It seemed that the biggest knock on Sumlin and Co. - and all Texas colleges for that matter - in 2017 was that they were not able to lock down the top talent in the state. A&M had the highest ranked player in the state that committed to a Texas college - Anthony Hines. As awesome as we all think Hines is gonna be, im sure that we would all like to see next year's Hines as well as more top talent come to Aggieland.

So who are they?

Note: "CB" means crystal ball when it is not referring to the player's position.

As of February 2017, they are:

1. BJ Foster, 6-1, 188, Safety out of Angleton. CBs all say tu
2. Anthony Cook, 6-1, 168, CB out of Houston-Lamar. CBs say 50% to LSU. The last two have been to tu.
3. Jalen Preston, 6-2, 202, WR out of Manvel. 100% to A&M
4. Max Wright, 6-4.5, 260, SDE out of Katy-Taylor. 100% to the good guys (feb 5th, 2017)
5. Caden Sterns, 6-1, 173, S/WR out of Cibolo-Steele. Committed to LSU 11/27/2016.
6. Darrell Simpson, 6-7, 330 OT out of Justin-Northwest. 60%/40% A&M-OU battle with the last CB (August 2016) saying ou.
7. Joshua Moore, 6-0.5, 168, S/WR out of Yoakum. 67% to tu with the last several ones to tu. His brother Jordan is a 2018 A&M commit.
8. Jalen Green, 6-1.5, 170 CB out of Houston-Heights. Only has 1 CB: to LSU.
9. Al'vonte Woodard, 6-1, 182 WR out of Houston-Manvel. 1 CB and its for the good guys.
10. Mustapha Muhammad, 6-5, 235 TE out of Missouri City-Ridge Point. 2 CBs to the good guys but the last one was to tu.

Ohio state and Alabama currently do not figure to be major players so far like they were in 2017. However, the 2017 college football season has yet to start and I imagine the full court press from Meyer and Saban would begin with their on-field success next year.

The key to winning these guys i imagine is gonna be on-field success in addition to our coaches building relationships.

I personally would like to see Max Wright, Darrell Simpson - what a giant!! - and a couple of those DBs come to A&M the most.

I know I have an inherent bias because I'm an Aggie; but, something seems off about Herman. From the words of a horn insider:

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I was told by a number of sources that if Texas had offered Jalen Reagor early, the Longhorns could have landed him. But the old staff waited too long, and the new staff was never able to make a dent. Texas tried to make a push, but Reagor didn't want the coaches to make an in-home.

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Omar Manning flipping to Texas from TCU was all but done in January. But Manning soured on the Longhorns after a meeting with the new Texas coaching staff during his OV.

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Walker Little was set to pick Texas way back in the spring and would have landed in Austin if the Longhorns had won more games in 2016. The first in-home visit with the new staff didn't impress the Little family the way it needed to. Although the staff had a better final in-home visit, the Little family just wasn't too fond of their personalities and decided Stanford would be the better fit overall.

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The K'Lavon Chaisson recruitment was bizarre. Multiple sources told us Chaisson silently committed to Texas shortly after Tom Herman arrived, which is why we felt so confident. Things started to change after his official visit to LSU, but a couple of days before his announcement Chaisson told the Texas commits that he was still coming. That Hook 'Em alert this week on Twitter was for Chaisson. He even told his trainer on Monday to buy a Texas shirt to prepare for National Signing Day announcement in favor of the Longhorns only to text him on Tuesday morning to tell him instead to buy an LSU shirt for the ceremony. It seems Chaisson was truly undecided heading into Wednesday.

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Browning basically told the old staff he was coming, which is why I was so confident throughout the process. Browning blasted Texas for firing Strong and told me he wasn't fond of Herman, so the Longhorns completely fell out of favor.

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Kary Vincent was always going to make an official visit to Texas after hosting Herman for an in-home visit. Herman did a great job recruiting him, but LSU is where he really wanted to be.

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I get that transition years are hard for new coaches. But one could also argue that this recruiting season could have been a honeymoon period for Herman too, and yet there are a lot of misses in there. Several of these kids chose Ed O over Herman, and one could argue that he was in a transition year as well.

Herman's forte may not be recruiting. If it isn't, we could have a very nice 2018 haul.

Edit: for humors sake I'll add a couple excerpts from the same dude that I found hilarious:

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The family of Ondario Robinson wanted him to end up at Texas and not Texas A&M, which is why he continued to delay his decision. At the time, Robinson wasn't a take for the Longhorns, and the family finally budged and let him commit to the Aggies.

Plano East inside linebacker Anthony Hines loved Texas from an academic standpoint and had a great relationship with Strong. If he wasn't fired, I believe he would have picked Texas. Hines and his family preferred Strong over Kevin Sumlin. But with Texas in chaos, they felt A&M, a program they really liked overall, was the best fit.

Texas did want Javelin Guidry at the end of the process, but he preferred to stay closer to home and told some people close to him that being around snow at Utah played a role in his decision. As weird as that sounds, we did confirm that snow was a determining factor along with early playing time and location. But overall, we feel the strength of the competition and the ability to climb the depth chart made him shy away from the Longhorns.

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technoviking said:

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a look at the top 10 in texas for 2018, as it stands on the numbers site (12-6-17):

1. BJ Foster, S - Texas

2. Anthony Cook, CB - leaning Texas heavily

3. Caden Sterns, S - Texas

4. Jalen Green, CB - Texas

5. Brennan Eagles, WR - Texas

6. Jaylen Waddle, WR - TAMU/Bama battle - latest CBs say TAMU

7. DeMarvion Overshown S, OLB - Texas

8. Leon O'Neal, S - former TAMU commit, Fisher is working on getting him to TAMU

9. Joshua Moore, WR, S - Nebraska

10. Alvonte Woodard - WR - Texas

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Man, this just shows you the true state of Texas HAS football. Every. Single. One of the Top10 is a WR or DB. They've become the PAC12.