It had been a while since I followed recruiting, so I took a peek at 247 to see where we were.
According to them, we are ranked No 12. Respectable. We have 7 4* players, 2 3* players. Missing are 5* players, we don't have any at this point. No 1 OSU has 3 5* players and so does LSU.

Our top rated player is from California which is unusual, he is ranked No 28 so should get bumped to a 5*. Our top rated player from TX is a 4*, ranked No 238 in the country and No 35 in the state. Not good, we need to be getting the top TX players along with Texas. The top two TX players have gone to OSU and LSU. We are not the top choice for anyone. Elko needs to up his game within Texas.

I am looking at this purely from the ranking perspective, I am sure Elko is filling positions of need.

Elko needs to win. Genuflecting to all of the opinions here isn't good enough.

Way too early to say but not looking great so far.

Devin Sanchez, Fasusi, Haywood, Jonah. We aren't touching those players if Elko doesn't win fast and if the NIL machine as BL calls it doesn't compete with Texas.

I think the 5 star kids are in wait and see mode. Unless they know where they want to go today. Let's see where we are this time next year.

It's so early in recruiting for that class. Play some games, win and let anybody already committed elsewhere flip

Jimbo sure could recruit but hell I truly do wonder what it'd have been like if he could have won too.

i actually like where we're at in recruiting. i also like the positional approach the staff is taking. this class out of the gate is very solid with lots of upside with winning.

Our recruiting has been great under Elko thus far. He'll get plenty of top players from Tx and elsewhere.

Just look at the offer sheets and stats/competition and you'll taste the koolaid. This class isn't even halfway there yet either.

Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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TAMUallen said:

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It's so early in recruiting for that class. Play some games, win and let anybody already committed elsewhere flip

Jimbo sure could recruit but hell I truly do wonder what it'd have been like if he could have won too.

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If Jimbo would have hired a high end offensive coordinator and just gotten out of the way, he would still be here and A&M would be one of the top football programs in the country.

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OL coach. His offense can still be excellent when run behind an elite OL. We made Mond look a lot better than the game manager he was. That OL left and we were saddled with Addazio. Weiggy did well in spite of the OL, but if he had another second of blocking.... Petrino could only do so much.

Bill Superman said:

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Our recruiting has been great under Elko thus far. He'll get plenty of top players from Tx and elsewhere.

Just look at the offer sheets and stats/competition and you'll taste the koolaid. This class isn't even halfway there yet either.

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Can you tell me your metric for great? I would say recruiting has been good thus far. Maybe, I don't understand what great recruiting looks like.

ahpetty33 said:

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You will also find that early recruiting rankings for a specific player can rise and fall drastically. This early in the process I put more stock in the competing offers. Several OL and others have impressive offer sheets, all the top dogs wanted them and we were indeed their first choice. We will sprinkle a 5 star in there at some point, but we found out with jimbo that certain 5 stars are cancerous and you are better without

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We had an above average number of 5* players who were also thugs. Those became cancerous. We need to have some way to judge character (I am not sure how to do that). I believe Jimbo recruited just based on stars, thug or not.

My concern here is we are not recruiting well in Texas. OSU, LSU, Texas, TCU have stolen the march over us. Our best TX player is No 30+ in the state. We need to have Top 5 Texas players.

infinity ag said:

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My concern here is we are not recruiting well in Texas. OSU, LSU, Texas, TCU have stolen the march over us. Our best TX player is No 30+ in the state. We need to have Top 5 Texas players.

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We will if we win. We're in a state of change which brings concern by the outside. It's to be expected. We win a lot this year, then recruiting will return. Still time left too with this class.

Bill Superman said:

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Our recruiting has been great under Elko thus far. He'll get plenty of top players from Tx and elsewhere.

Just look at the offer sheets and stats/competition and you'll taste the koolaid. This class isn't even halfway there yet either.

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Its been good and borderline excellent. And fits the current environment that leverages the portal to get value from experience.

But great? Win first.

greg.w.h said:

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Bill Superman said:

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Our recruiting has been great under Elko thus far. He'll get plenty of top players from Tx and elsewhere.

Just look at the offer sheets and stats/competition and you'll taste the koolaid. This class isn't even halfway there yet either.

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Its been good and borderline excellent. And fits the current environment that leverages the portal to get value from experience.

But great? Win first.

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Tomato tomato. It's been damn good. Relax and accept it.

You have to take in the portal recruiting as well..With Mike, we will never again have a "young team."

My personal thoughts are that Mike has a modern approach to recruiting and evaluating talent. He mentioned that evaluating portal talent is just as important in today's recruiting landscape as recruiting 5* HS guys that are unproven at the college level. It seems as though the Saban model of winning the HS recruiting battle, stockpiling 5* guys into redshirts, and having those guys see the field by their Jr. year may have died with Saban. I'm not saying that recruiting top talent out of HS is no longer important. I'm simply saying that there may well be another model with NIL/Portal that can be just as effective.
Now, obviously Elko didn't have much option this cycle but to pull only from the portal due to loss of this team's roster. But, my gut tells me Elko has his own model in mind that will not look like the traditional blue print used by Bama and Georgia for so many years before the NIL/Portal game began. I'm just not sure that redshirting guys and stockpiling them for future playing time is going to work anymore, I could be totally wrong, but just my opinion.

"
If Jimbo would have hired a high end offensive coordinator and just gotten out of the way, he would still be here and A&M would be one of the top football programs in the country."

Uh hu…

Excellent points and you are correct. Saban is the GOAT because he evolved his systems as the game changed. He also recognized that he didn't want to evolve once again to the new NIL landscape so he retired which I give him credit once again. Jimbo was a lights out recruiter as well but couldn't adjust his systems to evolve.

Like it or hate it the NIL has shown that if a college has deep pockets then they can catch up drastically faster than just having to rely on high school recruiting.

We are seriously talking about of head coaches first true recruiting class in terms of success and failure in April of hos first year?

Some of you are insufferable and need to get a grip.

ironmanag said:

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We are seriously talking about of head coaches first true recruiting class in terms of success and failure in April of hos first year?

Some of you are insufferable and need to get a grip.

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It's so stupid it is pretty fun. Zoo brings me much joy.

cupcakesprinkles said:

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Excellent points and you are correct. Saban is the GOAT because he evolved his systems as the game changed. He also recognized that he didn't want to evolve once again to the new NIL landscape so he retired which I give him credit once again. Jimbo was a lights out recruiter as well but couldn't adjust his systems to evolve.

Like it or hate it the NIL has shown that if a college has deep pockets then they can catch up drastically faster than just having to rely on high school recruiting.

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He also brought in coordinators and let them do their thing.

Yea to be clear, I'm not determining Elko's success of this class by any means, I'm simply stating based on his comments of evaluating talent and his willingness to utilize portal talent his model may not look like what many would expect as far as what has translated to success for past programs such as Bama and Georgia. And, that maybe we should not get so caught up in 247 team rankings, I guess I failed to mention that point....

The Banned said:

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HumbleAg04 said:

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Win football games.

Talent matters but the highest ranked recruiting class EVER sure didn't translate to Ws.

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I believe it is the first #1 class to not win a national title in modern CFB. If that's not the perfect example of BAS idk what is.

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That was always a dumb stat, and not even true. Florida's 2010 class never won a natty, and that wasn't that long ago. The only reason that stat got so much play time is that Alabama got the #1 recruiting class every year but three since that Florida class (2018 Georgia, 2020 Georgia, and 2022 Texas A&M). A more accurate stat would be that teams that sign multiple #1 classes and otherwise finish in the top 2 have always won a title.

The Banned said:

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HumbleAg04 said:

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Win football games.

Talent matters but the highest ranked recruiting class EVER sure didn't translate to Ws.

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I believe it is the first #1 class to not win a national title in modern CFB. If that's not the perfect example of BAS idk what is.

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well, since tnhat class is only juniors they can still do it, just under a different coaching staff.

they have this season and next season to accomplish that.

Good coaching matters. He has enough talent on campus to win and win big. If he wins, the talent will come. Not much more to it.

PeekingDuck said:

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Good coaching matters. He has enough talent on campus to win and win big. If he wins, the talent will come. Not much more to it.

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That is the point a lot of people are missing. This is such a different situation than any other coaching change we have seen. There is enough talent at most positions to win big right away, with OL being the only question mark. But good coaching can take a talented roster and make it elite. Yes, we are thin at some positions but so is everyone know that the portal is a factor. Elko is recruiting pretty well right now, if he can win those games that matter in the fall it will only get better.

Leonard H. Stringfield said:

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I think the 5 star kids are in wait and see mode. Unless they know where they want to go today. Let's see where we are this time next year.

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Lots of time for their agents to negotiate the best deal.

So Rivals says we got a 3 star defensive tackle from the metroplex. He doesnt show up on 247 or ON3 and no mention om here as far as I have seen. Is this a walk on?