it's diwnright SILLY to think any school could EVER "lock down" Houston or DFW, much less Texas. These are probably the type threads that crack up our recruiters if anyone pointed them out.

Depends on how it's defined. We could choke most competition at 30-40%, if the right 30-40%. Bigs are key.

Butterteeth's seemed to be getting 30-40% of the TX high impact recruits. Something to the tune of 15-20 a year. Mack was effectively choking out most of his competition at 30-40%. Stoops just did more with less.

ou would get another 10 from TX.

We got maybe 5. Most of them were QB, RB, maybe a WR. We rarely got big bodies until Sherman arrived, and we still were not getting many at LB or DL.

okie lite would get a 2-4 annually, also mostly skill players and the occasional defensive thug.


There are ~50 TX high impact recruits a year. They skew disproportionally to QB and WR. In this year's class, numbers lists 16/50 at QB or WR. The year before was 11/55.

The competition getting theirs at QB and WR is not such a big deal. The real fight is for the offensive and defensive fronts.

IF Jimbo starts getting 50% of all TX OL, TE, DT, SDE, and LB...we would distance ourselves from all competition besides Bama. I left out WDE, b/c the state produces enough most years.

21: 5/17 (bama-4, tu-3, ou-1)
20: 1/16 (tu-7, ou-2)
19: 4/15 (tu-4, ou-3)
18: 4/11 (tu-4, ou-2)

Divining Rod said:

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it's diwnright SILLY to think any school could EVER "lock down" Houston or DFW, much less Texas. These are probably the type threads that crack up our recruiters if anyone pointed them out.

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I think most posters are thinking hypothetically. I think most people know or at least think that it can't be done. I also think most Aggies are happy with Jimbo recruiting nationally.

Recruiting out of state is better than local long-shot projects. But, recruiting OOS seems suboptimal to me. We wont have many alums in the local coaching ranks who know things, and most kids will prefer the local or closer school, all things being equal.

The '18 class was mostly a disaster. The 19 and 20 classes have some bright spots, but the majority are not looking it.

2018 OOS:
T. Jenkins- portal
Jer. Martin- portal
Ja. Corbin- portal, although he was good and there were shenanigans
J. Foster- portal
Jace- was a JUCO, JUCOs are different
G. Beal- portal
C. Strong- portal
Diallo- JUCO

Only 1/6 OOS HS recruits was successful, and he still got homesick.

2019:
E. Blades- JUCO, good when healthy
A. White- success
D. Hunter- switched positions, jury still out
Ke. Brown- opted out, jury still out
Ke. Jackson- jury still out, not looking good
Z. Calzada- likely to portal
A. Jones- jury still out, not looking good
T. Lee- Jury still out, not looking good
C. Russell- jury still out, still 50/50
Constantinou- success, but Australian punters are different

Andre White and Constantinou are the only current successes. Will probably have success with 1-2 LBs. Most of the rest not looking good.

2020:
D. Harris- must get bigger, TBA
M. Jackson- success
A. Johnson- showed promise
A. Doyle- TBA
C. Morris- personal issues
F. Diggs- TBA
M. Muhammed- TBA
E. Cooper- TBA
B. George- JUCO, showed potential
J. Moten- TBA
I. Raikes- TBA
D. Walker TBA
D. Hubbard TBA
D. Jackson TBA

Not looking good for either RB. Neither LB showed much. The DL need another year to develop. We hit the jackpot with McKinley. IDK enough about Chris Morris, so will STFU. Muhammed probably needed a year to learn the Air Jimbo. I bet less than 1/3 OOS HS recruits succeed.

^ a really hasty, negative, and inaccurate analysis. I'll leave it at that and just say "thanks" to all those out-of-state players that continue to make our team stronger while living the Aggie dream.

Feel free to point out your perceived inaccuracies.

Recruiting nationally means being successful at signing the cream of the crop regardless of the state... correct? If you can't sign the top players in Texas, then you are not recruiting nationally.

Also, in recent times there are a lot of Texas high school athletes who were not born and raised in the great state of Texas (nor their parents), and have family and loyalties out of state. I would classify these as out of state recruits.

For example, Mond was the opposite of the above... I would classify Mond as a in-state Texas recruit even though he went to high school in Florida.

All I know is this...before Mack Brown arrived RC did some really good 'cruitin' in Texas. Our roster was filled with Texas kids and a small sprinkling of out of state guys (3-6). We had some really good teams, but never broke thru.

TopoTacos said:

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What I'm hearing in your question is "would a program pulling the top talent in TX, and that alone, be enough to hang with Bama?"

I think the answer is yes.

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The answer is no. Texas no longer produces enough top tier talent at the LB and DB positions. Due to the proliferation of spread offenses kids who would have played LB or DB 20 years ago are playing WR or QB and there's a loss of kids developing their defensive fundamentals.

We produce tons of athletes but a lot of Texas HS football players have become too soft.

I agree with no LBs and too soft.

I think the DBs are there most years, especially the safeties. A lot of natural cbs get moved to fs in hs bc of the spread.

Figure most years, we are taking 3-5 DBs. We would have to get the lion's share in the leaner years.

High impact txhs recruits According to numbers:

Year: safeties/ corners

'21: 2 / 4
'20: 8 / 8
'19: 6 / 3
'18: 7 / 3

The DBs typically have pretty good ball skills but they're not particularly good tacklers or good at jamming WRs off the LOS. And at the same time the WRs often struggle with getting off the LOS vs. press-man from more physical DBs.

RC put the best defense I've ever seen on the field in 1991 with Texas guys. But since Texas stopped playing contact football, you need OOS guys.

94chem said:

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RC put the best defense I've ever seen on the field in 1991 with Texas guys. But since Texas stopped playing contact football, you need OOS guys.

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That's my point.

It's not the caliber of athletes but the fact that back then damn near every HS program in the state ran some form of either the pro-set I-formation or an option-based offense (wishbone, veer, etc). Skill positions mattered of course but you started in the trenches.

Plus, virtually every college team in the country ran the I as well. The most notable exceptions were in the old Big 8 where Nebraska and OU were still running the option. Hell, we were an I-formation/option team in 1991.

S.A. Aggie said:

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I trust Jimbo. Whatever he says goes.

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hahaha...always a classic but funny line...still remember the I trust Sumlin line...good times..

There is some truth to that generalization, but we have found plenty of DBs who could tackle. The problem was mostly been inability to cover and/or mental lapses.

Physical Enough TXHS DBs since '18:

-Tucker (coverage liability)
-Renfro (avg in coverage, mental lapses)
-Roney Elam (? off field issues made him "unavailable")
-Demani is the man
-Brian Williams is physical, he just struggles with the assignments


Myes Jones has a bad frame for jamming, no doubt. He has improved every year and probably would have been a late draft pick had he declared.

Leon would have been better in a more traditional defense where the FS just plays CF.

I agree that the spread has softened TXHSFB. But, most will play some press coverage unless the DBs have no hope. Its about finding the flashes on film and developing it. Yes, easy for me to say.

I think 2021 was just a bad year for safeties.

TexanJeff said:

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I have been saying for 30 years, our Texas Only recruiting strategy was dumb under RC, Fran, and Sherm. Sumlin did a good job with the SEC getting some outside Texas but Fisher has gone to a new level.

Face it. Kids want to go away for college. Not all of them but a lot of them. It is cool to go out of state. Texas loses tons of kids to other states, we have to steal back!

It's just that simple.

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Your analysis is off. There is 100% a reason why it picked up during sumlins tenure. The SEC Network.

TV access changed everything for recruiting more nationally for all the big programs. Wikipedia shows 2011 being the first year all games were on tv including a ppv game still. And that still included crappy regional fsn games. 2014 was our first year without a ppv game.

Now you're family can watch all your games from across the country and come to big ones. That wasn't true before sumlin being coach.

We did not have much of a name outside the B12 footprint until 2012. The B12 TV contract sucked. We were only broadcast nationally a few times most years. We lost most of those. We lost the majority of our bowl games. Kids from Florida had no interest.

We could have recruited places like KC, Stl, Denver. But, none of those produce enough to dedicate a coach to and still would have been uphill battles. The yield was better locally.

You can go crazy trying to extrapolate all the causal vs. non-causal factors for in-state recruiting and then how that applies to geography the size of TX. How about we focus on the smallest, incremental change to solve the problem deductively..

If Jimbo would have been able to retain Jeff Banks in 2018 it's more than plausible we sign Jaylen Waddle -- then fast-forward to the Bama game in 2020 and play that contest again minus-Waddle Bama vs. plus-Waddle Ags.

1. We probably play Bama much closer, maybe still lose or win close game

and

2. Our explosive advanced analytics with Waddle for the entire season probably tip us up to #4 for the final playoff spot even with 1-loss to Bama

Bottom line: we don't have to own the state volumetrically in recruiting, but we do have to secure the handful of difference maker players at key offensive (starting to show itself in the 2020 class) and defensive (evident in 2019 and 2020 classes) positions every year from the state of TX.

lil_frog8 said:

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Right now we are currently the #4 team nationally for the '22 recruiting cycle with mostly all of our class coming from the Houston area. With many of the top in-state players still getting poached out of state to the top programs like Bama, OSU, OU, LSU etc. If we were to keep those top recruits in state and in relation subtract those players from other classes would it be enough to get us over the top?

I'm not saying lock down the state because there is no way that happens completely. However; if we were to recruit Texas like LSU does Louisianna and be able to get the first pick of all top talent and then just fill in the rest nationally does that provide enough talent to overtake the Bama's and OSU's on the field?

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Yes

Agsuffering@bulaw said:

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Recruiting out of state is better than local long-shot projects. But, recruiting OOS seems suboptimal to me. We wont have many alums in the local coaching ranks who know things, and most kids will prefer the local or closer school, all things being equal.

The '18 class was mostly a disaster. The 19 and 20 classes have some bright spots, but the majority are not looking it.

2018 OOS:
T. Jenkins- portal
Jer. Martin- portal
Ja. Corbin- portal, although he was good and there were shenanigans
J. Foster- portal
Jace- was a JUCO, JUCOs are different
G. Beal- portal
C. Strong- portal
Diallo- JUCO

Only 1/6 OOS HS recruits was successful, and he still got homesick.

2019:
E. Blades- JUCO, good when healthy
A. White- success
D. Hunter- switched positions, jury still out
Ke. Brown- opted out, jury still out
Ke. Jackson- jury still out, not looking good
Z. Calzada- likely to portal
A. Jones- jury still out, not looking good
T. Lee- Jury still out, not looking good
C. Russell- jury still out, still 50/50
Constantinou- success, but Australian punters are different

Andre White and Constantinou are the only current successes. Will probably have success with 1-2 LBs. Most of the rest not looking good.

2020:
D. Harris- must get bigger, TBA
M. Jackson- success
A. Johnson- showed promise
A. Doyle- TBA
C. Morris- personal issues
F. Diggs- TBA
M. Muhammed- TBA
E. Cooper- TBA
B. George- JUCO, showed potential
J. Moten- TBA
I. Raikes- TBA
D. Walker TBA
D. Hubbard TBA
D. Jackson TBA

Not looking good for either RB. Neither LB showed much. The DL need another year to develop. We hit the jackpot with McKinley. IDK enough about Chris Morris, so will STFU. Muhammed probably needed a year to learn the Air Jimbo. I bet less than 1/3 OOS HS recruits succeed.

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The 2020 class has grown to become a really good group.

Detmersdislocatedshoulder said:

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If we could nail down 15-18 of the top 30 players in Texas and sprinkle in 7-10 studs from other states I am quite confident we would be playing for and winning national titles. The exciting news is we are getting closer to that objective.

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Done. So natty next?