Wednesday Talking Points

There's been a lot of discussion of late about how badly Texas schools struggled keeping major talent in-state this past recruiting cycle. It's pretty hard to argue the point, even with A&M ending up with a top-10 class, as the top 13 players in Texas according to Rivals.com all left the state. Ohio State had as many signees in the top 20 as A&M did (three), and OU had as many as A&M and Texas combined (four).

That's a really bad sign. But it's not exclusive to Texas. Other states are having similar issues.

Let's start with Louisiana, the state where we tend to think that, if LSU wants a player, they get them. In 2017, that wasn't even close to the case. They got the state's top player in DT Tyler Shelvin and two of the top five – but so did Alabama. LSU, in fact, only got five of the top 20 recruits in a state they have owned. That may be why Ed Orgeron turned around and promptly fired RB coach Jabbar Juluke, who had handled New Orleans, the day after national signing day. That, by the way, may end up being a mistake: New Orleans area coaches were upset by the move and some of the more powerful schools are considering banning LSU from their campuses. A&M has to be sitting there going "PLEEEEEASE DO THIS!" (So would Alabama, Auburn, you name it.)

Let's take a look at another powerhouse state: Florida. FSU got Marvin Wilson out of Texas – and only two of the top 10 in its home state. Florida nearly got shut out of the top 20 entirely, getting one guy at 17 and another, WR James "Arrested on an official" Robinson, at 19. Florida schools got eight of the top 20 in their own state, with FSU getting five of them. Michigan and Alabama tied for the most players in the top 10, with three each.

One school that did clean up in its home state was Georgia, who got 10 of the top 20, including numbers 6-10. But they didn't get #1 or #2; they went to Stanford and Clemson, respectively.

So disaster struck the major programs in these states, right? Wrong. FSU, LSU, Florida, Georgia and A&M all had top 10 classes. The only real loser in this was Texas, who barely scraped into the top 30 with the coaching change to Tom Herman.

The major takeaway from this? If you're going to compete in major college football – the SEC especially – recruiting nationally is no longer a luxury. It is a necessity. Modern technology has altered the recruiting process irrevocably. The days of a hot in-state school sitting back and saying "come to Poppa" to 15 of the top 20 guys in the a talent-rich state are over. With the advent of recruiting sites like this one and things like Hudl, if you're good programs will find you. With the Internet and these massive TV deals that show virtually every Power 5 football game every weekend, players in turn can check out and get interested in programs far from home.

A few years ago, A&M endured what seemed like a double-whammy when Dylan Sumner-Gardner defected late in the recruiting game and Kameron Miles was kicked off the team for stealing from his teammates. Instead of having the two four-star teammates from West Mesquite roaming the secondary, A&M was left with "just" Armani Watts and Donovan Wilson in the 2014 recruiting class. At the time, a lot of people thought the Aggies were going to suffer mightily as a result of losing two talented safeties.

And this is a great example of why recruiting is an inexact science. You can't crawl into the head of a young man and see what they're really about. In this case, the Aggies didn't dodge a bullet, they dodged a shell fired from an Iowa-class battleship. Watts has been a starter from day one, Wilson has been a very good nickel back and A&M filled the void left by Miles' booting by recruiting a young man by the name of Justin Evans.

Since then, Sumner-Gardner has been kicked off the team for basically not going to school, and Miles was recently arrested for domestic battery. That was after he was moved to linebacker, where he proved to be essentially useless. Watts and Evans, on the other hand, could be first round draft picks.

Running the risk of violating one of my cardinal rules – don't grade a class until two years after it signed – here are two guys from this class I believe are going to surprise the general public with how good they are. I don't want to call them sleepers, because one's a 4-star and you know who they are. But anyway…

Guy number one is Keynel McZeal. When we were getting ready for signing day, I went back and watched his film again and thought, "why hasn't anyone else picked up on this guy?" There's something to be said for consistency, because I went back and found what I wrote when he committed and it said, "why hasn't anyone else picked up on this guy?" So there's that.

Port Neches-Groves may not be the biggest school and McZeal may have been dinged up some and he may be transitioning to tight end, but come on. This kid can ball. He's got good size and good speed. He's almost a prototype for a short to medium-range receiver in the slot. Add another 15 pounds and he's going to look like (and hopefully will be) a quality H-back.

Mike Farrell and I haven't always agreed on player assessments since I got into this gig in 2010, but such is the nature of the beast. As a result, I was pretty surprised to see him pick McZeal and A&M as the best fit for a tight end in the SEC. But it did prove one thing: I wasn't the only person to pick up on this guy.

The other choice is a guy who is becoming increasingly popular, with reason. Myles Jones is a guy John Chavis identified early on and jumped on him, and it was a great move. Jones not only has great size for a corner at 6-foot-4, but he can fly and plays with reckless abandon. I would not be surprised at all if he and Charles Oliver are the starting corners on opening day 2018, and we see a lot of him before that.