Recruiting: Porter makes good on his pledge to Longhorns

Call it the worst-kept secret in Odessa.

As the sun came up on National Signing Day, Permian left tackle Garrett Porter signed a national letter of intent to play football at Texas.

And everybody saw it coming.

"Once he made his verbal commitment, I don't think he really paid attention to any other school," said his father, Kevin. "We've raised him so that once you give somebody your word, it's good."

Porter has been a rock at left tackle the past three years.

A 6-foot-5, 305-pound wall who protected the blind side for three Panthers quarterbacks who broke the single-season passing record three years in a row.

A two-time all-state pick. A participant in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, an honor only 90 high school football players receive each year.

Porter is the kind of player who attracts major-college recruiters like a light bulb attracts moths. Most players with Porter's stature keep several schools on a string right up until Signing Day.

But most of those colleges have been fighting in vain for most of the past year.

Last February Porter verbally committed to play for the Longhorns, who beat Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl last month.

"A lot of guys, when they commit, they're actually still looking," Porter said. "When I committed, it was my word. I'm not going to change it."

Other schools kept calling.

Texas Tech didn't seem to get the message. Neither did East Coast schools like Duke, North Carolina and a host of other programs.

Those schools can't be blamed. In the current recruiting climate it's common for top recruits to make a verbal commitment, then back out as National Signing Day approaches.

Some recruits change their minds more than once.

Porter wasn't about to change his mind. When schools kept the phone calls coming, Porter kept telling them the deal was done.

Or ignoring the calls altogether.

"Our mailbox continued to get flooded with letters," Kevin said. "We figured that once he committed, that would be it."

Letters won't be stuffing the Porters' mailbox anymore.

Porter becomes the first Permian player to sign a scholarship to Texas since Roy Williams in 2000.

And Porter made the decision at one of his first visits to the school.

Sitting in a meeting at a Junior Day visit, Porter started to tell his dad that he thought he'd found his school. At the same time, Kevin cut him off by asking his son if Texas was the place he needed to be.

"It felt like the place I needed to go," Porter said.

Nobody else really had a chance.