Tom Herman is realistic but optimistic about his first recruiting class at Texas

Published Feb. 1, 2017 4:00 p.m. ET

Stewart Mandel

Signing Day 2017 was an unusual one for fans of the University of Texas. Usually, they’re celebrating yet another Top 10 class. As of midday Wednesday, however, Texas was on the outside looking up at the Top 25.

In an interview with FOX Sports, first-year coach Tom Herman fully acknowledged the uphill battle he’s been fighting since taking over in late November. Predecessor Charlie Strong posted three straight losing records.

“These 17-year-old kids that are signing with the class of 2017, since they were 11 years old, they've seen two winning seasons at the University of Texas and four seven-loss seasons,” he said. “So that's gonna take some time to get these young men accustomed to the Texas that we know.”

(Listen to the interview with Herman here, starting at the 13:00 mark.)

Herman was once a GA for Mack Brown, who seemed to annually pick and choose whomever he wanted in the state of Texas. Texas A&M under Kevin Sumlin, Baylor under Art Briles and TCU under Gary Patterson began chipping away at the Longhorns’ stranglehold the past several years. But this year was particularly jarring. A list of the Top 20 recruits in the state for 2017 includes more Ohio State and LSU logos (two) than Longhorns’ (one).

Herman notes, though, that Brown had much the same problem with his first class at Texas in 1998 before surging to the No. 1 class in the country the following year with stars Chris Simms and Cory Redding.

“The first class is definitely never indicative of the ability of this place to recruit itself, as well as our staff’s ability to recruit,” said Herman. “I think you’ll see in very short order in years to come, that we’re gonna get it as close to the way Coach Brown had in terms of recruiting as soon as possible.”

https://twitter.com/Longhorn_FB/status/826797439780782080

Herman said Texas was also selective in who to pursue at the 11th hour, rather than simply filling out numbers with players with whom it has little familiarity. He learned that lesson from his first season at Ohio State with Urban Meyer in 2012 when the Buckeyes signed a relatively small class.

Not that the 2017 class is without potential difference-makers.

Gary Johnson, the nation’s No. 1 JUCO linebacker, is expected to compete for a starting job immediately. Herman also said four-star running back Toneil Carter, an early enrollee, and three-star Daniel Young, whom Herman says “might be the steal of all the classes in the Big 12,” will help fill the void left by departed star D’Onta Foreman.

But clearly, Herman is already looking ahead to 2018 and the opportunity to assemble a more loaded class.

“The Texas that these young men know is not the same Texas that we know -- and that's OK -- we're still Texas,” he said. "It's going to happen and it's going to happen very quickly, but it's still an uphill battle for the hearts and minds of some of the young people here in the state of Texas.”

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