While Texas may have defeated Texas A&M in the last foreseeable Lone Star Showdown, the rivalry is still far from over on the recruiting trail.
Connor Lanfear, an offensive tackle from Hays High School in Buda, withdrew his verbal commitment from the Longhorns and pledged with the Aggies on Friday. The 6-foot-6-inch, 270-pound lineman had committed to Texas back in June with Mack Brown’s staff.
“I’m taking my talents to Texas A&M! Excited to join the family and can’t wait to be an Aggie!” Lanfear tweeted Friday.
Just three minutes prior to Lanfear’s tweet, Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin tweeted his signature “#YESSIR!”.
Lanfear puts A&M on an early track for a top recruiting group for the class of 2015. He is the seventh Aggie commit for 2015 and viewed as a three- or four-star top offensive guard prospect. Lanfear also received offers from Baylor, Florida State, Miami and Oklahoma.
Lanfear was in attendance at Texas’ first Junior Day of the year Feb. 22, where he spoke with the new Longhorns coaching staff extensively that day.
“I just want to make it clear that Texas did still want me bad,” Lanfear told Gigem 247. “At the junior day, I went into Coach Strong’s office with Coach Wickline and talked with them for a good 30 minutes. They understood with a new coaching staff that I wanted to look around.”
The loss of Lanfear leaves the 2015 Longhorn class with two offensive linemen — four-star commit Patrick Vahe from Trinity High School in Euless and three-star commit Ronnie Major from Huntsville High School in Huntsville. Both committed during the first Texas Junior Day of 2014 and are part of six commits for 2015.
Over the weekend, Texas hosted its second Junior Day to extend offers mainly to members of the 2016 class, who are currently sophomores in high school, which coincided with the University’s open house event of Explore UT. No offers extended from this weekend’s Junior Day produced any commitments.
Kirk and Collin Johnson, brothers who play football at San Jose Valley Christian High School in San Jose, Calif., received offers from Texas. Both brothers are sons to former Longhorn two-time consensus All-American and NFL defensive back Johnnie Johnson.
Defensive tackle Kendell Jones out of Killeen is another 2016 recruit who received an offer from the Longhorns. Baylor, Houston and Oklahoma have also showed interest in Jones, but Texas is his first offer.
It appeared that five-star recruit wide receiver DaMarkus Lodge, from Cedar Hill High School in Cedar Hill and four-star recruit defensive end James Lockhart from Ennis High School in Ennis were invited to attend the Junior Day but did not make it to the 40 Acres.
The Longhorns currently have no verbal commitments in the 2016 class, as recruitment has just started.
Spring conditioning drills are already underway for the Longhorns as they prepare for the Orange-White Spring game on April 19.
