The Inside Texas Player Draft, Pick No. 21: Justin Tucker

The Inside Texas Player Draft, where both the Inside Texas community and the Inside Texas staff vote on their picks, continues with the 21st pick in the draft. The IT community chose junior kicker Justin Tucker while the IT staff went with redshirt freshman running back Chris Whaley.
Voting for pick No. 22 is open. Click to vote and to join the conversation: Inside Texas Longhorn Football Draft: Pick 22 (vote now)

Staff Pick: Chris Whaley, RS Fr., RB

Lots of names were thrown out during the discussion for pick 21, including Kenny Vaccaro, Cody Johnson, Chris Whaley, Tray Allen, John Gold, Chykie Brown, Greg Smith, Justin Tucker, DeSean Hales, Dustin Earnest and Mason Walters. Clendon brought the kickers into the discussion, saying that he thought Gold would be the best punter Texas has had over the last several years, and even given that, Tucker may be more important to the success of the team. But Jeff pointed out that given the importance that the staff puts on kickoffs, the staff would have to pick from among three potentially equally important kickers (Tucker, Gold and Will Russ). That led the conversation back to two position players, Chykie Brown and Chris Whaley. Bill and Jeff both voted for Whaley over Brown.“With Chykie Brown, we know what he’s done,” Clendon said. “With Chris Whaley, he has the potential to be this year’s Cody Johnson and get 12 touchdowns.” Having said that, Clendon still wasn’t convinced that Whaley was the pick over Brown.But Ross convinced him with this, making the pick unanimous: “Chris Whaley is the only player left on this board who could be potentially the most important player to this year’s Texas football team. Now the chances of that happening are fairly low but there is a zero percent chance that any of the other players left become the most important player to this football team.”


Community Pick: Justin Tucker, Jr., K

Justin Tucker – 30.26%

John Chiles – 23.68%

Cody Johnson – 10.53%

James Kirkendoll – 9.21%Dustin Earnest – 9.21%

Chris Whaley – 9.21%

Kenny Vaccaro – 7.89%



Sample of reader quotes from the Pick No. 21 discussion:

Voted for Justin Tucker

“I had to go with Tucker. Special Teams and Defense wins championships.”

– fogar

“This has to be the point to take Tucker. Whether or not he gets the job done will likely determine the outcome of a game or two and that should be worth a pick in the top 21.”

– UTGrad91

Voted for John Chiles

“Chiles, baby…the bro will be motivated this season, big time…he is way underrated on this poll…”

– PlanoLonghorn

“After considerable thought, I decided to vote for John Chiles because of all the very positive things I’ve heard about him from the coaching staff during and after spring training. He’ll be a senior, and I believe he’ll make a very positive impact because that’s the only way he’ll be considered by any NFL team. He has the talent, and I believe John will make full use of it during the 2010 season.”

– TexasForever

Click here to see the full conversation about pick No. 21.



For more details on the draft process, see Announcing the Inside Texas Longhorn Football DraftPlayers taken so far:

By IT Staff1. Garrett Gilbert2. Sam Acho3. Aaron Williams4. Marquise Goodwin5. Kyle Hix6. Keenan Robinson7. Christian Scott8. Kheeston Randall9. Barrett Matthews10. David Snow 11. Emmanuel Acho 12. Curtis Brown13. Michael Huey14. Blake Gideon15. Eddie Jones

16. Tre Newton17. Malcolm Williams18. Alex Okafor19. James Kirkendoll20. D.J. Monroe21. Chris Whaley

By IT community1. Garrett Gilbert2. Aaron Williams3. Sam Acho4. Marquise Goodwin5. Kheeston Randall6. Kyle Hix7. Keenan Robinson8. Curtis Brown9. Tre Newton10. Christian Scott 11. Emmanuel Acho 12. Malcolm Williams13. David Snow14. Barrett Matthews 15. Blake Gideon16. Eddie Jones17. Michael Huey18. Alex Okafor19. D.J. Monroe20. Chykie Brown21. Justin Tucker