It isn't often that the hiring of a new coach in one sport leads a key recruit in another sport to join a school, but Jonah Williams isn't any normal prospect, either.
Projected as the top linebacker in the Class of 2025 by 247Sports, Williams is considered a future star at safety or linebacker. He's also widely accepted to be one of the top-10 overall prospects in the Class of 2025. Yet Williams is also much more than that: an elite baseball player with legitimate MLB prospects, a Texas native starring in multiple sports for Galveston (Texas) Ball, and, now, an attendee at Texas' annual July BBQ/pool bash this coming weekend.
That Williams is even attending the event is major news; he didn't initially list Texas as one of the schools he is seriously considering, and most assumed he was already lost to the likes of Oregon, Texas A&M or another SEC power.
But that was before Texas hired Jim Schlossnagle away from Texas A&M to lead the Longhorns baseball program. That move, combined with persistent recruiting from Texas assistant football coach Blake Gideon, may be changing the dynamic around Williams' future.
Per On Texas Football's CJ Vogel, the attention blitz from Gideon and Schlossnagle may be paying dividends.
"To get him back on campus, that's very significant," Vogel said in a recent video interview about Texas' top recruiting targets. "The conversation around Jonah Williams is that he could be a top-five round pick in the MLB Draft next year. ... The talent matches up with what you see at that level. Right now, I do think things are trending in the positive direction, and Jim Schlossnagle is a big part of this."
That's a lot of coded language, but when you read between the lines, it's clear that Texas having a clear shot at bringing Williams to Austin relies in no small part on the school's ability to lure Schlossnagle from one of their other primary competitors for Williams.
