ESPN reporter accidentally spoils #3 overall recruit's announcement ahead of time

ESPN's Pete Thamel accidentally tweets out 5-star wide receiver Dakorien Moore's college announcement one hour early

Texas A&M football fans know well that college football recruiting can be a fickle game. The indecision of high school-aged prospects, the secrecy leading up to a decision, and the many moving parts involved in getting things across the finish line can sometimes combine for a malign brew when prospects are about to make their announcements.

Aggie fans have been party to no shortage of interesting happenings on this front—Floyd Raven's mother forging his letter of intent jumps to mind. Today, we got another chapter in recruiting decision mishaps, and it happened right in the Aggies' backyard.

Okay, maybe DFW isn't exactly "the Aggies' backyard." But it's still in the Lone Star State!

Duncanville WR Dakorien Moore is one of the most highly-sought-after prospects in the entire nation. After spending quite some time committed to LSU, he recently backed off of his verbal pledge to the Tigers.

Most recruitniks had him penciled in to Austin, as the common wisdom was that Sark's offense and a recent playoff appearance, not to mention a competitive NIL fund, would be enough to get the Longhorns across the finish line here. Indeed, he visited Austin after dropping LSU, and the predictions to Texas came flooding in.

In recent days, though, another school began to come on strong: the Oregon Ducks. Dan Lanning and the folks up in Eugene have been practically annihilating Sarkisian on the trail in the last few weeks, plucking one Texas lean after another out of the Longhorns' domain. Would Sark choke away the lead again in this key race?

As the decision date drew near—July 4th at 8 PM CT—Oregon insiders were growing in confidence. Then, one hour before, Pete Thamel of ESPN tweeted out that Moore had chosen Oregon! He quickly deleted the tweet and put one up simply saying that Moore would be choosing between Oregon and Texas, but the damage was done.

Moore himself tweeted about it, playing dumb:

Shocker of all shockers, though, Moore ended up committing to the Ducks after all! Imagine that!

Despite Moore apparently being unfamiliar with Thamel, avid college football fans are familiar enough with him to know that he has great sources—he's been in the game for quite some time, after all. If Moore let the Oregon staff know, then Thamel likely knew through back channels.

My hunch is that Thamel misread the time zone on the original tweet, thinking that he was announcing at 8 ET rather than CT. Either that or he just happened to hamhand a drafted tweet almost exactly one hour prior to the scheduled announcement. In any case, this is all pretty funny.