National Signing Day 2014: Grades and Analysis for Texas
By Mike Dyce
There were a lot of question marks ahead of national signing day. They’re coming of a tumultuous season that started horribly and ended with them competing for the Big 12 Championship. Head coach Mack Brown resigned and Louisville head coach Charlie Strong was hired as a replacement.
There were reports that Brown was telling recruits to look around before resigning, which he denied. Nevertheless, Strong was able to pull in a top-20 recruiting class with six four-star prospects and 15 three-star recruits.
“It’s been a very intense couple of weeks and what we were able to do, as a staff was we wanted to keep this class together and it was an outstanding class,” Strong said, via quotes on the team’s website. “And then we were able to add a few players ourselves by our guys going out, but it was key for our coaching staff to get within the state and develop a relationship, not only with the new recruits that we were signing, but also with the high school coaches here.”
The biggest signing might have been defensive tackle Poona Ford.
“Poona Ford, I know everybody heard his commitment. He was able to go up to Charlotte to get on ESPN to make that big commitment. And the thing about Poona as a DT, big guy with some size there. You’re always looking for size.”
| Team | Rivals | 247 Sports | ESPN | Scout |
| Texas Longhorns | 20 | 17 | 16 | 16 |
GRADE: B +
Here is the class, from Rivals:
| Signed Letter of Intent | ||||
| Name | Pos | Ht/Wt | Stars | Rank |
| Alex Anderson | OL | 6-5/305 |   | NR |
| Andrew Beck | LB | 6-3/230 | | 23 |
| Roderick Bernard | WR | 5-10/175 | | 80 |
| John Bonney | DB | 6-1/183 | | 30 |
| Donald Catalon | RB | 6-0/200 | | 19 |
| Terrell Cuney | OL | 6-3/260 | | 13 |
| Poona Ford | DT | 6-1/288 | | 24 |
| Armanti Foreman | WR | 6-0/174 | | 26 |
| D’Onta Foreman | ATH | 6-0/198 | | NR |
| Edwin Freeman | DB | 6-1/215 | | 12 |
| Garrett Gray | WR | 6-5/205 | | NR |
| Jason Hall | DB | 6-2/190 | | 49 |
| Cameron Hampton | LB | 6-0/201 | | 30 |
| Jerrod Heard | QB | 6-1/193 | | 4 |
| Lorenzo Joe | WR | 6-2/192 | | 23 |
| Dorian Leonard | WR | 6-4/200 | | 58 |
| Jake McMillon | DE | 6-3/240 | | NR |
| Chris Nelson | DT | 6-3/280 | | NR |
| Derick Roberson | DE | 6-3/225 | | 6 |
| Jermaine Roberts | DB | 5-9/170 | | 27 |
| Elijah Rodriguez | OL | 6-6/280 | | NR |
| Kevin Shorter | RB | 6-0/188 | | 18 |
| Blake Whiteley | TE | 6-5/240 | | NR |