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

• How do you determine the truth in recruiting now? The unknown has been ubiquitous since its inception. There has always been an element of the unknown that you’re dealing with, but now, I think that unknown has been incentivized. If I'm the recruit or agent, why do I need to tell everybody the truth? I could embellish things and get more from an NIL deal.
   
• I felt like I had really good sourcing with Tank Jones‍. I felt like I had some avenues and angles that not everybody else had. These are sources and connections that have been really good for us in the past. Texas A&M was still in communication right up to… The worm didn't start to turn for me until Oregon started to do something in the final 48 hours, coming from the back of the pack to pull even and then to the front entering decision day.
   
• What is the value in telling a media member what X school is offering you? It doesn’t do you any good, and I think you lose some leverage in the power of negotiation. That was the point of my article yesterday. I compared it to playing board games around the holidays, and one of my favorites was Balderdash, where there’s an obscure name or date on the card. In that game, everyone’s job on the table was to write a definition for that word or date to try and convince you and Reece that my definition is the real one. I don’t know what you wrote on your paper or what Reece wrote on his. I’m trying to guess what the real meaning is. I'm going to try and write mine and hope that I have enough credibility that mine is the right one.
   
• There’s some inherent nature of recruiting where you’ll be wrong every now and again, especially now because there’s so much more unknown, and people don’t want to be forthcoming with what’s factually out there. Again, I’m not upset with that, and I think that the people who are really fighting the battles are the head coaches, recruiting coordinators and the staff members. To be able to find out what’s real vs. not now can be difficult, but it’s extremely valuable information if you can get it.
   
• With the NCAA clearinghouse, what does Oregon have in their back pocket that they can play that aligns with what real NIL is? They have the Nike brand. They can promise Nike will do certain things for the kid and his brand, but I haven’t seen a college athlete sign with Nike and do these commercials. Still, they can promise that, and that’s legit NIL. They have access to Nike more than any program in the country.
   
• If Buc-ee’s decided they wanted to jump into the sports field, and they wanted to use Texas A&M athletes, should A&M take advantage of that? Absolutely. Don’t forget the Oregon staff was at A&M and helped sign the 2022 recruiting class. There’s no way to know what they really did to put themselves over the top. All I know is that every piece of intel was that Oregon was in third until about 48 hours before the commitment. Whatever they did caused them to jump Alabama and A&M.
   
• We don’t have a large enough sample size in the post-House settlement era yet to be definitive in saying that more kids will stick because everyone has limited money. We don’t really know what we’ve seen, but we’ve seen a lot more in this cycle when it comes to kids saying they’re shutting their recruiting cycle down. Are the days of flipping guys over? Only time will tell.
   
• A&M won't go anywhere because Oregon got the verbal commitment. I still think they’ll press on Lamar Brown‍, Boobie Feaster‍ and Jaimeon Winfield‍. Since COVID, it feels as if it has been a different setting of the scene. Things have shifted every two years. When will it settle so we have a clear picture of what’s coming down the line? Recruiting and its importance haven’t gone anywhere, but how you determine what’s real vs. what isn’t? That has changed since COVID.
   
• I could remember hosting old radio shows in 2021-22, and I’d be hosting and trying to fill airtime. It would be like, “Is it crazy if we had private equity in college sports?” We haven’t seen it definitively now, but what is Cody Campbell doing at Texas Tech? He has a vested interest in how Texas Tech does across all sports. Really, how far are we from private equity and owners of athletic departments? I think the House settlement and revenue sharing was a way to close that door, but we’ll see if it sticks.
   
• Guys like general managers and head coaches… Their roles aren’t just watching football, coming up with schemes, practice plans and blowing the whistle. It’s that plus CEO, CFO, COO and CPA. Those are the hats that head coaches and general managers are wearing now. I bet when you’re sitting in that chair, you go, “Man, it's tougher than people realize today.”
   
• I was just talking to Ricky Seals-Jones, and he’s eligible for some of that kickback with the ruling that can go back to one year of his career. How much of it has just turned on its head? I’d rather it just go back to the old way of it being done under the table. Now, it's like, “OK, we are going to bring all this and make it legal.” Someone who's more eloquent than I is going to write a book, and it's going to be really interesting to read.
   
• It has no doubt affected the common fans when it comes to recruiting. I don’t think the importance of recruiting for the fans has gone anywhere when it comes down to who’s on the dotted line. When the class is done, you can go and read the message boards. When A&M lost Brown and Jones, people were pissed. It typically goes that way more than any happiness. It's a message board demeanor. It has become more and more anonymous. Message board, social media etiquette makes it way cooler to be outraged than happy when things are going well.
   
• Whenever signing day comes, people will be really interested to see how it turns out. A&M has done a fantastic job, but there’s still some meat on the bone. Jase Mathews‍’ commitment is coming to a conclusion. You have Bralan Womack‍ committing at the end of the month… There are still some things to navigate. You know there will be stuff to watch, and there’s still some meat on the bone to round out this recruiting class.
   
• Jayce Johnson‍ has been a kid who we got a lay of the land, and he’s been at the forefront from the get-go. A&M did their homework on the in-state crop of QBs. They’ve evaluated the whole state, and Johnson. I told someone he reminded me of Reggie McNeal. Johnson led his 6A school in Georgia as a sophomore on a deep playoff run. The physical features really jump out. He has broad shoulders. He has massive upside, and I’m not trying to say anything about Helaman Casuga‍, Brady Hart or Eli Marcos. What I'm saying is Johnson, in terms of raw talent, is way, way up there. We’ll see how he matures, but this is a really good piece of clay and putty to mold.
   
• I’m getting my high school football schedule ready, and Jason Howell is getting ready to go on a trip through the southeast to see a lot of A&M recruits. Now, you have Tamarion Watkins‍, and hopefully, he can see Samuel Roseborough‍. Howell will be hitting as many of those in the Deep South as he can. I’m planning a trip out west to see Casuga. Never been to Utah. I've heard it's gorgeous, and maybe a trip to California later in the year.
   
• Obviously, the state of Texas being home base, we need to make sure we're getting out and seeing as many of those kids for 2026 and 2027 as possible.