Texas Pulls Offer from WR Ricky Seals-Jones

We're coming up on one year of ODB's existence, and if you haven't learned this by now, I'll go ahead and tell you: I am fixated on recruiting. Absolutely fixated. I devour recruiting news, even if it doesn't have to do with Baylor. If it does, I devour it even harder. I'd say that's mostly good for you guys as it means I bring as much information to your attention as I can find as quickly as I can find it. Other times it's not so good because I may be telling you stuff that ends up not mattering at all to a Baylor audience.

I don't know which category this news falls under, so I'll just spill it: the University of Texas is no longer recruiting top-ranked WR Ricky Seals-Jones, who decommitted from the Longhorns in May and was thought to be leaning toward committing again. For the sake of completeness, I believe the news was broken by Hookem.com. It has since been confirmed by everyone under the Sun, including SB Nation's own Wescott Eberts, who penned an update about Seals-Jones, known as RSJ to virtually everyone, earlier today with all the latest information at that time. In that update, Eberts reported RSJ's fall plans, which included an unofficial visit to UT. Tonight's news makes it seem like that may no longer occur. Without jumping to any specious conclusions about why the Texas staff did what they did, I will offer you a few possible motives (below the jump):

1. They're sending a message that he either recommits now or they're moving on. In this scenario, they haven't actually stopped recruiting him, but they might. This could be the latest part of their recruiting strategy.
2. They don't believe the reports that his knee is only dislocated with no permanent damage. If they thought he was no longer a "take" they might pull his offer and move on. There is no evidence that his knee is permanently damaged of which I am aware. Wescott also swears the injury angle isn't at all likely.
3. They think they're going to lose him and are ditching what they believe to be a recruiting circus. Nobody loves keeping his offer::commit ratio low like Mack Brown. He may not want another school getting a recruiting victory over mighty Texas. He's pulled offers in this situation before.
4. There's something dirty going on. These rumors are already starting, believe me.
5. They found someone they like more. I'm less inclined to believe this rationale than any of the others because RSJ is going to be an absolute beast for whoever gets him. I mean that. If he's healthy, he's a stud.

I don't know what's going on here. I, like Wescott, am quite perplexed. Even if the reason for calling off the recruitment is totally legitimate, the timing is, at best, suspicious. Their decision may not have anything to do with his injury, but the proximity to it makes it the logical conclusion. Why not wait to make this call?

To be clear, I don't know if Baylor has a chance. In his last update, Wescott says we might. Brian Perroni of 247Sports (formerly of Rivals) also says to watch out for Baylor. At this point, however, we're almost definitely not considered the favorites and I'd bet against us in the RSweepstakesJ (does that work? I don't think so). With this news, though, our chances probably got at least a little better.