East Coast Mustang wrote:Analyzing team recruiting rankings in July is a pretty worthless exercise. OU and Tech have seven commits. Oklahoma State has eight.
But the idea that the Big 12 is falling behind is becoming more true by the day in my opinion- because of A&M's move to the SEC, it's now open season on recruits in the state of Texas for SEC teams. And the state of Texas has obviously been the bread and butter of Big 12 recruiting.
Check out the top TX recruits for 2015, as listed by Rivals:
https://rivals.yahoo.com/footballrecrui ... qll6hGPZB47 of the top 10 have committed, with five going to SEC schools- three to A&M, one to LSU, and one to Bama. OSU and Tech have the other two.
All that has happened compared to previous years is that UT has fallen on their butts and A&M has taken a lot of momentum. It happened in the late 80's and early 90's and will reverse again.
OU has focused less on TX in recent years and the percentage of their roster from Texas has dropped accordingly. Where they used to get 60-75% of their roster from Texas it's now around 46%. They have 13 kids from the western states (likely due to Mike Stoops and his ties from his Arizona days)
KU & KSU are focusing on JUCOs (its the only way a consistent winner was built in that state) and never were major players in TX recruiting. ISU and WVU really don't do the bulk of their recruiting here and focus on Florida as much or more than Texas. So that leaves the following...
Baylor
Tech
TCU
OkSt
All of whom historically have been behind A&M in the recruiting pecking order historically, even when Tech and Leach were kicking their butts on the field for a decade straight. All of these are recruiting better than they typically have done.
As for Bama & LSU? Look at just about any year in the past 15 and 1-3 top ten guys will go off to whichever teams are the team du jour. USC pulled Michael Morgan out of Texas 2 months after UT beat them for the national title and UGA pulled Stafford out of HP on signing day 2006 with UT fresh of winning two Rose Bowls in a row and a national title. To act like this is something new is simply not being aware of history.
2007? No different. Michigan plucked Ryan Mallett.
It's not surprising that with UT coming off a 2 year period where the only teams in the Big 12 that didn't beat them are ISU, KU, and Tech that things are slumping for them.
Also they have the additional disruption of a coaching switch. Last time they had that it was 1998 and even "Coach February" couldn't stop 9 of the top 20 in the state from going to non-Big 12 teams like FSU, ND, or others.
IMO this trend will speed up Texas' departure from the Big 12 for the Pac-12/16, bringing OU, Tech, and Okie State with them.
So much wrong with this I don't know where to begin.
a- The Big 12's grant of rights holds each member in the league as the tv rights for home games would stay with the league. The difference here vs an exit fee is the "posssession is 9/10ths of the law" thing applies and possession goes to the league until at least 2023 if it isn't extended beyond that.
b- There were interviews with Dodds at UT where he indicated that the department was looking East if it left.
c- UT seems to love the exposure from the LHN which is on all but one major carrier in the state. The PAC won't allow it.
d- UT is making more money than ANYONE and will do so for the forseeable future. Why pay exit fees to potentially take a pay cut?
There are more issues with it but that's enough for now.
To be fair should they continue in mediocrity for a decade they will make changes but a 2 year sample isn't going to do that.