Terrance Knighton discusses the value of recruiting in the state of Texas

Nebraska‘s coaching staff made a trip to the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Texas where they hosted a satellite camp for the Lone Star State’s high school prospects. The recruiting space is filled with discourse about commitments and unofficial visits of the nation’s top prospects, but Nebraska defensive line coach Terrance Knighton spoke about the importance of being in person to evaluate talent.

“I think the great thing for us is we get a lot of eval,” Knighton said. “I think our coaches do a good job of finding talent, there’s some guys who slip through the cracks recruiting-wise. It’s a lot going on, it’s a lot of kids on Twitter and it gives us a chance to come out, show face, but also get our eye on a lot of guys who are going under the radar. And sometimes guys are late bloomers and pop up, so with this ’24 class, there’ll be a lot of guys that have a great senior year and it’s good that we get a live eval on them.”

And if you’re going to any state to evaluate high school football talent, it’s tougher to find many better destinations than the state of Texas.

“Well if you love football you love Texas, so I’ve always admired Texas,” Knighton said. “How they do things at the high school level and how those kids always come to college prepared because of the community and just the lifestyle of being in Texas and how much football means to the people here. So if you love football you love Texas, that’s an easy fit for us.”

Texas is known year after year for producing talented football players, and this is no secret to Matt Rhule and his coaching staff in their first season steering the ship. The Cornhuskers flew over Kansas and Oklahoma to grab seven signees in their 2023 signing class from the state of Texas, and three of their seven current 2024 commitments hail from the Lone Star State as well.

“That’s it. Football is life, football is life man, and recruiting and having the athletic period practicing and doing extra lift, those guys workout three to four times a day. A lot of guys don’t work out until they get to college, and where I’m from guys transition to basketball and do other things, but guys here they play football all year round,” Knighton explained. “So those guys tend to come in ready like I said before, and those are the guys that impact teams. And you look at any successful program around the country they have Texas guys, and you look back in history and Nebraska football’s always had Texas guys, so we’re going to make sure that Texas is home for us as far as recruiting.”

The track record of Texas’ talent is hard to deny, and it sounds like from Knighton that their high school football players are literally built different. Nebraska currently has the No. 25 ranked recruiting class in the country and No. 7 in the Big Ten for 2024 according to On3’s Industry Team Recruiting Rankings, and it will be interesting to see how much they lean on the state of Texas to bolster that class moving forward.