States top prospect visits Texas

Ricky Seals-Jones sits atop the initial Lone Star Recruiting Top 100 for the class of 2013. A playmaking wide receiver out of Sealy, Seals-Jones has the types of natural talents that most other high school athletes cannot match, and it's earned him the early title of the state's top player in his class.

Despite the early accolades, including interest pouring in from college coaches, Seals-Jones knows there is still work to be done and he aims to stay on top of the mountain.

"The ranking just tells me that I need to keep working hard to stay number one," he said. "There will be a lot of people who will try to work harder to knock me off. I've got to keep doing what I'm doing and work even harder."

This week, Seals-Jones made a bit of a last-second decision to work on his game at a Texas Longhorn camp. After missing UT's mini-camp on Sunday, Seals-Jones' coach told him there was still time for the star prospect to make it to Austin for a midweek visit. Seals-Jones decided that's what he wanted to do, so he made his way to Austin on Tuesday morning, arriving at 7:30 a.m., in time to register and take part in the day's camp activities.

Though he's regarded as a receiver prospect at the next level, Seals-Jones will play some quarterback for Sealy next fall, and he spent the early portion of the camp working with the signal callers. He later made the move over to receiver, where he showcased his talents for the Texas coaches. All in all, Seals-Jones said it was a very good experience.

"I liked the hands-on teaching. They would stop the drill to help you if you didn't get it right or if you messed up," said Seals-Jones, who mostly worked with wide receivers coach Darrell Wyatt and quarterbacks coach Bryan Harsin. "It was great. It was fantastic. I got to know them, did what they asked, ran some routes, showed what I can do.

"I think I showed them a lot, that I can catch the ball and run good routes. I can play whatever they want me to do. I came up there to play quarterback but then they asked me to go to wide receiver and I did well there."

Coaches are not allowed to actively recruit at summer camps, but Texas did tell the 6-5, 215-pound Seals-Jones they'd like him to stay in contact.

"They said they'd be in touch when September 1 comes," Seals-Jones said. "They said I can call them whenever I want but they can't call me because of the rules. They said to stay in touch and on September 1 they'd be getting in touch with me."

Seals-Jones is next looking to possibly attend a camp at Texas A&M in July. In the meantime, he'll continue to work with his teammates and try to fine-tune his game as both a quarterback and a receiver.

"I'm going to work this summer. As a quarterback, I'll go over tape and look at the defense and do whatever I can to help the team out this year," Seals-Jones said. "As a wide receiver, my best thing is my size. I'm pretty fast but my size is my biggest strength. I want to work on getting faster and just keep working on my footwork."

So far, Seals-Jones has picked up verbal scholarship offers from Texas Tech and SMU. Though he's keeping an open mind, he does want to play his college ball in the state of Texas to stay close to his family. Texas is one of the schools that will likely figure into the mix.

"They're a great program, they win a lot of championships and beat a lot of teams," Seals-Jones said. "I grew up watching Texas. My family got to liking them and I just got influenced."