Recruiting Country: The latest recruiting news surrounding the Maroon & White

TexAgs' recruiting analyst Ryan Brauninger joined TexAgs Live on Wednesday morning for another edition of Recruiting Country, highlighting the latest news and notes from the recruiting trail surrounding Texas A&M.

Key notes from Recruiting Country

• Today is National Signing Day, which used to be a huge day. Even with all the work Nick and the current behind-the-scenes staff do for our signing day show in December, they still don't understand what February signing day used to be like around here. That's today, and we have nothing going on in recruiting. Nothing.
   
• A&M hosted the three commits from the state of Georgia last weekend. They missed out on Jackson Cantwell‍'s top six. There's some stuff happening, but this, today, used to be the Super Bowl. Today was the day when you were up at 4:30 or 5 a.m. The first thing you would do is check your phone to see if you missed anything overnight, and then you'd get back on the phone with the last people you spoke to before you went to bed and say, "Has anything changed?"
   
• I was up and coming into the office by about 6:00 a.m. We'd have the commercial-free radio hour, which we've still done. By 6:30-7:00 in the morning, national letters of intent were rolling in. When you'd walk into TexAgs, in the lobby there'd be tables with breakfast from all over Bryan-College Station. Everybody was here. We were dressed up. Billy Liucci would have three or four wardrobe changes throughout the show. We'd have guests that would come in or be on the phone. It really was our Super Bowl. 
   
• If you go back and look at the genesis of what TexAgs is, where it all started was Billy on the recruiting side of it. Then, the football coverage came quickly after that. A lot of folks were subscribing to TexAgs, from what I understand early on, the Maroon and White Report, for recruiting information. That is the genesis of everything you see right now recruiting.
   
• It's crazy that, five years ago, it seems like ancient history with some of this stuff I just described. Now, some of it's around to varying degrees. There was a time when you always had to have, and we still do, you have to have your phone on during the signing day show. Like on ringer, because if it's on silent and you miss a phone call, that could be your only chance to get the latest information. 
   
• I wrote an article this week about some of the craziness of the February signing days that I cover. I completely left out, probably the greatest mystery for TexAgs subscribers and fans of what happened with Brandon Jones out of Nacogdoches. When TexAgs made that full-length film about his recruitment. Everything said he was going to A&M until the last 48 hours. Early in the morning, I drove from College Station to Nacogdoches. I think I'd gotten hired that August. So that was my first football season on staff. I was driving on signing days then. I wasn't part of the studio show.
   
• I can remember driving to Nacogdoches, walking into the gymnasium where he was set to make his announcement, and I saw quite a few people walking around with A&M hoodies and jackets on. I texted one of my sources, who had been giving me pretty good information on Brandon Jones. Nobody really knew definitively, but it felt like this guy had a pretty good lead on where things were going. I said, "Man, there's a lot of Maroon in here for this announcement." The text I got back said, "You better hope that there is a lot of money stuffed in those Maroon pockets." And I was like, “Uh oh.”
   
• I went up to the camera crew and told them who I was. "Hey, I'm with TexAgs. We're the company that kind of hired y'all out to do this documentary. If I don't need to be here, can you tell me?" He was like, "Well, he was up till 2:00 in the morning. We were up with him and documenting everything..." I was like, "Look, dude, I'm not going to say anything, but if I don't need to be here for this announcement ceremony, I can get back on the road and go to another signing day." So, I'm not saying anything, and he's like, "You don't need to be here."
   
• I walk out into the parking lot, and I'm getting ready to call Liucci, who is on the radio. I pick up my phone to call him, and the camera guy runs out of the gymnasium, like sprinting and stops me before I get to my car in the Nacogdoches High School parking lot and begs me not to tell anybody. "Please, please don't say anything." I'm like, "OK, dude. I'm not going public with anything." I called Billy and told him what the deal was, and it wasn't five minutes later that I was on the radio show via phone call talking about, "Yeah, I think this one might be headed another direction." I drove from Nacogdoches, Texas, to Fairfield, Texas and covered Charles Oliver‍'s signing day that day. It was one of the more wilder ones, and it was my first one.
   
• In the article I wrote, I had two from the class of 2018. It was Bobby Brown III‍, and I wasn't really involved with Bobby. That was all Jason Howell. Howell was in the building at the high school whenever Bobby mailed his letter to A&M and not Alabama. Because he had been committed to Alabama, and I think Jason saw them put the letter into the fax machine, that's the kind of connection Jason had to that
   
• I can remember Terry Price, God rest his soul, one of the greatest humans to ever walk this planet, and just how much time he invested into that recruitment. Bobby was on a podcast recently talking about the impact that Coach Price had made on his life. I think the question was, “Who are your greatest mentors in your football career?” He brought up Coach Price, and that was really where you got a glimpse of how hard TP was working on the recruiting trail and what he meant to some of those kids.
   
• That was the transition class from Kevin Sumlin to Jimbo Fisher in 2018, with Bobby in it. That one was really cool because Jason was kind of following it and texting us, and we were on the show when all that was happening. Leon O'Neal Jr. was a crazy one. I know that Dabo Swinney and Clemson flew down to Houston to visit him face-to-face one last time before his decision was supposed to be made. I don't know what happened, but I do know that Dabo Swinney and Clemson left the high school without ever meeting with Leon. The whole dynamic there late was really, really interesting. 
   
• 2020 had my other two. The first one was Donell Harris Jr., and I started writing my bit about Donell in the final couple of days there, and then I realized that it was December, but I still kept it in the article. Donell was so tough. Remember, he was a five-star kid from South Florida. He was so tough to get real information on, and depending on who you talked to, there were wild swings on what he was planning on doing.
   
• I was on the Signing Day Show, got a phone call that I had to walk out to the lobby to take, and a guy with real contacts in South Florida said, "Here's what's about to happen. Donell Harris is going to sit down at the table, and when he stands up to make his decision, he's going to take his hoodie off to reveal a Florida jacket. He's going to act like he's going to sign with Florida. Everybody is going to react. Once he gets the reaction from the crowd, he's going to unzip that jacket and take it off. He'll have an A&M shirt on. He's signing with the Aggies."
   
• Nobody else had that. There was enough specific detail to that that I kind of believe that this guy is tied in, and it was exactly right. The other one that I wrote about was McKinnley Jackson. That one was wild just because people were so dead set on he's picking A&M, so I had some folks here in College Station going, "We are way out of this thing. It's Alabama, and it's not close." He ended up signing with A&M that next morning.
   
• In the next couple of years, how I see February signing day is probably how it stands today. Probably how I would like to see it is very different. I just don't trust the NCAA to make prudent, pragmatic decisions.
   
• Right now, the biggest issue is the calendar. I'm OK with how the high school stuff is right now. Because I don't know that there's a better time in the calendar if you're going to have two signing days, when should you have the second one? February is actually a good time for one. That's the longest-standing tradition, but there's not a lot of action now happening because all these kids want to get it done with in December. That's fine. You have so many kids now.
   
• Five, six, seven years ago, how many early enrollees did you have? If you had five or six in a class, you felt like you were doing really good. Now, A&M is at a stop where they've got what, 23 kids in right now? Of the 24 they signed, all but one are here? I do think that lends more credence and more validity to keeping a December date. It's not perfect right now, but I think it's as close as it's going to get from the high school side if you're going to have two signing days. When they only had one, you could still have early enrollees. The kids just showed up on campus in January. They never really signed a letter of intent. They just enrolled for the spring semester. If they're going to keep it for two signing days, then I think they're in a pretty good spot from the high school ranks. 
   
• The calendar right now is just a total mess when it comes to the portal. Because the portal is becoming such a prevalent recruiting window, both in the winter and the spring, I think they've got to find some workarounds there. I don't know what they are, but I think it can be done more efficiently. These teams go to Omaha in the summer, and to a certain extent, it is a recruiting disadvantage. While all the teams not at Omaha are hosting players on campus, you're obviously getting ready to play for a national championship.
   
• It's a little bit different for football because you're not on the road as much. Omaha can be two weeks while you're up there away from your campus. Football, you're going to fly out for a few days and then fly back, so maybe it chops it up. I think there's an unfair competitive advantage for the teams that are not in playoff games.
   
• You go look at the portal rankings, and what do they even mean? It's a bunch of people guessing. LSU is really high up there. Texas Tech is really high up there. None of the teams that were in the playoffs, to my knowledge, did very well in the portal in terms of adding players. Now, you make the argument they have really good rosters. Their main job was to maintain what they had, and they've probably done a good job of doing that.
   
• I think Texas only added four or six players in the portal. They played in a CFP semifinal, so they had a good roster, and they did a good job of retention. But you could be in a spot like Penn State, where the receivers got gutted. How much of a chance did they really have to make an impact on next year's roster in the portal? I don't know, but that's where I think they can make some tweaks with the calendar is with the portal recruiting for these teams, especially the ones in the playoffs.
   
• You're even seeing schools like Missouri make much bigger investments into their football program. Obviously, Vanderbilt with Clark Lea is playing much better. They're trying to start some things in Nashville to bolster their football presence. 
   
• Everywhere you go around the league, you'll find rabid fanbases and incredible facilities. If not, elite NIL structures, then toward the bottom end of the league, burgeoning NIL structures. For the vast majority of the league, you're looking at elite NIL opportunities. I think the kids still know that. It still carries a lot of weight. The programs that you've been able to see outside the league that thrive in that environment are programs that have similar reputations and similar financial backing — Michigan and Ohio State stand out there. 
   
• The 2026 class is doing a good job. They jumped out to a really quick start, and I think they got to No. 1 in the country early on. I think they're sitting at No. 2 now. There's going to be so much movement between now and next signing day. There's a lot of football to be played.
   
• There are a lot of visits to go on. There are kids that we are not even discussing in terms of A&M's possibilities right now that are gonna pop up on the radar. There are also likely kids who are committed to Texas A&M that won't sign here. It's just the likelihood of the scenario and looking at the reality of the whole situation.
   
• It's interesting to me that they have gone out after the contact period is now over, but the coaches spent the better half of the month on the road. Specifically in the state of Texas trying to uncover. We talked about this last week. I believe that you know, regardless of what you think of an overall recruiting class as a whole in the state of Texas, where you think it's really talented, whether you think it's lacking in some areas. You know that in three or four years, that class is gonna produce probably 20 to 30 NFL Draft picks. 
   
• So you can't just completely write off everybody because maybe they don't have great sophomore or junior tape. You gotta make sure you're doing your homework and that you're going through looking at measurables as well. 
   
• They offered Calvin Thomas‍ out of Cy Ranch in Houston, who is really super athletic. A 6-foot-3, 210-pound linebacker who does some kind of outside-the-box mental things. His measurables are really intriguing.
   
• They're doing their homework. They're doing their due diligence to say, "Alright, whether we think this crop of players in the state of Texas is elite or not, there are going to be draft picks that come out of it. We gotta go try to find them.”