The Texas A&M football team has been recruiting at a higher level than any program that we’ve seen in… well, ever. The Aggies are one official letter of intent away from having the greatest class in the history of college football in 2022 — that letter should be signed by Harold Perkins, who recently committed to Texas A&M.
But after an 11-year stretch that saw Georgia and Alabama swap blows atop 247Sports’ recruiting rankings, how did the Aggies take the next step? Money.
As illegal as that may sound to the average college football fan — it’s not. With NIL in place, the Texas A&M football team can find ways to pay these players. While some schools were more willing to cheat in the past, the playing field is now level on the recruiting grounds.
The Texas A&M football team’s boosters allegedly paid upwards of $30 million for the top-overall 2022 class
Before I get any deeper into this, I want to clarify one thing. Any information that I’m sharing with you today is coming from a message board. Oh, you thought that was the worst part? It’s coming from a message board post that was written by a user named SlicedBread.
Take everything I’m saying with a grain of salt. Here’s the post.
— - (@Spicoli_____) January 5, 2022
The convincing part about this is that it’s all so specific — it would seem like an odd thing to make up. It also makes sense with the timeline, as A&M was among the better recruiting schools in the country and took a massive jump with the release of new NIL rules.
The class isn’t just good — it features five five-star prospects who have signed national letters of intent and one who is committed without signing yet. One more five-star is expected to commit. The Aggies also have 19 four-star prospects committed.
To put it simply, the Aggies are changing the way recruiting is done in college football. Just as Mel Tucker at Michigan State utilized change in transfer portal rules and turned his team around, Jimbo Fisher is utilizing a change in NIL rules and giving himself the most powerful roster in college football.
The Aggies are catching up to Georgia and Alabama in a hurry. The scariest part, perhaps, is that they already knocked off the Tide with an objectively less talented roster.