Tom Herman blames himself for prevalence of Texas out-of-state recruiting

Schools not based in Texas never used to have a chance to poach the state’s top football recruits, but that has changed in recent years — and Texas coach Tom Herman thinks he had something to do with it.

Herman blamed himself for the state of Texas opening itself up to national recruiting, as he extensively recruited the state while working as an assistant under Urban Meyer at Ohio State.

“I think the doors to out-of-state recruiting have been opened a little bit, and I kick myself every day, because at Ohio State, I think we had a little bit of something to do with that,” Herman said at Big 12 Media Day, via Chris Vannini of CoachingSearch.com. “When I came down here and signed J.T. Barrett and Dontre Wilson and Demetrius Knox and Mike Mitchell, I think that was a little bit different than what had been done in the past here in the state of Texas.”

Herman also blames technology for the shift.

“It has to do with (phones),” Herman said. “Twenty years ago, before these things existed, when would a kid from Houston be exposed to Ohio State football? One time on national TV? When they played Michigan? That’s it. Now, they’re scrolling through their feed and seeing videos, graphics, all this stuff, and they’re being immersed in this program that is 2,000 miles away, all from the palm of their hand. That has done more for de-regionalizing recruiting than any team going to any conference. You can bring your program to the recruit now.”

Herman has had to be brutally honest about Texas’s recruiting prowess these days. It’s interesting to see that he thinks it’s partially his fault.