Texas Longhorns are Latest to Ban Commits From Visiting Other Schools
By Josh Sanchez
The Texas Longhorns have become the latest BCS program to install a “no-visit” plan to high school recruits that have committed to the university. The Longhorns join Georgia Tech, Michigan and Oregon as the programs to come public with the policy.
Texas and the others do not shy away from telling recruits up front that once they commit, they are not allowed to go on visits with other programs. If the players choose to do so, then the university will also continue to look around for players and will not stay committed to recruiting the athlete.
“The thing that we will do is we have allowed the kids to commit and still look around the last couple of years — we’re not doing that anymore,” Longhorns head coach Mack Brown said. “If you are committed to us, be committed. If you’re going to go look, we’re going to go look.”
The policy may be used in hopes that the teams can secure top recruiting classes early in the process, but some high schoolers are viewing the policy as a negative.
“I feel like, regardless, if you are committed or not, you should be allowed to take visits and official visits to other colleges because, what happens your freshman and sophomore year if you are at a university and you didn’t take those visits?” Fort Worth offensive tackle Demetrius Knox said. “You might have second thoughts or whatever. If you went on those visits you get to decide what school is best for you so you can never have second thoughts.”
On the surface, the policy makes sense, but if more and more recruits have the reaction that Knox has it would be wise for the schools to give up their strict stance on commitments. Afterall, these are high school kids we are talking about. They are free to change their minds.