Austin ? With another stellar recruiting class, Texas coach Mack Brown knows Longhorns fans will expect a national championship and a bumper crop of future NFL players.

That’s what the publicity surrounding a bunch of high school players considered the nation’s best will do.

	The Top 10 recruiting classes in the nation as rated by SuperPrep Magazine: 1. Texas2. Miami3. Ohio State4. Tennessee5. UCLA6. Oklahoma7. Michigan8. Southern California9. Virginia10. Florida State

“We’re really excited about this class,” Brown said Wednesday of the 27 high school athletes, including 22 from Texas, who have committed to play for the Longhorns next season. “Who knows exactly what it means? It means that people who try to follow recruits for a living have decided this is a good group. There’s no doubt about that. Does it mean they’ll all be great college and pro prospects? Absolutely not.”

National recruiting experts rank the Longhorns’ 2002 recruiting class and its eight high school all-Americans the best in the country.

“They just dominated everything,” Tom Lemming of Schaumburg, Ill.-based Prep Football Report said. “They are head and shoulders ahead of everyone else. They helped themselves at every single position.”

Brown’s 1999 class also was considered the nation’s best. Like that year when Chris Simms was the marquee player this year’s group is headed by an All-American quarterback, Vincent Young of Houston.

The 6-foot-5, 200-pound Young was Parade’s national player of the year after accounting for 3,819 yards passing and rushing and 59 touchdowns. The Sporting News listed him as the country’s top high school prospect.

Texas again proved its ability to get many of the top players in its home state. And when the Longhorns did cross the border, Texas signed Parade All-Americans Bryan Pickryl, a defensive lineman from Tulsa, Okla., and Marquis Johnson, a wide receiver from Champaign, Ill.

Brown said defensive linemen and linebackers were his priority and the Longhorns signed 12. Among them is Chase Pittman of Shreveport, La., the younger brother of Cole Pittman, a Longhorn defensive lineman who was killed in an auto accident last year.

With stellar recruiting classes come expectations of excellent teams on the field. Despite three previous highly-rated recruiting classes, Brown has yet to win a Big 12 title, let alone a national championship. Some critics have dubbed him “Coach February.”

Texas won the Big 12 South Division last season and was poised for a berth in the national title game before losing to Colorado in the conference championship game. The Longhorns finished in the Top 10 for the first time since 1983.

“At Texas, you’ve got to win,” Brown said. “I do think we get too much credit for recruiting and not enough credit for coaching.”

Colorado With 30 recruits, it’s Colorado’s largest class since 1973. The Buffaloes focused on speed, recruiting three receivers, seven defensive backs and five linebackers. The receivers all are prep All-Americans and have the size to thrive in Colorado’s West Coast offense: 6-foot-3 Blake Mackey of Bakersfield, Calif.; 6-3 Anthony Wright of Klein Forest High in Houston and 6-4 Tyler Littlehales of Boulder.

Although the Buffs have three returning tailbacks, they signed another in All-America Brian Calhoun of Oak Creek, Wis.

The class includes two junior-college transfers: defensive end Gabe Nyenhuis and offensive lineman Clint Werth, both of Garden City Community College.

Iowa State The Cyclones announcing the signing of 26 players. There are 17 high school players in the class, including six from Iowa, and nine junior college transfers. The class is big on big guys seven offensive linemen and five defensive linemen. Two of the top high school players in the class are running back Steven Hicks of Omaha, Neb., who picked Iowa State over Nebraska, and quarterback Austin Flynn of Deer Park, Texas, rated as one of the top prospects in that state.

Missouri DedrickHarrington, 6-foot-4, 220-pounds from Mexico, Mo., is the linchpin of the 22-player group that coach Gary Pinkel hopes will begin the turnaround at Missouri, 4-7 in his first season last year. The other notable recruit is running back-defensive back Mario Whitney of Jackson, Mo., who holds the state record of 9.3 yards per carry in his career. Both Harrington and Whitney were rated among the top 10 prospects in the country by Rivals.com. Harrington had five interceptions and five forced fumbles in his prep career as a safety. The 6-foot, 185-pound Whitney had 2,782 yards and 43 touchdowns as a senior and broke the state record with a 463-yard game.

Seven of the recruits are from Missouri and Pinkel got four of the top seven players in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s annual Top 30 list.

Three of the recruits are quarterbacks, also an area of need with Kirk Farmer entering his final season and Darrius Outlaw not attending school this semester.

The quarterbacks are Brandon Coleman of North Miami High in Miami, Josh Hibbets of Enid, Okla., and David Overstreet of W.W. Samuel High School in Dallas. Overstreet is a son of former Oklahoma running back David Overstreet.

Tight end Zach Zwilling of Fort Zumwalt South in St. Peters, Mo., was rated the No. 3 tight end prospect in the country by SuperPrep.

Nebraska Coach Frank Solich introduced his fifth recruiting class and said several of the 18 commitments he had received could be playing as early as this fall. Four true freshmen played in each of the last two seasons and three did in 1999.

Two members of the 2002 class are getting a head start by enrolling this semester. Freshman quarterback Curt Dukes, who graduated from high school early so he could participate in spring practice, and linebacker Demorrio Williams, a junior college transfer, have been on campus since the beginning of the semester.

Dukes, a 6-foot, 205-pound option quarterback from Stoney Point, N.C., rushed for 1,023 yards and threw for 951 as a senior at Newton-Conover High School last fall.

Williams, a 6-2, 200-pound outside linebacker, had 127 tackles, including nine sacks, and two interceptions as Kilgore (Texas) Community College went 12-0.

Oklahoma The Sooners, who have had one of the nation’s top defenses the past two years, signed 24 players including a group of highly regarded linebackers and defensive backs. Lance Mitchell and Pasha Jackson, teammates at San Francisco City College who enrolled at OU in January, are expected to provide immediate help at linebacker.

Oklahoma State Sixteen of Oklahoma State’s 27 signees came from Texas, including running back Greg Gold of Irving, offensive linemen Jonathan Cruz of Arlington and Doug Bond of South Grand Prairie, and quarterback Jamie Beeghley of Midland. Other signees include defensive lineman Lance Carson, a transfer from Garden City Community College. This was coach Les Miles first opportunity to recruit for a full year. He was hired in December 2000, less than two months before the 2001 signing date.

Kansas State is expected to announce its recruiting class today.