2023 OL Daniel Sill rewards loyalty from Texas Tech staff with commitment

Joey McGuire, James Blanchard and the Texas Tech staff have done it again, landing another highly ranked prospect in the 2023 class.

A&M Consolidated offensive tackle Daniel Sill publicly announced his commitment to Texas Tech on Sunday, December 12th, a day after taking his unofficial visit to the South Plains.

Sill is currently ranked by Rivals as a 4-star prospect, the No. 228 recruit in his class, the No. 42 prospect in the state of Texas and the No. 19 offensive tackle in the country.

Sill says it was his relationship with the coaches, specifically McGuire and Blanchard, that helped him make his decision.

"I'm doing good, I'm excited. It was pretty cool to see their reaction. You could tell James Blanchard and coach McGuire, when I told them that I wanted to commit they were all excited and brought a bunch of the other coaches in. It was pretty cool.

Coach Blanchard, he was the first guy to reach out to me when he was at Baylor. He watched our second game of the season back in August and he reached out to me. He said he was impressed by what he saw and he would send me game invites for Baylor. When McGuire moved to Tech, Blanchard came with him and I didn't even know that. He called me and said he wanted to offer me to Tech, and I had no idea that he'd even gone with coach McGuire. He's been very helpful and meaningful to me.

Loyalty is very important. He was the first guy to believe in me, the first one to offer me and so it wouldn't have felt right if I had gone anywhere else. He was first to believe in me so it was important to commit as much to them as they've committed to me.

I also really like coach McGuire. I like what he stands for. He sees his players like his own sons and it's all one big family. He's not just there to play football, he's there to help us grow as people, as humans, as men and to get an education. He talks about wanting to honor our parents because they've put so much into their kids, and now they're handing them over to him to raise them into men. I really like McGuire, he's a very good man.

I really do like the coaches. All of them that I met, they were very genuine. Coach (Stephen) Hamby as well, I really like him. He knows one of the other offensive lineman on our team, Rhett Larson, so it was cool to talk to him about that. He's very well aware of my high school and all that. I enjoyed talking to all the coaches, they were all very kind to me and I'm excited for them to be my future coaches once I graduate."

Sill got to take an unofficial visit to Lubbock over the weekend and says many things stood out to him about the campus. He's also excited about the upcoming changes to the football facilities.

"I really like the stadium. Here in College Station, I'm used to seeing Kyle Field all the time and I don't find it very personal. It's just big. Jones AT&T Stadium, it has heart kind of.

The architecture of the school, I really enjoyed that. Me and my family, it wasn't just a bunch of buildings scattered around. My mom said it looked like Spanish missions, a little bit. We thought that was really cool.

I was impressed by the indoor facility. My little sister came along with us and she runs track. The indoor football facility and the indoor track are right next to each other so we liked that. The weight room, and also how they're talking about that it's going to expand. They're gonna build the best facilities in the Big 12 so that's even more exciting. I was impressed with everything I saw really."

Sill plays left tackle for his high school program but that's a new development. Up until recently, he primarily played on the defensive line. Despite being new to the position, his potential and abilities already have him ranked in the Rivals250 for his class.

"This is my first year really only playing offense. Freshman and sophomore year I played defensive end and defensive tackle. I didn't really play offense. In practice I'd practice offense but I never did it in games and they never thought of me playing offense because I was a defensive player.

The offseason after sophomore year, I grew to 6-foot-4, I put on 20 pounds, and I have like an 80 inch wingspan so they just moved me to offense. I've been pretty good since I've moved there even though this is my first season really playing and getting to know the position."

Sill becomes the fifth commitment of the 2023 class for the Red Raiders, and he has already started to connect with his future teammates including Amarillo OL Kaden Carr.

"I've talked to Kaden Carr, he's the other OL commit from Amarillo. He DM'd me on Twitter and said 'welcome to family brother' and I told him how excited I was to meet him and the other commits. He said he watched my film and that I looked good. I told him thank you and that I was looking forward to being teammates. He's the only one I've talked to so far, I haven't talked with the other commits but I'll make sure to follow them on Twitter and DM them and all that stuff."

Now committed, Sill says he's going to spend the offseason getting better and improving his game.

"I wanna get stronger to be able to do good on run blocks and power. I wanna get my technique down. Watching game highlights I noticed that I kinda waver. One play I'll have a really good kick block and the next one I'll turn or I didn't do too well and my guy got around me.

I think always keeping good technique is important. When I do the technique right I do really good, but when I mess up, get sloppy, lazy or tired, I mess up plays and it can hurt our team in the long run."

Sill has several goals for his Red Raider career, including bringing a Big 12 championship back to Lubbock.

"Tech is getting a hard worker, someone who wants to win. I wanna help bring a Big 12 championship to Texas Tech. I'm excited to play and be a Red Raider."