40 Acres Sports

Defensive tackle Derek Johnson is a big dude. Can he play as good as he looks? (Image: MBTF)

After nearly two whole months without Texas football, Friday was finally the first day of Spring practice. No tidbits yet (practices are closed to the public) but the official site does have a short video to watch and a nice photo gallery as well.

College coaches are not allowed by NCAA rules to talk about potential recruits or commits until National Signing Day. With signatures from all 20 commits this morning, Texas head coach [tag]Mack Brown[/tag] finally has a chance to talk about each of the future Longhorns and breaks down each one on film. Mack sits down in front of reporters and talks to reporters for nearly 30 minutes and it is definitely worth your time to sit down and watch.

Watch Mack talking about the class and discussing each of the recruits below:

Many thanks to Statesman.com for again providing embeddable video of Mack’s press conferences.

Garrett Gilbert and Paden Kelley sign their Letters of Intent (Image: Statesman.com)

Wednesday is [tag]National Signing Day[/tag] and we’ll have frequent updates throughout the day on the 40 Acres. This is the first day high school senior recruits can sign a binding letter of intent to play college football. The Longhorns have 20 commits in the 2009 class with 8 already on campus and 12 expected to send in their LOI tomorrow. We’ll have updates when those letters come in as well as the important news on the two remaining targets, linebacker Jarvis Jones and corner Dre Kirkpatrick.

Follow @40AcresSports on Twitter (after the jump) and keep track of other #signingday news as well.

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Defensive tackle [tag]Derek Johnson[/tag] from Hoxie, Arkansas committed to the Longhorns Wednesday according to Orangebloods.com. Johnson, originally from El Paso, is reportedly one of the top five players in Arkansas for the class of 2009.

The 6-foot-3, 290 pound Johnson is the second defensive tackle in this class, joining Calvin Howell out of San Antonio who committed in mid-May. Hopefully 5-star stud Jamarkus McFarland will come and join an incredible defensive line group.

The recruitment of three defensive tackles in this one class certainly lends creedence to the rumors that defensive tackles [tag]Tyrell Higgins[/tag] and [tag]Brian Ellis[/tag] may not be back on the team in the fall. If they’re gone then the big need at the position quickly became a huge one.

Check out the YouTube video of Johnson courtesy of Orangebloods message boards below (warning: the audio is obnoxious and very NSFW):

Welcome to the Forty Acres Derek.