Texas Recruiting Notes 2025: Duck Around and Find Out

[Getafix 28561]

 

👀  👀 

 

 

 

 👀   👀  👀 

 

 

 

 

And from Miami 247 ... 

 

 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Getafix

[texifornia 56862]

9 minutes ago, SuckitKevin said:

Need to hold on to Townsend, fuck aggy

I too enjoy not having one of our biggest rivals flip one of our best prospects. This is groundbreaking stuff.

[Post Oak 20208]

9 minutes ago, Getafix said:

 

👀  👀 

 

 

 

 👀   👀  👀 

 

 

 

 

And from Miami 247 ... 

 

 

 

First play blows up the OL otw to the RB. Stud

https://share.qwikcut.com/673e92a5159685d0349df429/Armwood High School

 

[closetojumping 62557]

ATM NIL interest is a rollercoaster just like the rest of their program. Suddenly they’re letting Elko offer gobs of money above and beyond what they’d previously proposed to recruits. It functions off of the emotional swings of the traders backing everything for them over the past 7 seasons. 

That means that Charles, Fasusi and Townsend, among others, are being given new offers that are straight-up fucking dumb, just like 2022. Same people and forces at play, including Elko, and only sans Fisher. 

We’ll see how things wind up. These are camps that already had agreed to good terms with other players and they’re now trying to renegotiate. 

[irishtexan 11515]

2 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

ATM NIL interest is a rollercoaster just like the rest of their program. Suddenly they’re letting Elko offer gobs of money above and beyond what they’d previously proposed to recruits. It functions off of the emotional swings of the traders backing everything for them over the past 7 seasons. 

That means that Charles, Fasusi and Townsend, among others, are being given new offers that are straight-up fucking dumb, just like 2022. Same people and forces at play, including Elko, and only sans Fisher. 

We’ll see how things wind up. These are camps that already had agreed to good terms with other players and they’re now trying to renegotiate. 

Are existing commits renegotiating the deals they agreed to?

[T’Boo Ted Marshall 2732]

ATM NIL interest is a rollercoaster just like the rest of their program. Suddenly they’re letting Elko offer gobs of money above and beyond what they’d previously proposed to recruits. It functions off of the emotional swings of the traders backing everything for them over the past 7 seasons. 
That means that Charles, Fasusi and Townsend, among others, are being given new offers that are straight-up fucking dumb, just like 2022. Same people and forces at play, including Elko, and only sans Fisher. 
We’ll see how things wind up. These are camps that already had agreed to good terms with other players and they’re now trying to renegotiate. 

I just assume negotiating continues until they can’t.

[RomaVicta 29902]

9 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

ATM NIL interest is a rollercoaster just like the rest of their program. Suddenly they’re letting Elko offer gobs of money above and beyond what they’d previously proposed to recruits. It functions off of the emotional swings of the traders backing everything for them over the past 7 seasons. 

That means that Charles, Fasusi and Townsend, among others, are being given new offers that are straight-up fucking dumb, just like 2022. Same people and forces at play, including Elko, and only sans Fisher. 

We’ll see how things wind up. These are camps that already had agreed to good terms with other players and they’re now trying to renegotiate. 

 

7 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

Are existing commits renegotiating the deals they agreed to?

Insightful, CTJ, as always. Irish asks a good question that leads to my uneducated thoughts.

As I understand it, the 2022 class was a colossal front of cash that caused discord (to say the least) in the A&M locker room due to imbalance of pay. A&M fumbled (shocking!) their handling of this because they were already in trouble maintaining the 2022 standard let alone flooding the locker room with cash to make everybody whole.

You think they're walking into the same airplane propeller?

[Pato del Muerto 52485]

10 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

Are existing commits renegotiating the deals they agreed to?

Why wouldn’t they?  Sometimes your first big bite at the pie is your only bite, so use it well. 

[Park Gothic 5016]

7 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Why wouldn’t they?  Sometimes your first big bite at the pie is your only bite, so use it well. 

Seems like it comes down to a couple of questions:

1. Have they signed anything? If not, then negotiations are still open. It would be naive to operate on handshakes. 

2. Even if they've signed anything, would we really hold them to it? If we bow up too hard on a recruit we end up looking like assholes who won't play ball. It's questionable whether we could even hold a recruit to a previous agreement. 

So yeah, I don't think negotiations stop until the kid is enrolled. And may not stop even then, depending on the player and how close we are to the portal opening. 

Brave new world. 

[closetojumping 62557]

16 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

Are existing commits renegotiating the deals they agreed to?

I just named a few. 

12 minutes ago, T’Boo Ted Marshall said:

I just assume negotiating continues until they can’t.

This isn't how it works and recruits and their agents have gotten fucked by trying that in the past.

Programs and supporters, for the most part, are not stupid or naïve. There's largely a foundations set and processes in place to prevent the "forever negotiation" bullshit at most programs. Agents would like to be able to tell clients that they can negotiate on their behalf to any program. If they fuck blue blood programs, those programs will let prospects know that they're not going to recruit them if they're working with a bad actor. That's already happened and it has cost shitheads money, if not their lot in the whole process. Whoops. 

That's one way in which the bullshit is prevented. There are others as well. A new offer has to really be something to make the juice worth the squeeze for a recruit to flip due to NIL alone. 

The bottom line is that a recruit with a strong NIL deal at the place they really want to play is unlikely to flip after the cards are played. However, if a recruitment was close, or the player wanted to go somewhere else all along, they are candidates to head elsewhere with a bigger NIL deal promised. 

The Townsend recruitment was close. That's one with non-mercenary issues if the deal is ridiculous. 

Whatever winds up happening, this board needs to remove its illusions that seem to be defaulted to around how this shit works. There are few straight-up clowns just letting recruits and agents constantly renegotiate. 

[closetojumping 62557]

14 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

 

Insightful, CTJ, as always. Irish asks a good question that leads to my uneducated thoughts.

As I understand it, the 2022 class was a colossal front of cash that caused discord (to say the least) in the A&M locker room due to imbalance of pay. A&M fumbled (shocking!) their handling of this because they were already in trouble maintaining the 2022 standard let alone flooding the locker room with cash to make everybody whole.

You think they're walking into the same airplane propeller?

Regarding how they balance the locker room, it's unlikely to be the same dynamic. Why? Because everybody is now getting something. Guards aren't living under the impression that they're going to get paid like Tackles, much less QBs and such. So the risk in overpaying, should that occur, is positional. A 4 star starting Edge getting paid $75k because that's where they fit ahead of the season is not going to feel great about an unproven freshman coming in and bragging about getting $500k. That could happen anywhere, happens in the pros, etc. 

Regarding the general notion of mercenaries, which was a major flaw with the 2022 approach for ATM, that could again be an issue. Part of the evaluation of a recruit these days includes answering some variation of the following question: Would this guy want to come here and would we want them to come here if money wasn't a part of the equation? If that answer isn't firmly "yes, yes", then caution needs to applied and folks need to dig deeper on the evaluation end. 

There are turds in every cycle. Some of them are 5 star or top 100 turds. That's a tale as old as time in CFB. Some have terrible people around them that make them a turd by extension. The guy who just reclassified at DT or DE/Edge out of NOLA fits firmly into the latter, for instance. These types are always to be avoided unless the HC or his processes are truly elite. Bad character creep is a thing. Headcases are a thing.

Herman and staff rightly punted on Umanaliamanlien because he proved himself to be a turd. He went on to middling shit at UF and was a vocal problem in the locker room. Kiffin ignored that, believing they could deal with him in a contract year, and he's been rewarded for that. The same is true regarding Walter Nolen. Bo Davis and Texas had no interest in either guy. Kiffin's risk is Norvellian. Here There Be Dragons when it comes to the portal as a means of wholly rebuilding rosters. 

So is ATM evaluating this new cycle differently now that they're just throwing big numbers out to whoever takes their calls? I don't know. The likeliest place with ticking timebombs on their roster right now is apparently Miami. Georgia to a lesser degree. Florida looks kind of desperate out of the blue, like ATM, over the last 2-3 weeks. I'm betting on them to continue to have problems inside of their locker room. 

13 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Why wouldn’t they?  Sometimes your first big bite at the pie is your only bite, so use it well. 

 

3 minutes ago, Park Gothic said:

Seems like it comes down to a couple of questions:

1. Have they signed anything? If not, then negotiations are still open. It would be naive to operate on handshakes. 

2. Even if they've signed anything, would we really hold them to it? If we bow up too hard on a recruit we end up looking like assholes who won't play ball. It's questionable whether we could even hold a recruit to a previous agreement. 

So yeah, I don't think negotiations stop until the kid is enrolled. And may not stop even then, depending on the player and how close we are to the portal opening. 

Brave new world. 

Sorry Hans, wrong guess. Would you like to go for Double Jeopardy where the scores can really change? 

See my prior post. You guys are in the business world. Is this how you work with employees, vendors or even clients after a firm deal is already struck? Firm deals don't have to be signed into contract to exist. particularly when the law prevents it. 

[Park Gothic 5016]

3 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

Regarding how they balance the locker room, it's unlikely to be the same dynamic. Why? Because everybody is now getting something. Guards aren't living under the impression that they're going to get paid like Tackles, much less QBs and such. So the risk in overpaying, should that occur, is positional. A 4 star starting Edge getting paid $75k because that's where they fit ahead of the season is not going to feel great about an unproven freshman coming in and bragging about getting $500k. That could happen anywhere, happens in the pros, etc. 

Regarding the general notion of mercenaries, which was a major flaw with the 2022 approach for ATM, that could again be an issue. Part of the evaluation of a recruit these days includes answering some variation of the following question: Would this guy want to come here and would we want them to come here if money wasn't a part of the equation? If that answer isn't firmly "yes, yes", then caution needs to applied and folks need to dig deeper on the evaluation end. 

There are turds in every cycle. Some of them are 5 star or top 100 turds. That's a tale as old as time in CFB. Some have terrible people around them that make them a turd by extension. The guy who just reclassified at DT or DE/Edge out of NOLA fits firmly into the latter, for instance. These types are always to be avoided unless the HC or his processes are truly elite. Bad character creep is a thing. Headcases are a thing.

Herman and staff rightly punted on Umanaliamanlien because he proved himself to be a turd. He went on to middling shit at UF and was a vocal problem in the locker room. Kiffin ignored that, believing they could deal with him in a contract year, and he's been rewarded for that. The same is true regarding Walter Nolen. Bo Davis and Texas had no interest in either guy. Kiffin's risk is Norvellian. Here There Be Dragons when it comes to the portal as a means of wholly rebuilding rosters. 

So is ATM evaluating this new cycle differently now that they're just throwing big numbers out to whoever takes their calls? I don't know. The likeliest place with ticking timebombs on their roster right now is apparently Miami. Georgia to a lesser degree. Florida looks kind of desperate out of the blue, like ATM, over the last 2-3 weeks. I'm betting on them to continue to have problems inside of their locker room. 

 

Sorry Hans, wrong guess. Would you like to go for Double Jeopardy where the scores can really change? 

See my prior post. You guys are in the business world. Is this how you work with employees, vendors or even clients after a firm deal is already struck? Firm deals don't have to be signed into contract to exist. particularly when the law prevents it. 

Fair enough, you would know better than I do. My follow up questions is whether or not our position to players who come back to renegotiate is "you made an agreement, we expect you to honor it, and if you want to take that other deal go ahead." If that's how we're handling things - great. That makes sense to me and although it means we may lose one or two recruits, we avoid bringing in "turds," as you said, which seems better in the long run.

But are we really playing hardball with these recruits? Like, if they have signed an NIL agreement and then get a better offer from A&M and want out of their initial agreement, are we telling them "tough shit, if you breach your contract we'll sue"? I'm not incredulous, just surprised if that's the case. I didn't think our AD / boosters had it in them to play hard ball. 

[closetojumping 62557]

4 minutes ago, Park Gothic said:

Fair enough, you would know better than I do. My follow up questions is whether or not our position to players who come back to renegotiate is "you made an agreement, we expect you to honor it, and if you want to take that other deal go ahead." If that's how we're handling things - great. That makes sense to me and although it means we may lose one or two recruits, we avoid bringing in "turds," as you said, which seems better in the long run.

But are we really playing hardball with these recruits? Like, if they have signed an NIL agreement and then get a better offer from A&M and want out of their initial agreement, are we telling them "tough shit, if you breach your contract we'll sue"? I'm not incredulous, just surprised if that's the case. I didn't think our AD / boosters had it in them to play hard ball. 

All recruitments are equal, but some recruitments are more equal than others.

There is often chicanery towards the end of a cycle, as we're seeing now. Should said chicanery involve a "must-have", a final and best offer scenario might play out. See Wingo, Ryan, in the 2024 cycle. To all others, the original agreement will stand and the prospect can make choices accordingly. 

Reminder that none of this is applicable to recruits who haven't agreed to anything or committed anywhere. Those guys get to do whatever they want and the schools pursuing them understand that. 

Also a reminder that other programs have their owns codes that they follow in how this is all handled, with nuances, of course. 

Regarding contracts, those would only be signed by players showing up to campus. If you take Robinson last year, he basically decided he didn't want to come to Texas due to Davis leaving. He dug his feet in, and Texas let him loose even though he'd signed documents. Not exactly NIL related, but similar. Holding someone's feet to the flames due to an NIL agreement is unseemly and likely to wind up in the media somehow. Mostly, if a guy wants to quit and go elsewhere, the player just stops performing their duties under the agreement and stop getting paid. Again, this only applies to people on a campus. Offering and signing NIL contracts ahead of a recruit becoming a player, I believe, is still subject to penalty with the NCAA and schools like Texas will adhere to that requirement. 

[Katfid54 8611]

1 hour ago, texifornia said:

1 hour ago, SuckitKevin said:

Need to hold on to Townsend, fuck aggy

I too enjoy not having one of our biggest rivals flip one of our best prospects. This is groundbreaking stuff.

Yeah, but how are we feeling if Townsend goes to Florida???

[Elmer_Fudd 22202]

John Mills is now a 4* on Rivals.

[Hookem2147 21194]

From Bobby:

Gerry’s on the road and asked me to put this up for him:

After canceling his previously scheduled visit to Miami for this weekend, Tampa, Fla., linebacker Kellen Wiley is a possible visitor to Texas this weekend.

However, Florida now is also entering the picture and attempting to get him to visit Gainesville this weekend instead.

Looks like the Gators don’t like the Longhorns going to the Sunshine State and trying to do whatever they can to stop it.

[nycHorn 2990]

We should throw Helobious on a plane to Florida for the Gators to deal with.

[crash_davis 23100]

4 minutes ago, Hookem2147 said:

From Bobby:

Gerry’s on the road and asked me to put this up for him:

After canceling his previously scheduled visit to Miami for this weekend, Tampa, Fla., linebacker Kellen Wiley is a possible visitor to Texas this weekend.

However, Florida now is also entering the picture and attempting to get him to visit Gainesville this weekend instead.

Looks like the Gators don’t like the Longhorns going to the Sunshine State and trying to do whatever they can to stop it.

Someone should tell Florida that their QB is from Texas.

[Bevo 13566]

32 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

Someone should tell Florida that their QB is from Texas.

I'm friends with Kyle Trask's dad - Kyle Trask is another Texas kid who recently played QB at Florida.

[Tex-19 2872]

3 hours ago, closetojumping said:

ATM NIL interest is a rollercoaster just like the rest of their program. Suddenly they’re letting Elko offer gobs of money above and beyond what they’d previously proposed to recruits. It functions off of the emotional swings of the traders backing everything for them over the past 7 seasons. 

That means that Charles, Fasusi and Townsend, among others, are being given new offers that are straight-up fucking dumb, just like 2022. Same people and forces at play, including Elko, and only sans Fisher. 

We’ll see how things wind up. These are camps that already had agreed to good terms with other players and they’re now trying to renegotiate. 

I assume they have some newfound budget space because of the Husan Longstreet flip to USC

[Bevo 13566]

6 minutes ago, Tex-19 said:

I assume they have some newfound budget space because of the Husan Longstreet flip to USC

Yeah, but I would probably be a little skeptical as a TE to go to a school without a QB.

[closetojumping 62557]

49 minutes ago, Tex-19 said:

I assume they have some newfound budget space because of the Husan Longstreet flip to USC

You don't have to assume anything or manufacture cause. I already told you what was happening. Don't make it harder than it has to be. 

[Getafix 28561]

 

Nice ... 

 

 

 

 

 

[Angry Gorilla 1766]

2 hours ago, Katfid54 said:

Yeah, but how are we feeling if Townsend goes to Florida???

Best possible scenario

[Bevo 13566]

1 minute ago, Angry Gorilla said:

Best possible scenario