33 new players? Unpacking Steve Sarkisian's roster-building comments

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian’s response to a question on Monday concerning recruiting and roster-building may have raised a few eyebrows, but a closer look reveals his comments aren’t as outlandish as they may have originally sounded.

“I could easily see us with 33 new scholarship players on our team by next fall,” Sarkisian said. “Which, when you look at the number of 85 total, 33 will be new players next fall, more than a third of our roster will be new. That’s the nature of the business we’re in.”

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Thirty-three out of 85 is just under 40 percent, a significant chunk of any roster. It sounds like a complete overhaul. It’s not a complete overhaul, but it is an overhaul nonetheless.

Luckily for Sarkisian, he already has a good sense of where most of those 33 will come from.

22 of the hypothetical 33 are accounted for

A head coach’s first full recruiting class is a crucial piece to any program. It’s the first set of players that are recruited to fit roles specific to the new offensive and defensive schemes.

Almost two-thirds of Sarkisian’s hypothetical 33 already plan on being at Texas next year. Sarkisian’s 2022 class, currently the No. 9 class in the On3 consensus rankings, boasts 22 members including two top 100 prospects like Spearman wide receiver Brenen Thompson and Tyler Legacy running back Jamarion Miller.

Some positions, like running back with Miller and Klein Cain’s Jaydon Blue, are taken care of for the 2022 cycle. Other spots, like wide receiver, should see more players join Thompson and Lewisville’s Armani Winfield in the class.

Of course, in addition to looking for more commitments, Sarkisian and his staff will have to ensure they get the committed prospects to signing day in light of a five-game losing streak.

But high school recruiting is an area Sarkisian knows he needs to be the foundation of his roster. With conventional post-Year 1 attrition likely on the way, Sarkisian knows the players in this class must be developed — and quickly — for the future of the program.

“We’re rapidly trying to increase this roster to get it back to where we want,” Sarkisian said. “We’re trying to develop our players so that in time we become that veteran team. Unfortunately, right now, we’re just not that.”

How to make a veteran team?

When previous head coach Tom Herman signed the classes of 2018 and 2019, both were heralded as top five classes.

But the production from those classes has barely approached a top 15 level, let alone top five. Though a lack of development (the same lack of development that led Sarkisian to Texas in the first place) is partially to blame, so too is attrition.

“When I assessed this job coming in, I noticed there was probably more attrition here than there were normally,” Sarkisian said. “I saw what it would look like. Obviously, we’re kind of feeling the effects of that. I think from the 2018 and 2019 recruiting classes, I think 50 percent of those players are no longer with our program for whatever reasons.”

The class of 2018, either seniors or redshirt juniors, currently have the following players as starters or regular contributors:

• S BJ Foster
• LB DeMarvion Overshown
• DT Keondre Coburn
• DB Anthony Cook
• CB D’Shawn Jamison
• OG Junior Angilau
• QB Casey Thompson
• DL Moro Ojomo
• OT Christian Jones
• K Cameron Dicker

That’s 10 players out of the 27-man class. Of course, some members of the 2018 class like Caden Sterns and Joseph Ossai made it to the NFL, and walk-on Luke Brockermeyer has cracked the starting lineup. But for one reason or another, 15 players from that top five class aren’t much of a factor for the 2021 Longhorns.

Things don’t get much better when looking at the 2019 class. The contributors among Texas’ juniors and redshirt sophomores are:

• WR Jordan Whittington (oft-injured)
• RB Roschon Johnson
• LB David Gbenda
• WR Marcus Washington
• DE Jacoby Jones (injured)
• S Chris Adimora
• DT T’Vondre Sweat
• TE Jared Wiley

Eight members of Texas’ 25 man class are regular contributors three years out from their signing, plus walk-on Jett Bush.

“They transferred, medically disqualified, NFL, those guys aren’t here,” Sarkisian said. “Those would be our juniors and seniors on our roster.”

As Sarkisian mentioned, the preference for any program is to create a developmental pipeline within the roster so that juniors and seniors are replaced by juniors and seniors, with up-punching sophomores and talented freshmen sprinkled in.

Attrition at the level Texas has seen over the past few seasons makes that difficult. A panacea doesn’t exist, but the closest thing to it is the transfer portal.

“Clearly, we have to find the right balance into how much we interact in the portal as opposed to how much we dive into recruiting really good young players out of high school,” Sarkisian said. “And then developing them over time so that you have sustainability on your roster.”

Texas has experience reaching into the portal under Sarkisian. Most of the current contributing edge defenders on the roster — Ray Thornton, Ben Davis, Ovie Oghoufo — were added via the transfer portal.

Any level of attrition may have a small underlying benefit. In October, the NCAA allowed for a “one-year waiver of the annual signing limit and initial scholarship limits in football to allow schools to replace up to seven scholarship student-athletes who leave school after the first term. (The NCAA defines the end of the first term with students who depart on or after the earlier of the last day of the school’s fall term or Dec. 15, 2021, which is the first day of the early National Letter of Intent signing period).

Also, any help from the portal from first-time transfers will have the opportunity to play immediately after the NCAA approved one-time transfer legislation in April.

Avenues exist for Sarkisian to sprinkle veterans on the roster in addition to his 25+ man recruiting class. But the portal doesn’t simply have ready-to-play-at-a-P5-level players in its database. Those players first have to enter the portal, then Texas has to win those second (or third… or fourth) recruitments.

High school recruiting is the preferred roster building method for the majority of Division I coaches. Sarkisian implied it was his preferred method, too.

But the deficiencies on Texas’ roster have been laid bare for the entire college football world to see over the past five weeks. Not all of those remedies are finishing their senior year of high school.

If they exist, Sarkisian will likely vie for them. He showed a propensity for doing so within his first month on campus.