[Sign up for Inside Texas for $1 and get THREE MONTHS of Premium Access!]<\/a><\/p>\nHarris is a former CFB quarterback who took over as Texas\u2019 director of recruiting in 2021, before taking over the general manager role in February of 2024.<\/p>\n
Under his tutelage with head coach Steve Sarkisian, Texas has brought in a No. 1 overall class, as well as three more in the top six of On3\u2019s industry rankings. The Longhorns have also brought in nationally regarded transfer portal classes in 2024, when the Longhorns went to the CFP Semifinals in his first year as general manager, and in 2026, as he gears the program up fo a chance to compete for the national title.<\/p>\n
Wojnarowski, now a GM himself at St. Bonaventure\u2019s men\u2019s basketball team, asked Harris about the ever-changing nature of college football roster building and how the Longhorns have evolved over time.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing that we are fortunate enough to have at the University of Texas is alignment,\u201d Harris said. \u201cOur head coach spent several years in the NFL and spent a lot of time around their capologists, learning about what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris noted that he\u2019s visited NFL teams like the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers to gain insight into how they operate their cap sheets. <\/p>\n
But a big difference for Harris and the college game is the nature of the roster-building process itself. The NFL and other pro leagues have free agency start before the draft. Retention is the first thing that occurs in those sports, as well as their version of the transfer portal, where teams can shop for players to fit their systems.<\/p>\n
Harris joked that in his own line, it\u2019s far more important that he keeps a talent like Arch Manning in the door than it is to add another high school recruit who taxes the team\u2019s resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt puts everything in perspective. Our process is very simple here. There\u2019s a constant communication with our assistant coaches about where we are from a roster perspective. The front thing on our minds is retaining our players,\u201d Harris said. \u201cOur cornerstone pieces are really important to us. After a while of doing this, you\u2019ve been stacking classes. Ultimately, if they walk out the door, that\u2019s a wasted investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to be a program that\u2019s made up at around 90-95% at the high school ranks,\u201d Harris said. \u201cWhat\u2019s very difficult for us is when you tap into that market in high school and they\u2019re asking for more money than what you pay All-American players that have played in the SEC.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris noted that the business has an \u2018adapt or die\u2019 nature to it, and a way he\u2019s learned to adapt is through education.<\/p>\n
\u201cEducating the parents, educating the agents, while also educating our coaches,\u201d Harris said. \u201cWe have a consensus in our program that we want to invest into people who love football, not what comes with the monetary things. We want to invest into really really smart kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris noted that that doesn\u2019t need to be school smarts, but they have to be tough football players who understand the game.<\/p>\n
He later used Trevor Goosby as an example of this mindset, a former three-star OT who is now projected to be a top-10 pick in the 2027 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a three-star player coming out of high school that everyone in America didn\u2019t want. I think he was committed to another school up the road and we really liked him because he had the measurables, and he\u2019s a fantastic kid,\u201d Harris said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of case studies in our building where they don\u2019t have to be \u2018five star this and that\u2019, if they have the measureables and the nuances we believe in, let\u2019s go and invest in those guys, get them with our staff which I think is incredible with developing, and let\u2019s see how much we can pour into those guys and get the most out of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
It echoes some of the sentiments we\u2019ve seen in recent recruiting ventures for the Longhorns. The 2026 class did not feature the same depth of elite talent as the 2025 class, but they made multiple low-notoriety additions that were based on measureable data and bets on character and effort. That\u2019s also carried over to the 2027 class, where the baseline of the class at positions like the OL have already been filled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a newly released episode of his podcast \u2018The Program\u2019, former NBA reporter and insider Adrian Wojnarowski sat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,4504,99],"class_list":["post-653154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-regwall","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}