Absolutely - not to mention all the QBs we passed on because we evaluated them as not very good. In addition to RG3, we showed zero interest in both Chase Daniels and Todd Reesing several years back - they each took their teams to a #1 ranking at one point. The Iowa State QB that beat OSU on Friday is a freshman from Texas. Darren Thomas at Oregon is from Texas as well. There a lot of guys over the last 5-6 years that left the state and starred at other schools.
Yup - though I've heard that he was always interested in Stanford for the education aspect, so Texas was probably never an option for him.
To be fair, Reesing and Daniel weren't takes because we had Colt and Jevan Snead in the fold. It's tough to see RG3 out there playing the way he is and know that he probably could have been at UT, but noone saw him playing as a QB at the next level. Our biggest problem has been that we went all in on Gilbert. He was an all-everything recruit that most people saw leaving for the NFL after 3 years. By that logic, following 2 outstanding years from Gilbert, we let a RS-sophomore Connor Wood and RS-freshman David Ash duke it out in 2012 to decide who starts for the next 3-4 years. Winner stays, loser transfers, and Case is the backup. That seems to be the Mack Brown model at QB.
Colt certainly worked out great. But he was a 3-star recruit and wasn't really expected to be that much. Snead was an incoming freshman and we didn't have a lot of depth, so it's not like we didn't need to collect more QB options if we could at the time. It would be one thing if looked at those guys and they said no because we had other QBs in the fold - my understanding is that we just thought they were too small or whatever. We tend to put a lot on measurables like size and arm strength (also showed no interest in Drew Brees from Austin way back), which seems to matter less at the college level. Yeah, I think that's the biggest problem - we just don't seem to have much of a pipeline of ready talent. As soon as one guy leaves, we seem to have to start Freshmen.
Actually the problem is that GD has never developed a quarterback. None of our QB's got better from coaching. Major, Simms, VY, and Colt were what they were from their freshman year. Lets see what Harsin does with Ash this off-season.
Sure, and, surprisingly, Mack had a similar thought. We went after Chase Daniel after getting Perriloux-ed. The year before, we were all in on Rhett Bomar, got lucky and dodged that bullet before trying to pull Bobby Reid (OSU) at the last minute. I agree that our QB recruiting hasn't been great, but I don't know how much I can blame the staff. Luck was never coming here, and none of the other guys mentioned (RG3, Darron Thomas, Jarrett Lee) were slam dunk prospects. They happened to hit, and the guys we took in their stead (Gilbert, Wood, Chiles) didn't. I think it has been more a question of development than recruitment. I still have high hopes for Ash; he has just been placed in a terrible situation, especially with the injuries to Shipley, Brown, Bergeron, and, most importantly, Fozzy.
At certain key spots (QB and RB) the strategy was to go all in on one guy per year or 2 years and make him "THE GUY", seemingly for fear of being rejected, and then get screwed. This strategy is fine when you're picking Vince Young's and Cedric Benson's, but when you're not, you're screwed. Also, they just had some bad luck. GJ Kinne from Tulsa transferred for fear of being trapped behind Colt McCoy + John Chiles, forever; had he stayed he could have been a 2 year starter. He's not great but way better than anybody they have had since Colt left.
Better than decent, actually. My wife works for the School of Architecture, and I've seen the numbers: UT is the highest-ranked non-Ivy League architecture school in the country. http://www.archdaily.com/182283/2012-united-states-best-architecture-schools/
I don't believe the reason he didn't go to UT because he didn't like the Architecture school. He just wasn't recruited by UT. He wasn't really heavily recruited by a bunch of big time schools out of high school even though he should have been. A&M, Rice, Purdue, Northwestern and Stanford were the most interested and offered him I believe. Stanford's academic program and Harbaugh being a great QB coach sealed the deal for him there.
Exactly. Nobody gets caught up in the BS about "oh, well my school has the #1 rated public school Accounting program". UT ain't Stanford
The 3 finalists for the Davey O'Brien award (Luck, Griffin, Keenum) for best college QB are all from Texas. And UT didn't recruit any of them for the QB slot. The story on Luck goes that UT was going all in on Gilbert the next year anyway. The mis-evaluation on Gilbert really set the program back 3-4 years. I think Ash will be okay (especially with the beast running game we should have with Brown, Gray, and Bergeron), but he shouldn't be starting as a true freshman.
