Texas is in May transition period following spring practice

Players get the month off, their longest break of the year, while coaches hit the road recruiting.

With spring practice in the rearview mirror and the spring semester finished following finals, the Texas Longhorns have entered the transition period in May, the longest break of the season for players as assistants make spring recruiting visits to high schools.

“Obviously, the month of May for us is a unique month with all of our coaches hitting the road recruiting. I get an opportunity to do things like this, the players wrap up school and finals, and have a little time off before we come back in June. So it’s kind of the seasons, right? We kind of go with the season. So we’re in the transitional phase right now,” Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said at the Houston Touchdown Club last week.

Sarkisian called the new timelines a “balancing act” for assistants that has changed dramatically in recent years.

“A lot of what you used to do back in the day was you spring recruit to invite the seniors to get them to camp, and then get them to come to a game in the fall, and get them to take an official visit in the winter time — December, January,” Sarkisian said.

“That is all sped all the way up where Signing Day is now in early December. Now, so many of the players have been on our campus last year to come to a game, they’ve been on our campus this spring to come to practice to some degree, and now the assistant coaches are going out in the spring, really, to home visit the kids now, which is an incredible thing.”

Assistant coaches out recruiting have produced a flurry of new offers this week capped by those in-person evaluations. Most of the offers have gone out to prospects in the 2027 recruiting class to begin building those relationships to land the unofficial visits for games in the fall and recruiting events and practices during the spring before their key summer official visits start next year.

In the state, Texas assistants are trying to make up for the time taken up by the late end to spring practice for the Longhorns.

“Being adaptable I think is the key right now and being really well organized with where our coaches are going and what we’re trying to do. I can tell you, our guys are hammering the state of Texas this week,” Sarkisian said.

“We don’t go out as early as maybe some other schools, because our spring ball goes a little later, so we have to be really efficient here over the next month to make sure that we’re getting the right stuff done.”

Despite so many offers out to 2027 prospects, there is also a new target at running back for new position coach Chad Scott — Fairburn (Ga.) Langston Hughes standout Carsyn Baker, a consensus four-star prospect and top-200 recruit, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings, who has already set up official visits to Clemson, Florida State, Ohio State, and Texas A&M for the summer.

So it’s already a mature recruitment for the 6’0.5, 195-pounder with a wind-aided personal-best of 10.65 in the 100 meters who profiles as an outside runner in the mold of Jaydon Blue with slightly less elite verified speed.

A visit by special teams coordinator Jeff Banks to Plano Prestonwood Christian to extend an offer to deep snapper Trott O’Neal produced a quick commitment last week from the nation’s No. 6 prospect at the position.

Players had an open gym meeting last week and finished their finals with the facilities remaining open for workouts, although Sarkisian also encourages players to take some time to visit their families and take, at the least, a mental break from football if not a total physical break from working out.

“We don’t get a lot of breaks — this is a year-round gig they’ve got going right now, so they’re going to take a little bit of time,” Sarkisian said. “They’ll all naturally start to migrate back, because I think if they get too far away, just like all of us, they want to get back and so they’ll all kind of be back at some point in May.”

In addition to maintaining some level of physical fitness to avoid starting summer conditioning behind where they ended the spring, Sarkisian wants his players to avoid making the type of bad decisions that early enrollee offensive tackle Nick Brooks made last week in getting arrested for DWI before sharing way too many details with the police about his bad decisions.

The behavioral outcome from Brooks’ otherwise successful integration into the program in the weight room and the practice field belies the overall narrative advanced by Sarkisian about the additions of 21 other early enrollees and five transfers.

Three more high school signees arrive in June along with the six spring transfer portal additions.

“When summer rolls around I’ve got a handful of high school kids and I’ve got a handful of transfers that maybe don’t know all the nuances of what we do, but really the bulk of our team now does. So we should be able to hit the ground running pretty good in June and July and be pretty aggressive with that,” Sarkisian said.

Sarkisian and his staff changed the structure of spring practice to better acclimate all the new players in addition to the new assistant coaches, providing the foundation that the Longhorns will build upon in the summer.

“What we’re able to do this winter and spring is really start to push some guys to a leadership role that maybe weren’t quite there yet and now we feel very comfortable about where they’re at. There’s a program that they can handle that this summer,” Sarkisian said.

Thanks to recent changes in NCAA legislation, the staff is allowed more time for on-field development work in addition to strength and conditioning during the crucial two months before the start of preseason camp.

“We really don’t officially start up until that first week of June after Memorial Day, and that’s when all the players will be there. We’ll start the summer workout program, which consists of a lot of lifting, a lot of running a couple days a week, that running will be four in the afternoon, intentionally, we’ll do a lot of skill development work in that time,” Sarkisian said.

The June returns for Texas players will start the three-month preparation for football season that includes camp before a campaign that coaches, players, and fans hope will extend for five months.

Culture Wednesdays still start again as the team-building aspect of mental conditioning prior to training camp starting earlier than normal because the season opener against Ohio State in Columbus is on Aug. 30.

“Once we get back in June, these guys have to get in the frame of mind that they’re not going to be done until the end of January. So it’s a long road and we’ve got to be cognizant of that — that’s why I think this month is important for them to try to take a little bit of a deep breath, still get their workouts in, and enjoy some family time before they get back,” Sarkisian said.