ASU hoping to open eyes of Texas

Arizona State wide receiver Mike Jones isn’t shy about his admiration for the University of Texas. He is from Sugar Land, Texas, and the Longhorns and Florida State were his two favorite teams growing up.

Read Blogging with the Devils

When it came time for him to choose a college, though, the love wasn’t reciprocated.

Texas never offered, and Jones settled for a different path, one which eventually led him to Tempe.

“Texas was a school I always wanted to go to,” Jones said. “Then I saw I wasn’t getting recruited by the schools I really wanted to go to, like Texas, and I knew I had to try something new.”

Arizona State coach Dennis Erickson isn’t fooling himself. He knows many Texas high school football players are like Jones, dreaming of donning that burnt orange jersey.

“The University of Texas — in the state of Texas, every kid wants to go there,” Erickson said. “They’ve got their choice to whoever they want. They take whoever they want and the rest go other places.”

It’s the rest, though, that intrigue the Sun Devils. While the Vince Youngs of the world may never venture across state lines, the under-the-radar recruits can often play major roles.

Jones wasn’t recruited by the major schools he wanted to attend, but has turned into a solid Pac-10 wide receiver. He is second on the team with 38 catches for 662 yards and leads the team in yards per catch (17.4) and receiving touchdowns (eight).

ASU’s Dimitri Nance, out of Euless, Texas, has 452 rushing yards this season and a team-high seven rushing touchdowns. Julius Orieukwu (from Houston) is a starting tackle.

“Guys that come here (from Texas) aren’t necessarily the blue-chip guys but are probably the hungriest people,” Jones said. “They want to show the world that they’re good, that they deserve to be recruited by those big schools.”

Facing off with Texas in the Holiday Bowl gives the Sun Devils free publicity in a state the new coaching staff is still feeling out.

Defensive coordinator Craig Bray is currently the sole recruiter there, but recruiting coordinator Matt Lubick said adding another coach to the area is a possibility.

There are obstacles, of course.

Big 12 Conference roots are hard to break, and many players have no intention of leaving the state.

“Texas is almost its own country,” Jones said.

But beating the Longhorns on Thursday would be a rather succinct recruiting pitch.

“If we just have a good program, people are going to come regardless, wherever it’s at,” Nance said. “As long as your program’s in the top 10 every year, then that’s the door that’s going to open the eyes for a lot of the recruits.”

To that end, it couldn’t be working out much better for the Sun Devils. An eight-game winning streak to start the season started the buzz, and nationally televised games with raised stakes since have been the norm.

The addition of an indoor practice facility — similar to the one Texas already has — will also be a boost.

“No question, the response has been great,” Lubick said. “We think we’ve got a great product to sell, not just the fact that we’re a successful program, but it’s a great college town in a great state, we’ve got great weather, great facilities, we’ve got an administration that gives us every tool that we need.

“What else can you ask for? It’s about evaluating the right guys and bringing the right guys in, because guys want to come here.”

The main recruiting base for the Sun Devils will always be Arizona and Southern California. Short drives or plane rides will always reign supreme in the perpetual time crunch that is college football.

But Texas is growing on the coaching staff. Erickson said the two-hour plane ride isn’t so bad, and Lubick loves the deep talent pool.

“The thing about Texas, and this is one thing that Dennis has had a lot of success with in the past, is there’s so many players out there,” Lubick said. “We’re not concerned about the guys we lose to Texas, we just want to make sure the guys we do get are good players.

“There are enough players out there that if you do your homework and you do your evaluation, there are guys that go under the radar, guys that don’t go to Texas every year that go to the NFL.

“Same thing in Florida. The key is getting the right ones and doing your homework and being thorough in your evaluations.”