The Easton Royal recruiting watch rolls on, and Texas fans are getting another round of dates to circle.
The five-star wide receiver, who committed to the Longhorns more than 10 months ago, has now lined up four more game-day visits, according to Rivals’ Sam Spiegelman and Steve Wiltfong. That keeps the Texas hold on Royal in the spotlight for at least another month, after a stretch that has already featured repeated trips to other schools and plenty of praise for those programs and coaches.
Here are the latest stops on Royal’s schedule:
Florida Gators - Oct. 10, vs. South Carolina
Texas Longhorns - Oct. 17, vs. Florida
LSU Tigers - Nov. 7, vs. Alabama
LSU Tigers - Nov. 14, vs. Texas
Royal has now set himself up to see three schools in game-day settings, with two visits apiece for Texas, Florida and LSU. He’ll be in Gainesville for Florida’s matchup with South Carolina, then in Austin when the Gators come to town. After that, he heads to Baton Rouge for two LSU games, including the Tigers’ Nov. 14 showdown with Texas.
That means Texas gets two shots here, at least in theory, to lock things down. One of those comes on the road at LSU, where the Longhorns will walk into Death Valley for a setting that can swallow up visiting teams fast.
For plenty of fans, the frustration is obvious. Royal committed to Texas, yet the visits keep stacking up.
But the Longhorns haven’t acted like a staff ready to move on. Last week, during Texas’s bye, head coach Steve Sarkisian and wide receivers coach Chris Jackson traveled to Louisiana to see him.
So until Royal makes a move or the next recruiting update drops, this story is probably not going away anytime soon.
In Other News...
Texas Faces A New SEC Reality As Remaining Schedule Shifts
Texas is heading into the stretch run with a clearer picture of just how different the SEC can look from week to week. The latest look around the league turns to Oklahoma, Florida, Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Missouri, all of which sit somewhere on the Longhorns remaining path. Recent results, shifting rankings and a few injury questions have changed the tone of those matchups, making the back half of the schedule feel less like a static gauntlet and more like a moving target.
For a No. 1 Texas team, that matters because the margin for error in November can shrink fast when opponents are trending in different directions. Some of these teams are coming off uneven performances, others are dealing with personnel concerns, and coaching comments suggest there is still plenty of uncertainty left to sort out before kickoff. The Longhorns cant control any of it, of course, but the evolving shape of the schedule adds another layer of intrigue to a race that already has plenty on the line. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Special Teams Carry One Big Concern Into Oklahoma
Special teams have quietly become one of the early-season stress points for Texas, and the issue is hard to ignore with the Red River Rivalry next on the schedule. Through the first four games, the Longhorns have not been as sharp in the kicking game as they need to be, and that area matters even more in a matchup like Oklahoma, where field position and hidden yardage can swing the tone of the day.
Steve Sarkisian has already pointed to the need for more depth on special teams, especially to keep defensive starters from doing too much work there. Texas also carries a reminder of how quickly things can turn against it, after the Tennessee game featured a long punt return touchdown and a late onside-kick recovery, the kind of sequence that can change a close game and one the Longhorns cannot afford to repeat in Dallas. [Read more 🡒]
Missouris Offense Is Suddenly Passing An Early SEC Stress Test
Texas has spent the early part of the season looking exactly like a team built to survive the SEC grind, and the numbers underline it. The Longhorns have forced enough disruption to make life miserable for opposing offenses, while the overall defensive performance has kept games on Texas terms even when the scoring has not always flowed freely the other way. In a conference where every possession can feel like a referendum, that kind of steadiness matters.
The encouraging part for Texas is that the defensive edge has not come at the expense of momentum elsewhere around the league picture. Missouri has already flashed offensive growth under its new coordinator, which only sharpens the contrast between teams still searching for answers and those that seem to be finding them early. For the Longhorns, the next layer is whether that same defensive control can keep holding up when the schedule stiffens and opponents start treating every snap like a stress test. [Read more 🡒]