Amari Niblack transfer from Texas Longhorns to Texas A&M football marks first in rivalry history
Texas A&M football fans don't need anyone telling them how crazy the transfer portal has the potential to be. In recent years, every cycle has become tougher and tougher to keep up with as the free transfer becomes more and more of a staple in college football.
The Aggies have lost some premier names and they've gained them in the portal, but never before have they seen something like what just happened.
When Amari Niblack entered the portal from the Texas Longhorns, there was an immediate sense that the Aggies would be a player. Holmon Wiggins, the Aggies' WR coach, was Niblack's primary recruiter at Alabama, so A&M had an in.
It only took one visit to close this recruitment out, as Niblack committed to the Aggies yesterday. This was a big pickup for A&M, as it helped fill a definite need at TE.
However, it was also notable for one other reason. For however crazy the portal has been since it's advent a few years ago, this is the first time a player of note has transferred from Texas to Texas A&M, or vice versa.
This is odd in a sense, given the common recruiting targets that both schools have. Being the two biggest recruiters in the Lone Star State, they're often after the same players, so you'd think that those who enter the portal from one school would be apt to give the other a long look.
It just has not happened that way, however. A&M and Texas, until this most recent eventuality, have not had a player cross from one school to the other.
In fairness, Niblack was hardly a dyed-in-the-wool Longhorn. He came over from Alabama for one season, and after not getting the snaps he did in Tuscaloosa thanks to Gunnar Helm's emergence, he departed.
In a sense, this speaks to something right with college football. I think rivalries might lose their luster ever so slightly if there was a constant interchange of players between the schools party to those rivalries.
In that sense, it's pretty interesting that this is the first-ever occurrence of something like this, especially for all of the "we'll just get him from the portal" rhetoric you see when one school loses out on a recruit to the other. That just doesn't happen as often as you might think.