re: Texas A&M's recruiting rankings in the Big 12

They became the only school in Texas to be able to pitch "play in the SEC."

OP, I interpret you to be asking why A&M didn't do better at recruiting over the years given?

A couple of things. Biggest thing was the quality of the coaching. Slocum was tailing off his final years, and his chronic inability to win a bowl game began to take it's toll. Then came Franchione and Sherman, both of whom were mediocre as coaches and recruiters, though for different reasons.

Also, Mack Brown may have been the best recruiter I've ever seen. A&M won the B12 South in 1997, the same year as Mack's first recruiting class, and he IMMEDIATELY began winning recruiting battles against RC that previous UTx coaches didn't. This was with UTx coming off a 4-7 record. A&M hadn't been dominating UTx in recruiting like they are today, but A&M was still getting the lion's share of the recruits back then.

People say that UTx recruits itself, and no doubt the horns have a big inherent advantage, but most fans, particularly horns, underestimate just how big of an impact Brown had on recruiting. There's a reason why he's the second winningest coach in UTx history. Mack Brown had three 10+ win seasons at North Carolina. That school has only 4 other such seasons in their entire history.

What happened is Mack made some bad QB evaluations, and started to suffer for a reputation for wasting talent. When he cratered in 2010, the effects weren't felt immediately. But continued mediocrity, plus SEC/Sumlin/Manziel gave A&M the opening to take over.

Still, it isn't ALL about UTx/A&M. Sumlin has basically shut out Oklahoma from getting the top kids in Texas. I give credit to Bob Stoops for seeing the writing on the wall, and moving his recruiting focus west to Cali. He's had success; I'm just not sure he can sustain it.

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tl,dr AGGY=AWESOME!!!!11!!

Ask Ricky Seals Jones what kind of numbers he turned down to go to A&M.

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Texas being terrible.

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I disagree. No doubt that helps us, but the fact that we completely shut out OU from Texas recruiting is the reason we're now where we are.

2003 ( First year of Fran) to 2011 ( last year of Sherman)= the Dark Years of A&M football.

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Gay sex

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