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Jimbo 2020: Strangers with Candi


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2 hours ago, golfclap said:

With Jackson and Hubbard they are up against the 25 cap, so Evans would have to blueshirt toward '21 and pay his own way for a year. Not seeing that. Looking like he will end up at Ole Miss or maybe Tenner? USC will have LOADS of room. Baylor will have room?!? 

A blueshirt does count against 2021, but they can play right away and they can be put on scholarship right away. Blueshirts don't have to pay their own way for a year. But they can't blueshirt Zach Evans, as he was recruited by Aggy. He took an official visit. If Zach Evans shows up in the fall, he would either need to Greyshirt or have someone else not count against the Hard 25 to be a part of the 2020 class. If all 25 sign their LOI or no one drops out, medically retires, etc., then Evans would have to Greyshirt. Yes, he would then not be able to play in the fall, and would not be on scholarship until spring 2021. Now, if Aggy is willing to pay Jimbo 7.5 mil/year, buy Demas, Jaylon, Jackson, do you really think they give a fuck about paying Zach Evans during the fall to keep him happy? Will any of this happen? Who knows. Probably not. But it won't be because A&M won't pay a recruit. Saban changed the game. Aggy is just playing by the his rules, ie, there are none. 

 

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55 minutes ago, texaslong said:

Looks like Looch has Jackson as the #2 DT In the country and a 5 star. 

What the fuck does Liucci know about national recruiting?!?!?!?!

I can almost buy him putting out a Texas list, but him ranking guys nationally is just completely without shame.  

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9 minutes ago, Bill Lumbergh said:
2 hours ago, Hank_Hill said:
Lol, nothing false in here whatsoever.
 

There's a lot laughable there, but number three on that list really takes the cake. Even for looch that's a yikes.

Yeaaa that's the main one. There are two QBs ranked ahead of King. Wonder where they're both committed?

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Behind the Scenes: How Texas A&M's 2020 

Brian PerroniSTAFF

 

Just to start off, since his recruitment is still going on, we won’t be getting into anything about Zachary Evans. That’s going to take a book one day, anyway.

-Starting at quarterback, it once looked like Malik Hornsby would be the one taken in the class by the Aggies. He was offered early and made a commitment at the Clemson game early in his junior year. However, as you guys know, he never went public with it.

This was a situation where A&M was gun-shy about taking a quarterback so early. They knew that whoever they got in the class had to be considered ‘can’t-miss.’ They were high on Hornsby, but they weren’t quite sure yet that was him.


The Aggies sort of played the political game of, ‘Go home and sleep on it and make sure the decision is right for you.’ They wanted to keep pursuing him, but weren’t ready for him to be in the class.


His pledge was leaked, but he kept pushing the video back that he was going to announce with. We respected his wishes in waiting for the video – which never ended up coming. He did truly have an issue with making it, but A&M was also working behind the scenes to slow things down a bit. They made sure to let him know he was wanted, but also that they weren’t quite ready to take a QB.


That’s when you saw Hornsby say he wanted to slow things down and look at other schools. That was partly his decision and partly A&M’s. Eventually, the Aggies went all-in on Haynes King, so it was obvious they moved in a different direction.


Darrell Dickey remained in contact with Hornsby and the Aggies still recruited him as an athlete. He even took an official visit with teammate Devon Achane. But, he wanted to play quarterback and, after hearing the different pitches on his official visit for how he would be used, he eliminated A&M from consideration. He told me that the next week.There likely would not have been room anyway, even as an athlete, but that was pretty much the end of it.


A&M is happy with King and Hornsby is happy to have gotten a chance to play QB in the SEC at Arkansas, so it all worked out. But, there was definitely a reason for the initial ‘delay’ in his announcement.

-For a little while, Haynes King was honestly torn between Tennessee and A&M. He had been recruited by Tennessee a lot longer than he had by the Aggies.


However, A&M gave him the chance to stay close to home and be the only quarterback in a class. The Aggies are also going to have the starting QB spot open in the 2021 season.
For a while, he was still torn as a ‘head vs. heart’ thing, but that did not last too long. The delay was more about him finding a way to tell Tennessee ‘no.’ He had built a solid relationship with the staff. Once he did that, he announced for A&M the next day.

-At running back, A&M very much wanted EJ Smith to sign in December. He had given some signals that he planned to pick the Aggies. However, an unofficial visit to Stanford late in the season opened his eyes.


We were told from the Stanford side right after the visit that the Cardinal thought the trip was a home run. Still, though, he was talking to A&M a lot. Stanford’s confidence started to wane a bit.


It was not until late the night before the Early Signing Period that Stanford basically got the news he would be picking them the next day. A&M tried to counter, but it just did not end up happening.


I know some people here think that A&M’s pursuit of Evans hurt the Aggies with Smith, but it really was just the combination of football and academics at Stanford that won out in the 11th hour.

-When five-star wide receiver Demond Demas committed to A&M at the Clemson game during his junior season, it came as a surprise. He had not included the Aggies in his most recent top-5. However, he was always changing that around and moreso wanted to ‘feel the love’ more from A&M. Not including them was certainly a way to get that attention.


Demas made that commitment and wide receivers coach Dameyune Craig was a big reason why. However, there were rumors right after that he might decommit.


There were legs to those rumors as he thought he might have decided too early. He was strongly considering backing off his pledge. However, Craig really went to work there and kept him in the fold and the rest was history. He became the leader of the class and was in Aggieland seemingly every weekend.

-This is a short note but the Troy Omeire flip to Texas caught a lot of people offguard. Texas had remained in contact with him, but nobody really expected anything to come from it. I had just been out to his practice like a week prior, and there was talk of it.


Texas worked hard behind the scenes, so give them credit. In the end, though, A&M did not need four receivers in the class, so they didn’t chase after him to try to get him to flip back.

-Four-star OG Akinola Ogunbiyi took an Uber to A&M all the way from Sugar Land for an unofficial visit once he got his offer. He committed almost immediately after. Though, when Jim Turner left for the NFL, he opening things up again.


Many, including the staff in Norman, thought he was Oklahoma-bound. However, he had taken an under-the-radar trip to Georgia and was sold on the Bulldogs. He put out a graphic before his Oklahoma visit that had a dog paw print small in the corner of it as sort of a hint that he planned to be a Bulldog.


After committing to Georgia, Ogunbiyi made a ‘secret’ official visit to A&M. That was when he started strongly considering flipping back to the Aggies. A couple weeks later, he made a ‘secret’ unofficial visit and that is when he committed to the coaches.


Just like I had with his Crystal Ball for Georgia, I had agreed with Aki that I would not switch anything until close to his announcement. He planned to return home to Sugar Land and then announce the next day. Well, A&M did not want to take the risk of the Bulldogs talking him out of things. Dameyune Craig wanted to make sure he went public with it, so convinced Aki to do it then and there. That, my friends, is how I took the first hit on my Crystal Ball picks in the class. I knew it was coming, but kept to his wishes. But, I was foiled by Craig ha!

-It seemed at one point that Athens offensive lineman Garrett Hayes would be an Aggie. He came from an A&M family and A&M was recruiting him heavily.
In the end, that actually sort of backfired a bit. He wanted to do his own thing, and not the thing that was expected of him.


Arkansas looked like the most likely destination, but TCU got that visit on the Frogs’ bye week and that cemented them as the ones likely to land him.


Hayes never did take an official to A&M. On his last unofficial, it was a bit telling that he wasn’t all that interested in seeing the campus or facilities or anything. He wanted to go fishing. So, he and some of the staff went out to Research Park and just went fishing.

-Other schools, namely Florida and Maryland, were working Fadil Diggs really hard prior to the Early Signing Period. There was even a report that he was not going to sign that day.
Turns out, that report was false. Diggs actually sent his NLI really early and A&M held onto it until he announced. There were some people around him worried that Elijah Robinson might leave and that’s where the rumors started, but Robinson worked hard to alleviate the concern.

-With McKinnley Jackson, even before his visit, we were getting reports of some serious optimism from A&M. The Aggies had worked hard to get the final visit but, also, Jackson wanted to use his final visit to A&M as well.


We got more reports after the trip that A&M really liked where it stood. However, so did Alabama. The Tide are not normally wrong in this, so it gave me pause when they seemed to feel so good about landing him.


However, late Tuesday night, I talked to two different people that are quite plugged in and both said A&M was very, very confident in getting him. It still didn’t match up with what Alabama thought, but these were from two completely different sources, so I felt pretty good about putting the Crystal Ball prediction in.


Even when the announcement rolled around, I still was only about 75% in my head that it would be the Aggies.


Jackson apparently had done an interview earlier in the week where he said he has known for a year where he was going, but I think that was an exaggeration. However, A&M had felt good for a bit, so him saying that he told the ‘winning’ staff a couple months ago could be true. However, he also gave a couple other staffs at least the impression that he was choosing them.


Jimbo, Robinson and Terry Price all did a very, very good job on this one. It was all about connections and they built those with Jackson from the beginning.

-Staying at defensive tackle, the Vernon Broughton saga seems like a long time ago now.


When Broughton came to camp in June, he actually did so trying to earn a spot in the class. A&M wanted to see him in action in person, and he knew that coming to camp was essentially an ‘audition.’ The fact that he showed up anyway, despite being highly-ranked, was pretty telling of his interest in the Aggies.


However, Texas had his family in its corner. They also had put the full-court press on him. A&M was recruiting him really heavily as well, but probably not quite as hard as Texas.
Once he decided to make a video, it was a done deal to the Longhorns. Even with the delay, it was still going to be Texas. Texas was very much in the know on everything with him and it was obvious that he was communicating way more with them than anybody else.


I don’t know how many he told this, but Broughton did tell a couple A&M commits that he was going to be an Aggie. I don’t know if he was intentionally trying to mislead, if he had trouble telling them no or if he was a bit torn, but that is likely why other outlets had him predicted to be an Aggie.

-As for Josh Ellison, I honestly still don’t know exactly what happened. I’m just including him in here because I know people will ask. He was a full qualifier and could leave Blinn at any point. He also could have gone to any school. In talking to both him and the Blinn coaches, I never pushed for an exact reason, but A&M just said it was going in a different direction and there was not a spot in the class anymore.

-Though Illinois did make things a little interesting late, Antonio Doyle was basically committed to the Aggies for quite some time.


He had rushed into making a pledge to in-state Missouri in the spring on an unofficial visit. That was surprising because everybody around him said he was expected to be an Aggie. He ended up cancelling his spring official visit to A&M.


Over the summer, though, he began to have second thoughts. And he started favoring A&M again and pretty much told A&M he was coming. However, he was concerned about decommitting in that it could affect a big decision surrounding his high school team.


Standout four-star junior Travion Ford had an eligibility hearing coming up after transferring in the offseason. Doyle was worried about potential political repercussions for his team if he decommitted from the in-state school. So, he held back on doing so until the decision. Then, as soon as the ruling for Ford came down, Doyle decommitted from Missouri that same day. (Side note: Ford was actually ruled ineligible. But, a few weeks later, he won his appeal).


Illinois really worked hard by using the distance factor, especially with Doyle having a young child. But, in the end, he went public with his A&M commitment and signed with the Aggies.

-Over the summer, A&M made a number of cornerback offers and was actually in good position to land several of them. The problem was, they all wanted to commit around the same time. The Aggies had to make a decision on which one or ones to take.


They ended up deciding that their main target was Joshuah Moten. He had been a heavy A&M lean since decommitting from Penn State in order to use his official to Aggieland.
There were two other players – Joseph Johnson out of Virginia and Joey Hunter out of Georgia – that were planning to commit to A&M as well. In tough phone calls, A&M had to let both know that there was not a spot. Johnson ended up at Penn State and Hunter at South Carolina.

-4-star Shadow Creek S Xavion Alford told me right before his fall camp started that he was about to commit to A&M. He had a public timeline that was supposed to be later, but he said he was going to commit that next week.


Alford ended up announcing that next week, as he had told me, but decided to go with Texas.


The Longhorns did a good job there but the Aggies deciding to pass on Joshua Eaton, who was also scheduled to announce for A&M around the same time, was a big deal to him and caused Alford to look stronger at Texas.


A&M really likes its secondary haul, so it worked out not getting either player. But, they basically had to choose a package of Eaton and Alford or neither and rolled the dice with neither.

-If you are keeping track, here are the guys in the class that made ‘silent’ commitments quite a bit before announcing publicly: Antonio Doyle, Chris Morris, Muhsin Muhammad III and Darvon Hubbard

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3 minutes ago, Longhornfrenzy said:

Behind the Scenes: How Texas A&M's 2020 

Brian PerroniSTAFF

 

Just to start off, since his recruitment is still going on, we won’t be getting into anything about Zachary Evans. That’s going to take a book one day, anyway.

-Starting at quarterback, it once looked like Malik Hornsby would be the one taken in the class by the Aggies. He was offered early and made a commitment at the Clemson game early in his junior year. However, as you guys know, he never went public with it.

This was a situation where A&M was gun-shy about taking a quarterback so early. They knew that whoever they got in the class had to be considered ‘can’t-miss.’ They were high on Hornsby, but they weren’t quite sure yet that was him.


The Aggies sort of played the political game of, ‘Go home and sleep on it and make sure the decision is right for you.’ They wanted to keep pursuing him, but weren’t ready for him to be in the class.


His pledge was leaked, but he kept pushing the video back that he was going to announce with. We respected his wishes in waiting for the video – which never ended up coming. He did truly have an issue with making it, but A&M was also working behind the scenes to slow things down a bit. They made sure to let him know he was wanted, but also that they weren’t quite ready to take a QB.


That’s when you saw Hornsby say he wanted to slow things down and look at other schools. That was partly his decision and partly A&M’s. Eventually, the Aggies went all-in on Haynes King, so it was obvious they moved in a different direction.


Darrell Dickey remained in contact with Hornsby and the Aggies still recruited him as an athlete. He even took an official visit with teammate Devon Achane. But, he wanted to play quarterback and, after hearing the different pitches on his official visit for how he would be used, he eliminated A&M from consideration. He told me that the next week.There likely would not have been room anyway, even as an athlete, but that was pretty much the end of it.


A&M is happy with King and Hornsby is happy to have gotten a chance to play QB in the SEC at Arkansas, so it all worked out. But, there was definitely a reason for the initial ‘delay’ in his announcement.

-For a little while, Haynes King was honestly torn between Tennessee and A&M. He had been recruited by Tennessee a lot longer than he had by the Aggies.


However, A&M gave him the chance to stay close to home and be the only quarterback in a class. The Aggies are also going to have the starting QB spot open in the 2021 season.
For a while, he was still torn as a ‘head vs. heart’ thing, but that did not last too long. The delay was more about him finding a way to tell Tennessee ‘no.’ He had built a solid relationship with the staff. Once he did that, he announced for A&M the next day.

-At running back, A&M very much wanted EJ Smith to sign in December. He had given some signals that he planned to pick the Aggies. However, an unofficial visit to Stanford late in the season opened his eyes.


We were told from the Stanford side right after the visit that the Cardinal thought the trip was a home run. Still, though, he was talking to A&M a lot. Stanford’s confidence started to wane a bit.


It was not until late the night before the Early Signing Period that Stanford basically got the news he would be picking them the next day. A&M tried to counter, but it just did not end up happening.


I know some people here think that A&M’s pursuit of Evans hurt the Aggies with Smith, but it really was just the combination of football and academics at Stanford that won out in the 11th hour.

-When five-star wide receiver Demond Demas committed to A&M at the Clemson game during his junior season, it came as a surprise. He had not included the Aggies in his most recent top-5. However, he was always changing that around and moreso wanted to ‘feel the love’ more from A&M. Not including them was certainly a way to get that attention.


Demas made that commitment and wide receivers coach Dameyune Craig was a big reason why. However, there were rumors right after that he might decommit.


There were legs to those rumors as he thought he might have decided too early. He was strongly considering backing off his pledge. However, Craig really went to work there and kept him in the fold and the rest was history. He became the leader of the class and was in Aggieland seemingly every weekend.

-This is a short note but the Troy Omeire flip to Texas caught a lot of people offguard. Texas had remained in contact with him, but nobody really expected anything to come from it. I had just been out to his practice like a week prior, and there was talk of it.


Texas worked hard behind the scenes, so give them credit. In the end, though, A&M did not need four receivers in the class, so they didn’t chase after him to try to get him to flip back.

-Four-star OG Akinola Ogunbiyi took an Uber to A&M all the way from Sugar Land for an unofficial visit once he got his offer. He committed almost immediately after. Though, when Jim Turner left for the NFL, he opening things up again.


Many, including the staff in Norman, thought he was Oklahoma-bound. However, he had taken an under-the-radar trip to Georgia and was sold on the Bulldogs. He put out a graphic before his Oklahoma visit that had a dog paw print small in the corner of it as sort of a hint that he planned to be a Bulldog.


After committing to Georgia, Ogunbiyi made a ‘secret’ official visit to A&M. That was when he started strongly considering flipping back to the Aggies. A couple weeks later, he made a ‘secret’ unofficial visit and that is when he committed to the coaches.


Just like I had with his Crystal Ball for Georgia, I had agreed with Aki that I would not switch anything until close to his announcement. He planned to return home to Sugar Land and then announce the next day. Well, A&M did not want to take the risk of the Bulldogs talking him out of things. Dameyune Craig wanted to make sure he went public with it, so convinced Aki to do it then and there. That, my friends, is how I took the first hit on my Crystal Ball picks in the class. I knew it was coming, but kept to his wishes. But, I was foiled by Craig ha!

-It seemed at one point that Athens offensive lineman Garrett Hayes would be an Aggie. He came from an A&M family and A&M was recruiting him heavily.
In the end, that actually sort of backfired a bit. He wanted to do his own thing, and not the thing that was expected of him.


Arkansas looked like the most likely destination, but TCU got that visit on the Frogs’ bye week and that cemented them as the ones likely to land him.


Hayes never did take an official to A&M. On his last unofficial, it was a bit telling that he wasn’t all that interested in seeing the campus or facilities or anything. He wanted to go fishing. So, he and some of the staff went out to Research Park and just went fishing.

-Other schools, namely Florida and Maryland, were working Fadil Diggs really hard prior to the Early Signing Period. There was even a report that he was not going to sign that day.
Turns out, that report was false. Diggs actually sent his NLI really early and A&M held onto it until he announced. There were some people around him worried that Elijah Robinson might leave and that’s where the rumors started, but Robinson worked hard to alleviate the concern.

-With McKinnley Jackson, even before his visit, we were getting reports of some serious optimism from A&M. The Aggies had worked hard to get the final visit but, also, Jackson wanted to use his final visit to A&M as well.


We got more reports after the trip that A&M really liked where it stood. However, so did Alabama. The Tide are not normally wrong in this, so it gave me pause when they seemed to feel so good about landing him.


However, late Tuesday night, I talked to two different people that are quite plugged in and both said A&M was very, very confident in getting him. It still didn’t match up with what Alabama thought, but these were from two completely different sources, so I felt pretty good about putting the Crystal Ball prediction in.


Even when the announcement rolled around, I still was only about 75% in my head that it would be the Aggies.


Jackson apparently had done an interview earlier in the week where he said he has known for a year where he was going, but I think that was an exaggeration. However, A&M had felt good for a bit, so him saying that he told the ‘winning’ staff a couple months ago could be true. However, he also gave a couple other staffs at least the impression that he was choosing them.


Jimbo, Robinson and Terry Price all did a very, very good job on this one. It was all about connections and they built those with Jackson from the beginning.

-Staying at defensive tackle, the Vernon Broughton saga seems like a long time ago now.


When Broughton came to camp in June, he actually did so trying to earn a spot in the class. A&M wanted to see him in action in person, and he knew that coming to camp was essentially an ‘audition.’ The fact that he showed up anyway, despite being highly-ranked, was pretty telling of his interest in the Aggies.


However, Texas had his family in its corner. They also had put the full-court press on him. A&M was recruiting him really heavily as well, but probably not quite as hard as Texas.
Once he decided to make a video, it was a done deal to the Longhorns. Even with the delay, it was still going to be Texas. Texas was very much in the know on everything with him and it was obvious that he was communicating way more with them than anybody else.


I don’t know how many he told this, but Broughton did tell a couple A&M commits that he was going to be an Aggie. I don’t know if he was intentionally trying to mislead, if he had trouble telling them no or if he was a bit torn, but that is likely why other outlets had him predicted to be an Aggie.

-As for Josh Ellison, I honestly still don’t know exactly what happened. I’m just including him in here because I know people will ask. He was a full qualifier and could leave Blinn at any point. He also could have gone to any school. In talking to both him and the Blinn coaches, I never pushed for an exact reason, but A&M just said it was going in a different direction and there was not a spot in the class anymore.

-Though Illinois did make things a little interesting late, Antonio Doyle was basically committed to the Aggies for quite some time.


He had rushed into making a pledge to in-state Missouri in the spring on an unofficial visit. That was surprising because everybody around him said he was expected to be an Aggie. He ended up cancelling his spring official visit to A&M.


Over the summer, though, he began to have second thoughts. And he started favoring A&M again and pretty much told A&M he was coming. However, he was concerned about decommitting in that it could affect a big decision surrounding his high school team.


Standout four-star junior Travion Ford had an eligibility hearing coming up after transferring in the offseason. Doyle was worried about potential political repercussions for his team if he decommitted from the in-state school. So, he held back on doing so until the decision. Then, as soon as the ruling for Ford came down, Doyle decommitted from Missouri that same day. (Side note: Ford was actually ruled ineligible. But, a few weeks later, he won his appeal).


Illinois really worked hard by using the distance factor, especially with Doyle having a young child. But, in the end, he went public with his A&M commitment and signed with the Aggies.

-Over the summer, A&M made a number of cornerback offers and was actually in good position to land several of them. The problem was, they all wanted to commit around the same time. The Aggies had to make a decision on which one or ones to take.


They ended up deciding that their main target was Joshuah Moten. He had been a heavy A&M lean since decommitting from Penn State in order to use his official to Aggieland.
There were two other players – Joseph Johnson out of Virginia and Joey Hunter out of Georgia – that were planning to commit to A&M as well. In tough phone calls, A&M had to let both know that there was not a spot. Johnson ended up at Penn State and Hunter at South Carolina.

-4-star Shadow Creek S Xavion Alford told me right before his fall camp started that he was about to commit to A&M. He had a public timeline that was supposed to be later, but he said he was going to commit that next week.


Alford ended up announcing that next week, as he had told me, but decided to go with Texas.


The Longhorns did a good job there but the Aggies deciding to pass on Joshua Eaton, who was also scheduled to announce for A&M around the same time, was a big deal to him and caused Alford to look stronger at Texas.


A&M really likes its secondary haul, so it worked out not getting either player. But, they basically had to choose a package of Eaton and Alford or neither and rolled the dice with neither.

-If you are keeping track, here are the guys in the class that made ‘silent’ commitments quite a bit before announcing publicly: Antonio Doyle, Chris Morris, Muhsin Muhammad III and Darvon Hubbard

tl;dr - aggy backed off cruits we didn't get

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13 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

What the fuck does Liucci know about national recruiting?!?!?!?!

He knows that if you sign for the ags, you are underrated by the national guys.  If you sign for an SEC West team, you will be a first rounder.  And he knows if you constantly revise your own list to keep those that signed with the ags or SEC West teams at the top, but nuke the previous lists, no one in the ag fanbase will call him on it.  

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-When five-star wide receiver Demond Demas committed to A&M at the Clemson game during his junior season, it came as a surprise. He had not included the Aggies in his most recent top-5. However, he was always changing that around and moreso wanted to ‘feel the love’ more from A&M. Not including them was certainly a way to get that attention.

 

love=$$$

 

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When Broughton came to camp in June, he actually did so trying to earn a spot in the class. A&M wanted to see him in action in person, and he knew that coming to camp was essentially an ‘audition.’ The fact that he showed up anyway, despite being highly-ranked, was pretty telling of his interest in the Aggies.


However, Texas had his family in its corner. They also had put the full-court press on him. A&M was recruiting him really heavily as well, but probably not quite as hard as Texas.
Once he decided to make a video, it was a done deal to the Longhorns. Even with the delay, it was still going to be Texas. Texas was very much in the know on everything with him and it was obvious that he was communicating way more with them than anybody else.


I don’t know how many he told this, but Broughton did tell a couple A&M commits that he was going to be an Aggie. I don’t know if he was intentionally trying to mislead, if he had trouble telling them no or if he was a bit torn, but that is likely why other outlets had him predicted to be an Aggie.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Soooo...to paraphrase a bit, Broughton wanted to be aggy so bad that he was willing to try out essentially, but his momma made him go to Texas. Even though he told some aggy commits he wanted to be an aggy. But he might have been lying....riiight. 

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27 minutes ago, texifornia said:

Oh, Karen. We literally signed a better class than yours last year BECAUSE we can recruit nationally

  Reveal hidden contents

EQF-4wNXsAAgOan?format=jpg&name=smallEQF-87HWsAAuK44?format=jpg&name=small

 

I remember literally last year they were crowing about how Jimbo beat Herman in Texas so badly that Herman had to leave the state to "fill out" his class.

That wind direction changes quickly in the BCS, doesn't it?

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2 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

I remember literally last year they were crowing about how Jimbo beat Herman in Texas so badly that Herman had to leave the state to "fill out" his class.

That wind direction changes quickly in the BCS, doesn't it?

Yea but Herman was forced. Jimbo chose to. 

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11 minutes ago, Dennis Taylor said:

When Broughton came to camp in June, he actually did so trying to earn a spot in the class. A&M wanted to see him in action in person, and he knew that coming to camp was essentially an ‘audition.’ The fact that he showed up anyway, despite being highly-ranked, was pretty telling of his interest in the Aggies.


However, Texas had his family in its corner. They also had put the full-court press on him. A&M was recruiting him really heavily as well, but probably not quite as hard as Texas.
Once he decided to make a video, it was a done deal to the Longhorns. Even with the delay, it was still going to be Texas. Texas was very much in the know on everything with him and it was obvious that he was communicating way more with them than anybody else.


I don’t know how many he told this, but Broughton did tell a couple A&M commits that he was going to be an Aggie. I don’t know if he was intentionally trying to mislead, if he had trouble telling them no or if he was a bit torn, but that is likely why other outlets had him predicted to be an Aggie.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Soooo...to paraphrase a bit, Broughton wanted to be aggy so bad that he was willing to try out essentially, but his momma made him go to Texas. Even though he told some aggy commits he wanted to be an aggy. But he might have been lying....riiight. 

Them trying to claim Broughton didn’t have a committbale offer the entire cycle is hilarious, yet oh so predictably aggy.

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10 minutes ago, texifornia said:

Oh, Karen. We literally signed a better class than yours last year BECAUSE we can recruit nationally

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Lulz, aggy has to buy OOS guys because the in state Texas high school coaches hate him. Considering how well their OOS recruiting as gone so far I'm not sure they should be crowing about it.

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I love it.  They spend so much fucking time deciphering the UT class,  but only in regards to the rankings.  If they watched the tape, they'd know why Collins isn't just some project, which seems to be the newest talking point.  Also funny how much they dog the same service that has a shitload of their players overranked.

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"Collins is a nice prospect but it's a big red flag he did absolutely nothing in the all star game"

 

Did they see their "#1 in TX" QB in the "all star" game? 3/12 for 48 yards. Is it a big red flag that his senior season featured a massive drop off from his junior year? 

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3 minutes ago, B00M said:

"Collins is a nice prospect but it's a big red flag he did absolutely nothing in the all star game"

 

Did they see their "#1 in TX" QB in the "all star" game? 3/12 for 48 yards. Is it a big red flag that his senior season featured a massive drop off from his junior year? 

That was the O-lines fault.  They put all the studs with the sip QB.  Fucking BOMC strikes again.  Sleeping giant. Blah, blah.

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2 hours ago, Longhornfrenzy said:

Behind the Scenes: How Texas A&M's 2020 

Brian PerroniSTAFF

 

Just to start off, since his recruitment is still going on, we won’t be getting into anything about Zachary Evans. That’s going to take a book one day, anyway.

-Starting at quarterback, it once looked like Malik Hornsby would be the one taken in the class by the Aggies. He was offered early and made a commitment at the Clemson game early in his junior year. However, as you guys know, he never went public with it.

This was a situation where A&M was gun-shy about taking a quarterback so early. They knew that whoever they got in the class had to be considered ‘can’t-miss.’ They were high on Hornsby, but they weren’t quite sure yet that was him.


The Aggies sort of played the political game of, ‘Go home and sleep on it and make sure the decision is right for you.’ They wanted to keep pursuing him, but weren’t ready for him to be in the class.


His pledge was leaked, but he kept pushing the video back that he was going to announce with. We respected his wishes in waiting for the video – which never ended up coming. He did truly have an issue with making it, but A&M was also working behind the scenes to slow things down a bit. They made sure to let him know he was wanted, but also that they weren’t quite ready to take a QB.


That’s when you saw Hornsby say he wanted to slow things down and look at other schools. That was partly his decision and partly A&M’s. Eventually, the Aggies went all-in on Haynes King, so it was obvious they moved in a different direction.


Darrell Dickey remained in contact with Hornsby and the Aggies still recruited him as an athlete. He even took an official visit with teammate Devon Achane. But, he wanted to play quarterback and, after hearing the different pitches on his official visit for how he would be used, he eliminated A&M from consideration. He told me that the next week.There likely would not have been room anyway, even as an athlete, but that was pretty much the end of it.


A&M is happy with King and Hornsby is happy to have gotten a chance to play QB in the SEC at Arkansas, so it all worked out. But, there was definitely a reason for the initial ‘delay’ in his announcement.

-For a little while, Haynes King was honestly torn between Tennessee and A&M. He had been recruited by Tennessee a lot longer than he had by the Aggies.


However, A&M gave him the chance to stay close to home and be the only quarterback in a class. The Aggies are also going to have the starting QB spot open in the 2021 season.
For a while, he was still torn as a ‘head vs. heart’ thing, but that did not last too long. The delay was more about him finding a way to tell Tennessee ‘no.’ He had built a solid relationship with the staff. Once he did that, he announced for A&M the next day.

-At running back, A&M very much wanted EJ Smith to sign in December. He had given some signals that he planned to pick the Aggies. However, an unofficial visit to Stanford late in the season opened his eyes.


We were told from the Stanford side right after the visit that the Cardinal thought the trip was a home run. Still, though, he was talking to A&M a lot. Stanford’s confidence started to wane a bit.


It was not until late the night before the Early Signing Period that Stanford basically got the news he would be picking them the next day. A&M tried to counter, but it just did not end up happening.


I know some people here think that A&M’s pursuit of Evans hurt the Aggies with Smith, but it really was just the combination of football and academics at Stanford that won out in the 11th hour.

-When five-star wide receiver Demond Demas committed to A&M at the Clemson game during his junior season, it came as a surprise. He had not included the Aggies in his most recent top-5. However, he was always changing that around and moreso wanted to ‘feel the love’ more from A&M. Not including them was certainly a way to get that attention.


Demas made that commitment and wide receivers coach Dameyune Craig was a big reason why. However, there were rumors right after that he might decommit.


There were legs to those rumors as he thought he might have decided too early. He was strongly considering backing off his pledge. However, Craig really went to work there and kept him in the fold and the rest was history. He became the leader of the class and was in Aggieland seemingly every weekend.

-This is a short note but the Troy Omeire flip to Texas caught a lot of people offguard. Texas had remained in contact with him, but nobody really expected anything to come from it. I had just been out to his practice like a week prior, and there was talk of it.


Texas worked hard behind the scenes, so give them credit. In the end, though, A&M did not need four receivers in the class, so they didn’t chase after him to try to get him to flip back.

-Four-star OG Akinola Ogunbiyi took an Uber to A&M all the way from Sugar Land for an unofficial visit once he got his offer. He committed almost immediately after. Though, when Jim Turner left for the NFL, he opening things up again.


Many, including the staff in Norman, thought he was Oklahoma-bound. However, he had taken an under-the-radar trip to Georgia and was sold on the Bulldogs. He put out a graphic before his Oklahoma visit that had a dog paw print small in the corner of it as sort of a hint that he planned to be a Bulldog.


After committing to Georgia, Ogunbiyi made a ‘secret’ official visit to A&M. That was when he started strongly considering flipping back to the Aggies. A couple weeks later, he made a ‘secret’ unofficial visit and that is when he committed to the coaches.


Just like I had with his Crystal Ball for Georgia, I had agreed with Aki that I would not switch anything until close to his announcement. He planned to return home to Sugar Land and then announce the next day. Well, A&M did not want to take the risk of the Bulldogs talking him out of things. Dameyune Craig wanted to make sure he went public with it, so convinced Aki to do it then and there. That, my friends, is how I took the first hit on my Crystal Ball picks in the class. I knew it was coming, but kept to his wishes. But, I was foiled by Craig ha!

-It seemed at one point that Athens offensive lineman Garrett Hayes would be an Aggie. He came from an A&M family and A&M was recruiting him heavily.
In the end, that actually sort of backfired a bit. He wanted to do his own thing, and not the thing that was expected of him.


Arkansas looked like the most likely destination, but TCU got that visit on the Frogs’ bye week and that cemented them as the ones likely to land him.


Hayes never did take an official to A&M. On his last unofficial, it was a bit telling that he wasn’t all that interested in seeing the campus or facilities or anything. He wanted to go fishing. So, he and some of the staff went out to Research Park and just went fishing.

-Other schools, namely Florida and Maryland, were working Fadil Diggs really hard prior to the Early Signing Period. There was even a report that he was not going to sign that day.
Turns out, that report was false. Diggs actually sent his NLI really early and A&M held onto it until he announced. There were some people around him worried that Elijah Robinson might leave and that’s where the rumors started, but Robinson worked hard to alleviate the concern.

-With McKinnley Jackson, even before his visit, we were getting reports of some serious optimism from A&M. The Aggies had worked hard to get the final visit but, also, Jackson wanted to use his final visit to A&M as well.


We got more reports after the trip that A&M really liked where it stood. However, so did Alabama. The Tide are not normally wrong in this, so it gave me pause when they seemed to feel so good about landing him.


However, late Tuesday night, I talked to two different people that are quite plugged in and both said A&M was very, very confident in getting him. It still didn’t match up with what Alabama thought, but these were from two completely different sources, so I felt pretty good about putting the Crystal Ball prediction in.


Even when the announcement rolled around, I still was only about 75% in my head that it would be the Aggies.


Jackson apparently had done an interview earlier in the week where he said he has known for a year where he was going, but I think that was an exaggeration. However, A&M had felt good for a bit, so him saying that he told the ‘winning’ staff a couple months ago could be true. However, he also gave a couple other staffs at least the impression that he was choosing them.


Jimbo, Robinson and Terry Price all did a very, very good job on this one. It was all about connections and they built those with Jackson from the beginning.

-Staying at defensive tackle, the Vernon Broughton saga seems like a long time ago now.


When Broughton came to camp in June, he actually did so trying to earn a spot in the class. A&M wanted to see him in action in person, and he knew that coming to camp was essentially an ‘audition.’ The fact that he showed up anyway, despite being highly-ranked, was pretty telling of his interest in the Aggies.


However, Texas had his family in its corner. They also had put the full-court press on him. A&M was recruiting him really heavily as well, but probably not quite as hard as Texas.
Once he decided to make a video, it was a done deal to the Longhorns. Even with the delay, it was still going to be Texas. Texas was very much in the know on everything with him and it was obvious that he was communicating way more with them than anybody else.


I don’t know how many he told this, but Broughton did tell a couple A&M commits that he was going to be an Aggie. I don’t know if he was intentionally trying to mislead, if he had trouble telling them no or if he was a bit torn, but that is likely why other outlets had him predicted to be an Aggie.

-As for Josh Ellison, I honestly still don’t know exactly what happened. I’m just including him in here because I know people will ask. He was a full qualifier and could leave Blinn at any point. He also could have gone to any school. In talking to both him and the Blinn coaches, I never pushed for an exact reason, but A&M just said it was going in a different direction and there was not a spot in the class anymore.

-Though Illinois did make things a little interesting late, Antonio Doyle was basically committed to the Aggies for quite some time.


He had rushed into making a pledge to in-state Missouri in the spring on an unofficial visit. That was surprising because everybody around him said he was expected to be an Aggie. He ended up cancelling his spring official visit to A&M.


Over the summer, though, he began to have second thoughts. And he started favoring A&M again and pretty much told A&M he was coming. However, he was concerned about decommitting in that it could affect a big decision surrounding his high school team.


Standout four-star junior Travion Ford had an eligibility hearing coming up after transferring in the offseason. Doyle was worried about potential political repercussions for his team if he decommitted from the in-state school. So, he held back on doing so until the decision. Then, as soon as the ruling for Ford came down, Doyle decommitted from Missouri that same day. (Side note: Ford was actually ruled ineligible. But, a few weeks later, he won his appeal).


Illinois really worked hard by using the distance factor, especially with Doyle having a young child. But, in the end, he went public with his A&M commitment and signed with the Aggies.

-Over the summer, A&M made a number of cornerback offers and was actually in good position to land several of them. The problem was, they all wanted to commit around the same time. The Aggies had to make a decision on which one or ones to take.


They ended up deciding that their main target was Joshuah Moten. He had been a heavy A&M lean since decommitting from Penn State in order to use his official to Aggieland.
There were two other players – Joseph Johnson out of Virginia and Joey Hunter out of Georgia – that were planning to commit to A&M as well. In tough phone calls, A&M had to let both know that there was not a spot. Johnson ended up at Penn State and Hunter at South Carolina.

-4-star Shadow Creek S Xavion Alford told me right before his fall camp started that he was about to commit to A&M. He had a public timeline that was supposed to be later, but he said he was going to commit that next week.


Alford ended up announcing that next week, as he had told me, but decided to go with Texas.


The Longhorns did a good job there but the Aggies deciding to pass on Joshua Eaton, who was also scheduled to announce for A&M around the same time, was a big deal to him and caused Alford to look stronger at Texas.


A&M really likes its secondary haul, so it worked out not getting either player. But, they basically had to choose a package of Eaton and Alford or neither and rolled the dice with neither.

-If you are keeping track, here are the guys in the class that made ‘silent’ commitments quite a bit before announcing publicly: Antonio Doyle, Chris Morris, Muhsin Muhammad III and Darvon Hubbard

incredulous jurassic park GIF

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39 minutes ago, SwanderedTalent said:

"All Longhorn recruits are overrated because all Longhorn recruits are always overrated" and "All Aggie recruits are underrated because Aggie recruits are always underrated" seems like the finest pair of tautologies I've seen in a long while

The good news about that tautology is that it has clearly borne itself out just as aTm insists throughout their entire history. Just victory after victory for those guys. 

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