alone in failing to get and keep national class jumpers, yet the jumpers at Baylor, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Houston, Texas State, Rice and TCU have been consistently successful over the past three years.

I should have included West Texas A&M as well!

CoachWag wrote:

Perhaps you meant to address your statements to a different post. I wasn't disagreeing with you - my point was that if recruiting female jumpers is so inherently difficult, Texas would not be alone in failing to get and keep national class jumpers, yet the jumpers at Baylor, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Houston, Texas State, Rice and TCU have been consistently successful over the past three years.

Texas Tech has had consistently good long jump women and TCU had Ugen, who was superb.

A&M has had one decent female LJer in the past 5 years. Who has Baylor had in the women's LJ that was good in the past five years? Rice had a decent one this year for the first time in quite a while. Houston has had a couple decent LJers, but nothing nationally.

I'm not defending UTx in any way. They have underperformed.

I think the recruiting emphasis is different at many of these schools. Does A&M really go for horizontal jumpers on the female side right now? It seems like they deemphasized it once Vanhootegem left. Not saying they don't take a girl who can leap if she wants to go there, but it looks more like they're concerned with vault, throws, sprints.

UH has landed a couple of good female LJers. It makes sense given their coaching staff.

Back to Texas - they're probably having a hard time recruiting because of stuff going on staff-wise. There was an issue this year with their staff that created uncertainty. When that happens, you can expect to see fewer people sign. Less stability=fewer quality LOIs.

Sorry, I thought your statement that its very hard to get it right recruiting female jumpers, was an attempt to excuse the fact that Texas' top female jump recruits for the past 3 years all transferred after one year.

You offered no support for that statement, which I've never heard any other coach say and which is not my experience.

The schools I mentioned have all had either national class triple jumpers or national class long jumpers (or both) over the past three years. None of them are transferring out. Feel free to quibble with me by limiting your discussion to long jumpers.

Was Streete-Thompson coaching horizontal at Texas a year or two ago?

Did he leave? Did they bring in a quality replacement?

Do athletes transfer sometimes when their coach leaves?

I agree that the staff restructure has impacted them. Besides Tonja Bailey Buford, I'm not sure who is consistently reliable. I don't know how much her pro athletes take away from her recruiting/coaching. Despite a decent number of sprinter turnover, I hear her sprinter athletes have great relationship with her, even the ones that have transferred. I think having KST leave staff for whatever reason last yr did hurt TBB in managing and assisting in the sprint/relays.

Brad Herbster is probably a nice coach and knows his XO's but i hear his training has been lighter than his XC predecessor. Ty Sevin is suppose to be a great throw coach and great Javelin coach but they haven't shined that much as i thought (besides Ryan Crouser. He's just naturally gifted on his own). I bet Adrian Piperi will be their next best thrower adding on to the legacy but they need more than just one. Their Volunteer Coach in Pole Vault does a great job with the PV crew though.

Zach Glavish and Seth Henson were interesting hires. I'm sure they do fine supporting their group of athletes but they could really use a really solid assistant. However Seth was responsible for 2 men's jumper placing 3rd in LJ/TJ at Nationals. Unless there are some transfers coming in or foreign athletes coming on board, they don't have much talent to work with to make noise at Nationals.

Well said, OnlyAFew! I think something happen which deterred many of the top sprinters in the nation from signing with Texas. I also think that Tonja Burford-Bailey is an amazing coach!

You're right CoachWag! I was mainly focusing on the sprints than the jumps but the jumps are just as important if you want to compete with the best at the NCAA's. It's weird that Texas only has two ELITE sprinters, Teahna Daniels and Zola Golden left on their roster.

ILoveT&F wrote:

Well said, OnlyAFew! I think something happen which deterred many of the top sprinters in the nation from signing with Texas. I also think that Tonja Burford-Bailey is an amazing coach!

These things go in phases. I'm sure negative recruiting happens. Same thing happened to A&M about 2 years ago and now that has blown through.