In February, the Texas Longhorns will be wrapping up their 2021 class after signing a total of 20 recruits in the early signing period. The class currently sits at No. 17 overall in the 247Sports composite team rankings.
Since 2000, 247Sports has been one of the top media outlets to keep you up to date with who’s in contact with what schools and where they are likely to be committing. Recently, Bill Bender of The Sporting News ranked the top recruiting classes each year since 2000. The Longhorns 2002 recruiting class was discussed among the best ever.
Since 2000, Texas has had the one No. 1 recruiting class once. They would climb as high as No. 2 in 2010 and 2012, behind only the Florida Gators and Alabama Crimson Tide. Following Mack Brown’s exit, Texas climbed as high as No. 3 twice under Tom Herman in 2018 and 2019.
Looking at the rankings for Bender, the Longhorns 2002 class was the second-best No. 1 recruiting class since 2000. That class landed them Vince Young, Rod Wright, Justin Blalock, Selvin Young and Aaron Ross.
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Texas’ historic class finished with a BCS National Championship in 2005 and an overall record of 45-6. The Longhorns would later have seven of those players drafted in the NFL.
Mack Brown brought in a haul in 2002 with Young as the centerpiece. Aaron Ross, David Thomas, Lyle Sendlein and Selvin Young were also among the pieces brought in for the class that would eventually win the national championship in 2005.
The only group ranked ahead of them was the 2017 class from Alabama that included Tua Tagovailoa, Jerry Jeudy, Mac Jones, DeVonta Smith, Najee Harris and Alex Leatherwood. Each would be named Consensus All-Americans. Not bad company to be compared to.
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