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

• I want to rehash the linebacker board and how it has come together. We were on this segment, even a month ago, talking about linebackers, and we've talked a lot about how the big board has shuffled, and new names have been added, names have fallen, and names have risen. Even doing that a month ago, if we were going to go through every linebacker target on the A&M big board back in March or late February, Jason Howell and I could have come on here and talked about every linebacker prospect we knew of that A&M was really in on, and not once would the name Storm Miller‍ would have come up.
   
• When I start talking about some of these names, it's important to realize this is not a comprehensive overview of the linebacker board. I do think it's an interesting conversation with one in the boat now in Miller, a guy who we didn't talk about at all.
   
• Let's start in-state. I would like to see us have an option on the site to start listing guys as edge players. Because Samu Moala‍ is listed as a linebacker, he's more of an EDGE player, much like Marco Jones. We listed Jones as a linebacker last year. He's an EDGE player. Obviously having a lot of success so far in spring ball here. When you're counting linebackers in this class, I wouldn't necessarily put Moala in that group. Right now, it's just Miller.
   
• Beyond that, I think you have to start in the state of Texas, and we're going to look at three names. We're going to look at DaQuives Beck‍ out of Carthage, Tank King‍ out of Port Arthur Memorial and Calvin Thomas‍ at Cy Ranch. The interesting thing is, with all of them, A&M is down the road at different levels with each of them. I also think each of them are down the road with A&M at different levels.
   
• What that means is, I know at one point, Thomas wasn't even on the radar, and now, he's been offered. He has some family history with Texas A&M. His dad went to school here and has a 20-plus-year career now in the military. There are a lot of things about Texas A&M that he and the family like. 
   
• King has been on A&M's radar for three years now. We've been talking about the Port Arthur Memorial prospect for quite a while. Then, Beck is another kid that, I think, as the homework was being done in January and February before the dead period was lifted, kids could come back to campus, or coaches could go out on the road to visit high schoolers in that period when they started really evaluating the entire crop of in-state players. I think Beck saw his stock rise in the eyes of A&M. I also think the flip side has happened. A&M has really risen in the eyes of Beck.
   
• It doesn't sound like Beck is in any hurry to make a commitment announcement. But, where A&M is standing with KJ Edwards‍, his high school teammate at Carthage, and then now seemingly with Beck, A&M could be looking at landing two high-caliber players in this class. So, A&M is a really good spot not only for Beck but also for his teammate Edwards at running back. That is where I would look right now in terms of in-state linebacker prospects — Beck, King and Thomas.
   
• I would also throw Tamarion Watkins‍ in that group. He's out of Rock Hill, South Carolina. He plays a lot of safety, but he's 6-foot-2, 200 pounds already. He looks like he's going to be getting closer to the line of scrimmage as he gets older and adds weight, and A&M is recruiting him as a linebacker and has made that known. He's another that when you look at the national services, you're going to see safety listed. He's being recruited as a linebacker, and A&M did a really nice job with him on his last visit to College Station. If I were to narrow the focus of the linebacking group right now, it would be those four names.
   
• I think numbers matter less now than they ever have. If you're a coach, at one point, you had limitations. Like, "OK, the most we can sign at linebacker in this class is three." Well, you still have limitations, but I would venture to say you can bump that number up by one or maybe even two.
   
• I think they're going to sign three in this class, but if they got to four and then one of the best in the country said, "I want to come play," then they would go to five. The numbers fluctuate so often, like every 10 months now, because of the portal. A&M could go into this football season and have 10 scholarship linebackers in the room, and then you could look up next January after the portal, and you're going, "Um, we have three." You better make sure you're backfilling, and don't worry about the numbers, worry about the quality that you're bringing in.
   
• Players, for sure, worry about numbers. They have to. Of all the changes in recruiting, the depth chart is one thing that's remained the same in terms of what kids are looking at and what they're concerned about. There are ways you can mitigate that. Obviously, that depth chart changes more often now than it ever has. That's still a real discussion point in these recruiting meetings.
   
• I don't acknowledge silent commitments as commitments. With NIL playing such a big factor in recruitment, you never know when somebody is going to come from behind the scenes and get him off that silent commitment. I won't get into specifics about who it is, but me and Howell feel like they're probably closing in on a handful of "silent commitments." That doesn't matter. Until they go public, it doesn't really matter.
   
• I would just be cautious and hesitant to even get too far into the weeds with this stuff. There is a good handful of kids that we believe, and our recruiting team believes, have told the A&M coaches, "I'm coming." To varying degrees and varying timelines.
   
• We do feel like A&M has done a great job this spring, but until those decisions go public, it's hard to really stamp it with an “A” in terms of grading what they've done this spring. I think they've done a nice job. I love what they've done in terms of their evaluations. I love how they have re-combed and done their homework again on the state of Texas. I love that. Does all that work come to fruition in terms of some of these guys who are either silently committed or close to committing to A&M end up pulling the trigger publicly?
   
• I don't know why these guys silently commit. I think a lot of these kids are like, "Oh, I really want to come here, but I better wait to see whatever else happens." Whether they go into Mike Elko's office and say, "Hey, coach, I'm an Aggie," or they go in there and say, "I want to be an Aggie." Those are two different things. If they go in there and say, "Coach Elko, I want to be an Aggie," but then don't make it publicly known. I think the coaching staff has to go, "OK, what's the hold-up? What's the deal with you announcing publicly?
   
• The worst thing that could happen is I go in there and say, "Coach Nuño, I'm committing to TexAgs." Then, I'm going to announce it publicly, "I'm committed to TexAgs." But right after, I commit to TexAgs, I'm going to go interview at XYZ. If you're the owner of TexAgs, you'd rather say, "Hey, don't publicly announce anything until you're ready. If you want to go do all that other stuff, that's fine. But we'd rather you not be committed and take other visits. Then, shop around what's out there. I do think there's some give-and-take. In this day and age, you're better off just saying, "Hey man, we want you. 100 percent, we want you, but if you're not ready, if you want to go take those other trips, go take them. We're not going anywhere. We're still going to recruit you really hard."
   
• For the quarterbacks, I don't think there's intrigue unless something happens with Helaman Casuga‍. As we've stated on this program, as the coaching staff has stated to Casuga and his inner circle, they can't get burned again like they did in the last class. They put all their eggs in the Husan Longstreet basket. He committed early and then burned them. I think it was 18 days before Early Signing Day and that left them in a scramble. I love how they rebounded.
   
• Brady Hart and Eli Morcos have both gotten really strong reviews this spring. Intrigue isn't the right word unless something happens with Casuga. I do want to say they're continuing to recruit and make contact with other quarterbacks. I've mentioned some in these recruiting country videos before. You look at Keisean Henderson‍ at Houston Legacy. Obviously, the high school quarterback of Mike Brown‍, who is now committed.
   
• Henderson has been committed to the University of Houston for a long time. Houston went in early and said, "We believe you're a quarterback. We don't think you're a safety. We don't think you're a wide receiver." That's what Henderson wanted to hear, and they've stuck with him, and he's stuck with them. I think now, with the influx of investment at Houston, specifically behind Tilman Fertitta, it's going to get harder and harder to pull commits off of that school, and I think Willie Fritz is a really good coach.
   
• There's a kid at the Woodlands named Jack Daulton‍, who is committed to TCU. Some of the stuff he's doing at these camps right now is really impressive and surprising a lot of folks in terms of his overall athletic profile. There are some recruiting pitches that can happen for that kid if A&M or anybody else decides they really want a hard push there. If we go back and update our rankings in the class of 2026, Daulton may make one of the bigger jumps across the state. It's really impressive what he's done so far.
   
• For the offensive line, you can start in Dallas with a big group of offensive linemen, and it's not as gaudy as that last group of DFW tackles. A&M got Lamont Rogers and Ty Haywood up there in the last class. Dallas, in the class of 2025, had three five-star offensive tackles. A&M was just trying to get one of them, and they did. They got Rogers.
   
• In this class, you're looking at guys like Zaden Krempin‍ at Prosper, Pupungatoa Katoa‍ and John Turntine‍ at North Crowley. Those are three I think A&M is really making positive moves with. I'm not ready to say A&M is the leader for any of them yet, but I think A&M is making up a lot of ground.
   
• Then, I'm looking at Avery Morcho‍ out of Fort Bend Ridge Point. I've seen him a lot. I saw him as a young player before he had any offers, and I'm like, “If the strength catches up to the frame and the athleticism, he is going to be a real prospect.” Slowly but surely, you have seen that strength catch up. He's a fluid athlete for being such a big kid with massive hands. He checks a lot of the trait measurable boxes that you want. He was on campus this past weekend again. That is going to be a hotly tested recruitment, and I'm anxious to see if A&M makes an all-in push for Morcho, because I think if they do, they're going to be in a great spot to land him.