Texas has been an interesting recruiting area the past few years. Quite a few of top prospects have been leaving the state for a while, but it reached a peak in the 2017 class.
Not only did the top prospect in Texas, defensive tackle Marvin Wilson, go out of state when he signed with Florida State, but also nine of the top 10 recruits in Texas went out of state in 2017.
Jeffrey Okudah, Baron Browning and J.K. Dobbins, the Nos. 2, 5 and 9 prospects in the state, all went to Ohio State, while LSU signed the Nos. 3, 4 and 7 prospects, Austin Deculus, Kary Vincent Jr. and K'Lavon Chaisson.
The only top-10 recruit to stay in-state was wide receiver Jalen Reagor, who signed with TCU.
Those numbers quickly changed in 2018, when Texas coach Tom Herman and his staff made a big push to keep top talent inside state lines. Herman and his staff signed 14 of the 40 2018 ESPN 300 prospects from the state, including five of the top six.
B.J. Foster was the top in-state recruit in that class and was the first No. 1 recruit from Texas to sign with the Longhorns since offensive lineman Darius James in the 2013 class.
In the 2019 class, we have already seen 32 of the 38 ESPN 300 prospects in Texas announce their commitments, and 19 of those have chosen in-state schools.
The highest-ranked uncommitted prospect is only recently back on the market. Wide receiver Arjei Henderson was committed to Oklahoma, but he decommitted from the Sooners in November. That was Henderson's second decommitment from Oklahoma and his third decommitment overall, as he was also committed to Oregon at one point.