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 presented by American Momentum Bank, highlighting the latest news and notes from the recruiting trail surrounding Texas A&M.

Key notes from Recruiting Country

• Helaman Casuga‍ has been a long-time commit. He was Collin Klein's No. 1 target in this cycle. They went out and got him. The staff would be more than happy to just sign Casuga and be done. After last year, they got burnt by recruiting one out-of-state guy. A&M got very close to the end and was able to rally, but that's not a route you want to go down again. With quarterback recruiting, they are still talking to guys and keeping them warm. They are following guys in-state and out-of-state and tracking their progress. It is mostly in-state names they are doing their research on.
   
• There's a quarterback out of Cincinnati, Ohio, named Matt Ponatoski‍, who is an elite baseball player, like a potential MLB Draft guy. He has already been offered by Michael Earley and Caleb Longley. Ponatoski's turned himself into a really intriguing college quarterback, as well. That's a kid out-of-state that football is doing some digging on and, obviously, helping Earley with the recruitment. If Ponatoski wants to do both, right now, he's farther ahead as a baseball player, but he's starting to gain some steam on the football side, too. He was Mr. Ohio Football Player of the Year as a junior, which doesn't happen very often. That's a pretty good football state. He's got some real ability.
   
• In-state, you're looking at guys like Bowe Bentley‍ at Celina, Jack Daulton‍ out of the Woodlands and Keisean Henderson‍ at Houston Legacy. There are probably four or five quarterbacks in the state of Texas that they are continuing to do research on.
   
• Right now, a lot of what's going on in the recruiting and coaching department is going through the state and making sure they are doing double and triple checks on all of these in-state guys. They are going back through and figuring out if they missed anything. Do they have the measurables that could be indicators of future success that we missed before? Are they maturing a little bit more?
   
• One of the big data points that they are looking at right now is these Under Armour camps across the country. At these camps, they do verified measurements with the broad jump, 40-yard dash, 5-10-5 shuttle and L-cone drills. Some of these guys that may be later bloomers are putting up good times. As all that new information comes in, you could see A&M slide guys around on their big board. There's a lot of measurable and data evaluation going on right now in the recruiting room.
   
• The Under Armour camps are still ongoing, and they're a huge tool for some of these colleges because all those numbers go into a database and are disseminated. These college coaches can access it, which is usually beneficial for the kids. There's going to be one in Houston a little bit later, and there's going to be one more in Dallas. Then, there will be a lot of these kids that come here this summer to go through A&M camps. There are some other camps in the state at universities. I know TCU does a good job with their camp. They provide all the kids with the information through an app. As soon as you run the 40-yard dash, it gets uploaded. It's all verified, so you can take it and show other schools.
   
• There are more checkpoints now throughout a recruiting cycle to track the players, and I think that will help A&M get a better evaluation in the state of Texas. The 2025 class, we felt going into the year, was really good in the state. The 2027 class already looks like it will be a monster. 2026 was a little bit more interesting, but the data says there are going to be 25-30 guys from the state of Texas in this class that go to the NFL and get drafted, so you better make sure that you're doing your due diligence and finding those guys. Even if you don't think it's, as a whole, as talented as the last one.
   
• An example of a class that was highly touted but didn't live up to it is 2022. Not just the A&M class, but the class as a whole. Then, a class that wasn't as highly touted but turned out great is either 2020 or 2021. That's why this recruiting staff is doing as much homework on the state of Texas kids because they don't want to miss it. They don't want to miss on an Ashton Jeanty. They don't want to miss on a Nick Bolton, who was from Frisco, and A&M didn't really recruit. He went to Missouri and had an incredible career. Now, he's the starting linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs. You have to make sure you're not missing on those guys.
   
• The staff is in a lot better spot. There are a lot of guys that came with Mike Elko from Duke. There were some guys that remained from Jimbo Fisher's staff. There are some guys coming in from different areas. The more you work together, the better feel for the organizational structure and how information is supposed to flow you get. You're fully aware now of what your connections are both on the coaching staff and the recruiting staff.
   
• James Scott‍ is one of the newer offers. There are some guys that are steadily climbing the ladder, whether they have offers or not. Guys like Jermaine Bishop‍ are not getting any less of a push because they're reshuffling. Bishop is Sharpie’d into spot No. 1 on the big board. He's an incredible player, potentially a two-way player, who is sensationally good. Texas has had some turnover in their defensive staff, so A&M has needed to use that window to make up some ground or even go past Texas. Talking to some people, I think A&M is in a pretty good spot for Bishop.
   
• There are some guys that we weren't talking about much at all right after the 2025 class signed that are now starting to emerge as really intriguing prospects for the A&M coaching staff. Scott is one. He's from Oak Ridge and is like Amari Niblack in the way he's built, where he's either a really big outside receiver or a tight end. He's 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds. He definitely pops when you turn the tape on, and when you see him in person, undoubtedly, your eyes go to him.
   
• There's a kid at Fort Bend Marshall named Kaeden Johnson‍. He's played quarterback at Fort Bend Marshall, and he's 6-foot-6 and 220-ish pounds. He's probably not a quarterback in college, but you look at his athletic ability and how he runs. He's a standout on their basketball team, as well. He doesn't have an offer yet.
   
• Calvin Thomas‍ is a linebacker out of Cy Ranch, who they offered after going to see him in person. He's 6-foot-2 and 215 pounds. Thomas has the measurables that NFL linebackers have as 18-year-olds. Another one would be out of North Forney in Legend Bey‍, who is a quarterback in high school but probably won't be one in college. He's an elite athlete. He's climbing up a lot of people's charts.
   
• Henderson is an incredible kid. A lot of people were looking at Henderson in the same vein we talked about Johnson and Bey. An elite athlete playing quarterback who people projected as a receiver or a safety. Henderson has made tremendous strides as a thrower of the football. His head coach is Michael Bishop, who obviously is a really talented quarterback in his own right.
   
• Henderson is committed to Houston, so the Cougars will have a tough time holding on to him, but they've had his commitment because they went all-in on him early as a quarterback. Willie Fritz is going to have to hold off a lot of people. I like Henderson. He's really fun to talk to and is always smiling. He always has good energy and is a really positive kid.
   
• With Bentley, A&M is really behind on. I don't think they've offered. He had a really good year at Celina and won a state championship. His play style reminds me of Baker Mayfield. There's a lot of chatter around recruiting circles that Oklahoma was his dream school, and Oklahoma offered, so I don't see that being a possibility.
   
• Daulton is the epitome of a late riser at the Woodlands. He's gone to these camps and put up some pretty impressive times athletically that maybe you don't see all the time on film. TCU did a good job there. They went all in and got the commitment, but that's another one like Henderson. If the other big ones start coming in, the Horned Frogs might have a fight on their hands.
   
• A&M is at nine commits. It's tough because some of these commits have popped up out of nowhere. Jermaine Kinsler‍ was scheduling official visits and then decided after he scheduled his official visit at A&M, "OK, I really liked what I heard. Let's jump in the boat." I don't anticipate anything happening until spring practices start and you start seeing guys come to campus. That will be a couple of weeks away. The names are the same names that we’ve been keeping an eye on. Most notably, Jonathan Hatton Jr‍.
   
• When you go that heavy out-of-state early, you're going to lose some of them. There are some guys still on the commitment list that, being quite candid, they're not going to sign with A&M. That's the way it goes with every recruiting cycle.
   
• If you look back at what A&M did in the last cycle, Elko did a bang-up job in California. He won some head-to-heads over Oregon. They won more head-to-heads over Texas than people really want to believe. Especially when you go look at how hard the Longhorns pushed for guys like DJ Sanders and Chace Sims, and A&M was able to hold onto them. Marco Jones was another one with early returns on the baseball and football sides. He is blowing people away.
   
• There is a long time to go between now, August camp and the games in September. If you're asking for the most impressive guy on campus out of that 2025 signing class, it might be Jones in both sports. What Terrence Kiel II is doing is also really impressive on the baseball side. That group, when you go back and look at some of the head-to-head battles they won, A&M knows how to weather the storm, but inevitably, you're going to lose a couple. That's why I think they are going to make sure that they don't let these Texas kids get away.
   
• Everybody gets enamored with the transfer portal. They had influential guys on last year's team. They're going to have influential guys on this year's team out of the portal. I still believe that the bread and butter of your program is signing really good players out of high school and developing them within your culture.
   
• Aaron Gregory‍ is going to be a strong commit. He is a five-star receiver and is one of the best in the country. A&M got his commitment early. He is going to have Georgia, Auburn and Alabama in his ear. Everybody will be in his ear. Gregory can go pick his program so that one is going to be a huge fight to hold onto. Trooper Taylor and Holmon Wiggins have done a good job building those relationships. We will see. Nothing is guaranteed in this thing, especially when you get kids from out of state in the SEC footprint.
   
• Kirby Smart is not going to let Gregory walk out of his state without a real fight. Right now, it is OK, but that could change. It is kind of the world we are living in right now.