Golden: Texas can shrug off the haters now that Horns have Arch Manning, their pied piper

The players are coming to Austin, thanks to a 17-year-old pied piper by the name of Arch Manning.

Since the latest member of America’s first family of quarterbacks announced his plans to sign as part of Texas' 2023 recruiting class, the dominos have all been falling in the Longhorns’ favor.

Future Texas teams will be loaded, and we will find out in a hurry if coach Steve Sarkisian can apply some winning gloss to a talented locker room. Gone are the days of saying Texas doesn’t have enough in its arsenal to compete with the big boys in the Big 12 and, yes, the SEC.

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Sark is winning in the summer. As a result, already enlarged expectations for the fall are increasing exponentially.

Bergen (N.J.) Catholic four-star defensive lineman Sydir Mitchell is the latest pledge, announcing Sunday that he had chosen Texas over Georgia, Texas A&M and Miami, adding to a recruiting class that’s currently regarded as No. 2 in the nation.

Championships aren’t won in July, but the Longhorns should be feeling pretty spry with the abundance of talent that’s set to arrive here, even if some have the unmitigated gall to say Texas is (gulp) buying players.

Schools have been laying out heavy bread for the best prep talent for the better part of  50 years, the only difference now being that the table has been turned over. Those dollars that were once handed out underneath have become legally tendered transactions for all to see.

Just like Texas A&M, which caught some criticism from Alabama coach Nick Saban after landing a great recruiting class, Texas can expect it to come from all angles. I’d rather just give the program supporters and check writers credit for navigating this new way of doing business in the NIL era.

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The collectives and nonprofits — whatever you want to call them — have changed the recruiting game forever, and the people around the program have deftly used their sizable financial muscle to fortify a program that hasn’t had a regular season with double-digit wins since losing in the 2009 national championship game to Alabama.

Fifty grand per offensive lineman? A reported $10 million pledged to the Clark Field Collective, established by Longhorns supporters to further the program? These are necessary developments to keep Texas relevant in national living rooms, especially when the school makes that move to the SEC.

If the current way of conducting business is what it takes to get wins, I would suggest the critics congratulate instead of hate, dollar signs be damned. Sarkisian still had to go into those homes and persuade moms and dads to take Texas’ package over the others.

In a much simpler time, Mack Brown built his program in a more conventional fashion. The year after Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams started with the signings of prized 1999 recruits Chris Simms and Cory Redding. One year later, a three-headed receiving monster of Roy Williams, B.J. Johnson and Sloan Thomas arrived.

After that, linebacker Derrick Johnson and running back Cedric Benson. Then quarterback Vince Young and many others.

And success.

It’s a new landscape, and we’re about to find out if Sarkisian has the chops to coach up players he got to buy in to his vision over other name programs. He must win while moving ever forward while the critics line up to pour salt on his recruiting acumen.

Comedian Katt Williams had a great line when describing how one should handle those bashers.

“A hater’s job is to hate,” Williams said. “Ladies, if you’ve got 14 women hating on you, you need to figure out how to get to 16 before the summer gets here.”

I deleted the adult language, but you get the gist.

Texas football, if they’re ripping you for landing these four- and five-star recruits, then you must be doing something right.

KD-Golden State Part II? Nah: The last thing the NBA needs is Kevin Durant and Golden State doing a second dance.

The Texas ex is back on the eligible list, and the world champions are reportedly in the mix for a possible runback on a collaboration that produced two championships in three seasons before the marriage soured.

He wants out of Brooklyn — that much we know. He also listed Miami and Phoenix on a list of possible trade destinations.

Wherever he goes, Durant won’t get the universal acceptance he so desperately craves, based on the senseless tweets he sends out to people who can’t carry his water on their best day.

He’s about to suit up for his fourth franchise in the past six seasons after being one of the last people on Earth to realize Kyrie Irving can’t be trusted.

Oddmakers have installed the Warriors as the second most likely to win it all in 2023, right behind Boston. With Durant, they’re the unquestioned favorite, but who really wants to see a loaded super team rolling opponents night in and night out?

A Dubs reunion does very little for Durant’s legacy. If we’re being honest, he never won before he got to Golden State. The Warriors won before he arrived and won again after he left.

Tennis' new bad boy: The people who are calling for Nick Kyrgios’ scalp are some of the same ones who once bemoaned tennis’ lack of personality three decades ago.

Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic are all-time greats but aren’t exactly in the Charles Barkley class when it to comes to bringing more buzz to the game. Kyrgios, on the other hand, has embraced the role as the sport’s resident bad boy.

He’s equal parts talented and combustible, and the folks at Wimbledon had their hands full with him and third-round opponent Stefanos Tsitsipas over the weekend, a four-set war that resulted in $14,000 in fines, $10,000 to Tsitsipas, who hit a fan with a ball in anger and intentionally drilled Kyrgios after a drop shot.

Kyrgios isn’t without blame. His on-court language is taken straight out of a Richard Pryor standup act in the 1970s, except that no one is laughing amid the F-bombs.

The most telling comments came from, of all people, 63-year-old tennis legend John McEnroe, who criticized Kyrgios’ behavior for the better part of three hours before finally admitting after the match that he was actually Kyrgios during his playing career.

"Something’s got to be done about it,” said 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash, who blasted his fellow Australian on BBC radio. “It’s just an absolute circus. Is it entertaining? Yeah, possibly. It’s gone to the absolute limit now.”

Either way, they packed Centre Court on Monday for Kyrgios' four-set win over American Brandon Nakashima, which pulled him within one win of a semifinal showdown with Rafael Nadal, who is chasing a calendar year Grand Slam.

Kyrgios puts butts in the seats and provides the buzz the sport has been lacking for a while now, but the sport must juggle the increased interest with the reality that it can’t control him.

An eruption is coming over the next couple of days.

Why, you ask?

Because it’s Nick Kyrgios.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Longhorns are pushing all the right recruiting buttons