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 and transfer portal trail surrounding Texas A&M.

Key notes from Recruiting Country

• I have been making phone calls for this transfer portal stuff and trying to figure out what direction Texas A&M will go. When you asked me this morning what I thought would be a good topic of discussion, I sent you zero high school topics. It's all about the portal because I know that's where a lot of the attention is, for the A&M fanbase and fanbases across college football, that's the direction it's turned to. I don't like it. I don't like a lot of things that are going on currently in the realm of college athletics, specifically college football, especially with the calendar. I really don't like player movement this late in the cycle, but it is what it is.
   
• I think if you polled all of the general managers and recruiting staffers across college football, they would say the same thing. Like, "This is stupid. This stinks." But it's here, and if you don't take advantage of it to better your roster, you're selling yourself and your program short. You have to be ready to go, and you have to make additions that you think can help your team win games, but also your locker room and your culture. That's where we're at, and how do we get out of this? How do we get out of this cycle where it's mid-April and will probably go through early, mid-May, where you're still making roster moves for next fall? It's one of the litany of things I wish the NCAA had the power or spine to come in and change.
   
• None of this makes any sort of sense. You have to go back to the beginning, whenever it all started, and it was given to the government. The NCAA sat on their hands and decided that while they could see this NIL thing coming a million miles down the road, they would sit on their hands and just let it play out, and hopefully, it'll work out for the best. They were feckless in their decision-making. They lacked any sort of foresight, or maybe they saw it coming and just chose not to jump in and try to govern it from the get-go.
   
• So, what happened is it went into state government and it was signed into law in California, and once California had it, there was no way the rest of the states weren't going to have it because of the competitive disadvantage they would have been at. California had its own designation for what NIL was supposed to look like, and then Texas, Florida, Louisiana and Georgia. You had these different trees growing individually, where there is no overarching theme for this thing. When you look at the current state of college athletics, 99 percent of the blame for everything that you see going on right now falls on the NCAA for failing to get out in front of this.
   
• Josh Pate said this is "the grown-ups," and he's right. You can look at the grown-ups in the NCAA, you can look at the grown-ups advising some of these players, and you can look at the grown-ups in the governing bodies that now have control of this stuff. It's the adults who have dropped the ball here. Of course, if you're an 18, 19 or 20-year-old kid, we have kids that age that are working for us. If they were offered $2 million to go do something else, at that age, wouldn't you do it? Then there's a whole other laundry list of problems that come with it. For the most part, this is the most financial power these kids will ever have.
   
• We don't know what it looks like for a college athlete who had been making well into six figures for two to three years, when they go into the job market, if they're not good enough to go into the NFL, what happens when you go from making $550,000 a year, or even on the lower end $250,000 a year, to an entry level job position. Not just managing your money, but managing your mental wherewithal of going from making that much money to that little money, which is normal life at entry-level positions.
   
• We don't know how that's going to happen. We still haven't seen, but you know it's coming, tax evasion issues. Because of the way this is set up, the school hasn't been able to provide financial guidance for these kids for NIL. Maybe that changes once it goes through the school and this rev-share model goes through. We've given these kids an incredible advantage and financial opportunity, and then hamstrung them for the rest of their lives with the parameters around them.
   
• Because of the precedent set so far, what is going to stop a player from disagreeing with the House settlement rules, structure and taking that ruling to court? They have opened Pandora's Box, and I don't know how you close it.
   
• I described the portal as compressed chaos because this portal window is much shorter than the one in December and January. I don't know how it's going to look. I think being definitive in anything regarding the portal is dangerous to do as an analyst. It's compressed in terms of its window. You have a week to go in. Obviously, the decisions don't have to be made in terms of what your next school is going to be, but you have to decide to go in.
   
• I anticipate it being more hectic than it has been in the past, but you really don't know that. West Virginia had 25 players go in this morning. What is Rich Rodriguez supposed to do? That is a massive chunk of your roster that you're now either going to have to try and fill to be competitive on the field, or fill those spots that become competitive in practice.
   
• Compressed chaos just means a lot is happening in a short period of time. From an A&M perspective, what you don't know is who they're going to be losing. Because of the nature of this, you have to look. If a kid is stuck in a depth chart situation and in his mind, there is no light at the end of the tunnel to get on the field, he's gone. When you look at the positions where A&M has a lot of bodies, it's obviously the offensive line. One thing I'll say about adding Adam Cushing's group, when you go and watch practice, the culture of that group is better than any other position on the field. That isn't always a determining factor in keeping a kid around, but it can help.
   
• I'm hopeful that the Nico Iamaleava situation at Tennessee will sort of be a market reset. Maybe that can be a deterrent for a player who is getting all of these offers in their ear. Where you plant your roots is where your gardening is going to grow best. Stay there and develop. I'm hoping that's the more common thing since this Iamaleava thing has blown up and stolen the headlines for college football for the last few days.
   
• What do you do if a player walks into your office in December or January and you say, "Hey, this is what we're thinking for you NIL-wise." The player agrees to it, and the family agrees to it. if he has an agent, they agree to it. Six, seven or eight weeks later, during the spring, they say, "Oh, that's not enough." "Well, you just agreed to it a couple of months ago." "Yeah, but now I want more." Those are the decisions that all of these coaches, not just here in College Station, but across the SEC, are making everywhere. If I'm a really good college head coach right now, I'd think about making a jump to the NFL if I had a chance. Just to get out of all this mess. It's a disaster.
   
• You heard the Grambling head coach, Mickey Joseph, saying, "If one of these Power Fives wants to come get one of my players, I should be compensated for it." Maybe that's something they can look at going forward, especially if you make the players employees. Jay Bilas has been very active on social media about his stance on this stuff, and he's like, "It's as easy as making the players employees." I'm like, "Is it really that easy?" Because then you go through players' unions and could have nationwide holdouts. That's what you're opening yourself up to.
   
• I get asked a lot when I go speak at events, and I spoke to the San Antonio A&M club, and I spoke to a group in Austin not too long ago, and I got asked the same question: "What stops this?" Well, donor fatigue will be a real thing, but just because there's donor fatigue at Texas A&M or Tennessee, doesn't mean that at Alabama, LSU or Texas that they're going to feel that way. They might see a crack in the armor of one of these other schools and say, "This is our opportunity to strike."
   
• I don't think you will have a nationwide donor fatigue issue. You don't think that that guy at Texas Tech is going, "We have a real opportunity here?" Texas Tech is saying the same thing: "We have an alum who has made an incredible amount of money, and nothing makes this guy happier than seeing Texas Tech be successful." So he is going to dump all that money because he doesn't care about the financial return, he cares about the emotional return he's getting out of it.” How many programs have that type of donor? Because all of these wealthy folks, and don't kid yourself, every little bit counts, but the majority of the bill is being footed by a handful of donors across the country. It all depends on what makes those donors most happy. Some of them are like, "Look, I got to live this life because I was really financially savvy. I'll help you out when I can, but right now, I am investing money that the only return I am getting is goodwill and emotional happiness." That's not what made those people wealthy. Far be it from me or you to tell people what to do with their money.
   
• As of right now, there is a need at defensive tackle to add a rotation player. A depth piece. The question for all of these portal wants and needs is, “Are these going to be available?” You don't know that. You can say, "Hey, we feel like we're in a good spot with our roster, keeping guys around, we just need to supplement in a couple of places." What happens if an experienced defensive tackle who could be a part of the rotation is not in there? I still don't subscribe to the philosophy of throwing bodies at an issue. I don't think Mike Elko will either, but for this A&M roster, I think a defensive tackle and an outside receiver, who is big and physical, are the primary attributes they're looking for.
   
• Outside of that, beyond that, could they take the best available? Sure. Could they go get maybe another linebacker? Sure. Again, what happens if three of these young offensive linemen go, “I just don't want to sit behind all of these older guys for another year. We're leaving.’ Then you have to go find another offensive lineman. Again, how appealing is the depth chart to a transfer portal offensive lineman? It's a lot to not only maintain, but it's a lot to work through day-to-day. This is going to be a really interesting week, not only here in College Station, but across college football.
   
• Make sure you are checking the 2025 Spring Football Transfer Portal Tracker. Information can become old very quickly. It is also not as trustworthy on portal kids as it is on high school kids. Just the nature of it. It is half-truths. It is a negotiation tactic at the college level.
   
• A lot of times, agents will float things out to national media members just to get the message out to put the heat on school X, Y or Z, or to drive the price up for their client. You heard Kirby Smart talk about these agents that are putting together a Zoom call to essentially auction off players. What a crazy world we are living in.
   
• I also think for the agents out there that are legitimately trying to do it the right way, this is sully their reputation in their profession. Now, everybody is an agent. It used to be 10 years ago, “This guy is going to school and has some background in contracts or law and understands the complete lay of the land.” Now, I think that has morphed into something different today. There is a lot of head scratching that goes on with this stuff.
   
• TexAgs has never been in the business of speculation. Once we get solid information that we feel like we can share, we will add it to our watch list. We will add to our visitors list if A&M is bringing in guys, and we will do our best to give you a clear depiction of muddy water.