Longhorns showing strong commitment to personnel department by hiring Josh Dunson away from Memphis
The Longhorns didn’t just spend to keep Steve Sarkisian happy. School officials are giving him financial freedom to expand the personnel department to find more recruits.
Texas has hired Josh Dunson, the former director of recruiting at Memphis, to be a senior player personnel coordinator under general manager Brandon Harris.
Dunson spent one year at Memphis, but it was productive. The Tigers signed the No. 1-ranked recruiting class in the AAC with one four-star recruit and 18 three-stars.
Prior to Memphis, Dunson worked in the personnel department at Georgia Tech for one season. He graduated from Georgia State in 2021.
General managers and their direct underlings have key roles in the recruitment process. It’s their job to help monitor whoever goes into the transfer portal and then help facilitate initial contact with those recruits, should the coaches want to pursue the athletes.
Harris also coordinates the program’s NIL obligations between the players and the Texas One Fund. Beginning this fall, Texas will start paying its players from a pool of what’s expected to be $22 million in revenue sharing after the House vs. NCAA settlement is finalized in April.
In the end, Sarkisian is the one who has final say over what recruits make the roster or don’t. He’s the one who has the ultimate say over the team’s culture and locker room dynamics.
“At the end of the day I think we’ve got a pretty good process to what we do,” Sarkisian said last summer, in comments that were republished by Horns247. “I just want to make sure that kids that commit to us are committing to us for the right seasons, that they’re coming to the University of Texas for the right reasons. I’m not saying that kids are committing to other schools for the wrong reasons, but sometimes those things bear themselves out.
“At the end of the day when we assess our recruiting classes, are we addressing the needs on our roster?,” he added. “Are we building a team that can be better next year than it was this year? And do they fit us? Do they fit us from a character standpoint? Do they fit us from a cultural standpoint?”
