University of Hawaii head football coach Todd Graham hits Texas hard in initial recruiting

The University of Hawaii, it seems, has suddenly developed a Texas-sized appetite for Lone Star football prospects.

In just under three months since Todd Graham took over as the Rainbow Warriors head coach, Texas has emerged as UH’s go-to recruiting stop for 2021.

And UH has made plenty of calls from Allen to Wichita Falls, and a lot of places in between. Of the 81 prospects in the class of 2021 that the 247Sports.com database says UH has offered scholarships to, 26 are from Texas.

That’s more than double the number of any other state, including UH’s 50th state backyard and its traditional mainland hunting ground, California, with 10 and 12, respectively.

How high the return on the investment of time and resources remains to be seen. But, for the moment, at least, it marks a noteworthy shift from UH’s traditional power base.

Over the years UH has gotten players from Texas, of course, but usually on a very piecemeal basis. Last season, for example, UH had just three players from Texas on its 105-man opening roster, JoJo Ward, Djuan Matthews and Zach Daniel.

Between 2000 and 2019, according to the 247 database, only 5.2% of UH’s overall recruits came from Texas while 40% were from California and 29% from in state.

The reasons for the paucity of players from Texas were largely matters of distance and connections. But while Texas sure hasn’t gotten any closer to us, the ties have significantly changed.

Graham is a native Texan with deep roots there as a high school and college coach as well as decades-long connections.

Nearly half of his 10-man coaching staff has some ties to the area, making it the most Texas-oriented staff UH has had in at least the NCAA Division I era.

That was demonstrated when the ’Bows quickly grabbed wide receivers Riley Wilson (Prosper, Texas) and Quinshone “Quin” Bright (Cedar Hill, Texas) for the February letter of intent signings despite being barely two weeks into the job at Manoa.

Add to that the first public commitment by a player for 2021, Da’Qualen “DQ” James, a junior running back from Lancaster, Texas. (This is currently a “dead” recruiting period, meaning coaches are prohibited from discussing prospective recruits).

Of the five high school quarterbacks that 247 says UH has tendered offers to, three of them are in Texas. As are seven of the 14 receivers and four of six running backs.

Until this year UH had been one of the few teams in the Mountain West Conference that had barely dabbled on recruiting Texas. Boise State and Air Force have built much of their success on Texas recruiting and, with the geographic proximity, New Mexico and others have gone in heavily. Even Fresno State, for a time, went in headfirst. Only San Jose State hasn’t offered a recruit this year to date, the 247 survey shows.

Small wonder since Texas, along with Florida and California, annually rate as among the most verdant fields for major college prospects in terms of sheer numbers and blue chippers. Though Hawaii annually rates high on a per capita basis.

That’s something for UH not to lose track of, especially while six of the other 11 members of the MWC, the bulk of the Pac-12 and plane loads of others are in the ’Bows backyard tendering offers to local prospects.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.