Cedric GoldenAustin American-Statesman
- The NIL era demands that schools pull out all stops to land the best football players in the country.
- Texas coach Steve Sarkisian is in the midst of recruiting his first class as an SEC coach.
- Texas A&M advanced to the College World series for the second time in three years but will likely be without outfielder Braden Montgomery who injured his ankle in Game 1 of the super regionals.
- WNBA rookie Caitlin Clark is in the center of the most polarizing story in sports after she left off the 2024 USA Olympic team. Clark was unable to try out due to Iowa making the NCAA title game.
The future is now for college football.
And times have changed.
When the first day for official campus visits commenced on Friday, Texas' recruiting machine didn’t make any bones about what attracts 17-year-old prospective blue chippers. Former football coach Tom Herman once told us that young men like shiny new things, and while his comment came before the dawn of NIL, he was right on the money.
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The class of 2025 recruits and their families entering the Moncrief-Neuhaus training headquarters were greeted with a fleet Lamborghinis parked near the front door, engines revving.
With the SEC beckoning, head coach Steve Sarkisian has already proven himself to be an elite recruiter while adapting to the changing landscape of recruiting.
Those Lambos provided a not-so-subtle reminder that it’s not just about sitting down in front of mom and dad and convincing them that your school is the right place for them to spend three or four years before they leave for the NFL. Shoot, it’s a lot less about the league these days because the kids have figured out that they can make a mint without even making the pros.
And good for them.
Players like Josiah Sharma, a 6-foot-4, 320-pound three-star defensive lineman from Folsom, Calif. and Caleb Chester, a 6-2, 175-pound three-star defensive back from Fort Bend Marshall were in town taking in the Texas football experience and undoubtedly peeking under the hood of some high-performance vehicles.
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Sharma, who visited campus this spring, has 15 offers, a list that includes SEC schools Texas, Georgia, Ole Miss, Alabama and Oklahoma. Chester posted a pic with Sarkisian wearing a No. 2 jersey on Sunday. He will likely do the same in an upcoming visit with Texas A&M.
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National championships are won on the field, but championship teams are built in the offseason. More recruits will visit before the window closes on June 25.
In the old days, a kid who landed a college scholarship had the potential to change his life if he made the pros. The pros are no longer necessary to enact change. The scholarship and the bag go hand in hand.
It’s a new world in recruiting and the athletes are the ones holding the cards.
Texas A&M's Jim Schlossnagle pushes all the right buttons
A big thank you: As the bubbles covered the skies above Blue Bell Park, Texas A&M baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle sought out one player during the on-field celebration after sweeping Oregon to advance to the College World Series.
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Outfielder Braden Montgomery suffered a severe ankle injury in a slide to home plate early in Game 1 and is likely out for the season. Teammates assisted him onto the field as he navigated some crutches, but his smile was bigger than anything in Bryan-College Station at the moment, except for maybe the win.
Schlossnagle gave perhaps his best player a big hug. He understands that without the Stanford transfer, the Aggies, talented as they are, may not have made it to Omaha.
“He’s always been invested in our team since the second he got here,” he said on the ESPN telecast.
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The Aggies erupted for nine runs in the seventh inning — four coming on Lake Travis alum Kaeden Kent’s grand slam — to obliterate an 8-4 deficit, win 15-9 and advance to the final eight for the second time in three seasons under Schlossnagle, a player’s coach who understands that it takes a collective to make great things happen.
"It’s a full team,” he said. “This whole thing isn’t about any one guy on a good team. It’s about everybody. I’m super proud of the guys.”
Montgomery is probably not an option for the next two weeks in Omaha, but Schlossnagle smartly gave him his flowers because a team is always about the sum of the parts, not the individual.
Caitlin Clark will make the Olympic team (in 2028)
Clark will have her chance: Some Caitlin Clark fans are up in arms because the Indiana Fever rookie was left off the USA Olympic team that will compete in Paris. Many have said they won’t be watching because CC won’t be part of the proceedings.
Get a grip.
This isn’t a popularity contest. Clark will likely be awarded a spot in the WNBA all-star game, and that’s fine since it’s a celebration of the best and most popular players.But she didn’t earn an Olympic spot.
First of all, Clark playing in the NCAA title game prevented her from attending Team USA tryouts, and even if she had attended, there was no guarantee she would have made the team. Second, there are qualified individuals on the Team USA roster with tons more international experience who earned those spots.
Clark did text Indiana coach Christie Sides, reportedly saying, “Hey Coach, they woke a monster” for not picking her.
If you love ball, that should make you smile because Clark wants to be elite and is motivated. She's the best thing to happen to the women’s game in a long time, but her amazing popularity should not merit automatic inclusion on this team, which is stacked, by the way.
This isn’t Caitlin’s time. That's coming.
USA Today columnist Christine Brennan reported that there were concerns from Team USA veterans that had Clark been named to the team and given limited minutes, the reaction from her millions of fans would have proven problematic. Hopefully that didn’t go into the decision to leave her out.
To be clear, Clark hasn’t registered any real complaints, but there are some who are recklessly making her omission some kind of political statement or a money grab from a ratings standpoint. The goal is to win the tournament, right?
“I’m excited for the girls on the team,” she told reporters Sunday. “It’s the most competitive team in the world and I know it could have gone either way, me being on the team or me not being on the team. I’ll be rooting them on to win the gold.”
Clark is a wonderful talent who will be a part of American Olympic teams starting in 2028.To give Clark, a class act who just loves ball, a free pass to this team based on her filling up arenas and racking up TV ratings is just plain silly. Her main goal should be to get through a tough rookie season.
So who would have benefited from Clark playing in Paris? The people who sell T-shirts, television executives and people hoping to grow the women’s game on a global scale.
Who doesn’t benefit?Caitlin Clark, that’s who. Have you seen the beating she’s taking night in and night out, going up against physically bigger human beings pushing her to the limit?
While people argue over her not playing this summer, Clark will benefit from an offseason in the weight room where she can get stronger and better. At 22 years of age, she’s four years younger than the two youngest players on the U.S. team. If she’s as great as we believe her to be, she will get there.
The Olympic gold will be there in 2028.
