ND got players on occasion out of Texas in the early years but not with frequency. Robin Weber, Wally Kleine,Justin Hall, Bert Berry, and Mike Haywood, Consensus All-Americans Dave Huffman (70's), Tim Brown (80's), and Bobby Taylor (90's). The doors opened wide when Bob Davie joined Holtz staff in '94 with guys like Jimmy Friday, Allen Rossum and Hunter Smith. Vontez Duff, Bobby Morton, Travis Leitko, Jerome Sapp, Carlyle Holiday, Derek Curry, Garron Bible, Bid Ced Hilliard, Omar Jenkins, and Jordan Black were Davie recruits that formed the backbone of Willingham's 8-0 start.
Their re-emergence has had something to do with that. But Mack Brown's recruiting has even more to do with it coupled with the abyssmal recruiting of Willingham. Texas has always been a place where relationships with the high school coaches is important. Holtz brought Davie in not only for his defensive reputation but his connections to the Texas high school coaches. Fred Akers maintained the 9-3 average of his predecessor Darryl Royal but David McWilliams and John Mackovic were more 6-5, 7-4 coaches. Mackovic wasn't a UT guy. He was from the midwest and most of his coaching experience was in the midwest. He lacked the ties to the Texas high school coaches and other coaches plundered Texas.
Mack Brown had a reputation for recruiting at UNC and worked to rebuild the relationships with the HS coaches. In time it paid off and he closed Texas off to almost everyone but Stoops.
I heard Mack Brown being interviewed on a recruiting show the past week he note how recruiting has changed with early commitments. But he mentioned that UTx has known the in-state kids they sign for more than 2 years. They known their coaches a lot longer. Brown's been in Austin for 13 years, his assistants average 7 years. Will Muschamp has only been at UTx since '08 and I think the big reason he was named as future head coach/head coach in waiting was to help build the connections to those HS pipeline coaches. The connections that Mackovic didn't have and never developed.
As for ND Weis hired Mike Haywood recognizing the abundance of Texas recruits. Despite Haywood years as a UTx assistant, it did not work out as hoped.
