Because he is. For now. He's talking to kids, directly or indirectly, and trainers, when it comes to Texas targets for now. Perhaps others. But not Texas.
Correct. This is what Saban did to Javonne Shepherd and A&M, which obviously helped us. Saban's not the best recruiter in the sport just because he's charismatic, persistent, and backs it up on the field, but he frequently works to negative recruit his competition to their targets until NSD has come and gone, even prospects his school is not interested in taking. Assuming good coaching to be held by all competing teams, the difference will be the size of the talent gap, not the total talent quantification on either team. An excellent example of this that has been discussed frequently on the Football board is ND, who has good coaching and talent, and can never compete once it gets to the peak of the sport, because it's just not talented enough by comparison. Making sure your conference rivals never escape that purgatory is why Saban has held such a stranglehold on the SEC and the national championship trophy. It's a strategy that is used against Texas a lot by our regional competition, and one I hope we start to utilize in the near future.
(Was not meant to come off preachy to you Tex, apologies, just meant to expand/vent on something I've seen often that Texas didn't do enough of on past staffs).
We wanted him. It's a loss for Texas, but that is okay. He's a kid we'll keep contacting and maintain a strong relationship with throughout the cycle while we pursue the multiple other prospects left on the board. Most of our targets in the secondary are still on the market. There's no reason to spin it as anything other than a strikeout by us, and simultaneously no reason to worry right now. I'm not sure how the recruitment went down, but I agree with what @golfclap said to have been a big factor. I don't think he liked being penciled into Texas' 22 class for so long largely because his brother was there, undoubtedly with some negative recruiting having exaggerated that emotion. The same thing happened to Kelvontay Dixon, who would have signed with Arkansas had that religious zealot Morris not gotten shitcanned.