Fisher puts on show to influence recruits
Aggies turn Saturday’s spring game into re-creation of the fall experience
COLLEGE STATION — The retired R.C. Slocum, who won more football games at Texas A&M than anyone, once used the recruiting lure of mother’s homemade cookies in urging blue-chip Texans to stick close to home.
His pitch: Stay within a couple of hours of mama to play college football, and she can show up any time with fresh cookies. Slocum was perhaps A&M’s best recruiter in program history, considering what he had to work with in terms of a threadbare stadium and no-frills locker room at the time, so don’t discount the cookie bait.
His point was the same as new A&M coach Jimbo Fisher’s this week to recruits: Why cross the state line to play college football? It’s the same mantra of second-year Texas coach Tom Herman and others within the state, as they work to keep the state’s top talent from wandering abroad (abroad being beyond the Sabine and Red rivers and the boundaries).
Why leave the state?
A&M plays its annual spring game at 4 p.m. Saturday, and plenty of the state’s top talented players in the next classes plan to be on hand — which is why Fisher is in the middle of a recruiting pitch.
“You drive over here this weekend, and it’s an hour and a half, two hours, maybe three hours,” said Fisher, sounding like Slocum 20 years ago. “You don’t have to leave (the state). You can stay right here in Texas, come to College Station, get everything you want and play in the best conference in college football, and work toward a national championship.”
Fisher, hired from Florida State in December and living in Texas for the first time, is aware of his geographic surroundings. Five of the nation’s 16 largest cities by population are in Texas — Houston (four), San Antonio (seven), Dallas (nine), Austin (11) and Fort Worth (16) — and all within 180 miles of A&M.
“Everybody stay home,” Fisher preached in what seemed a public service announcement for in-state universities. “Why do we have to go everywhere? Stay home.”
It’s one more reason Fisher has turned Saturday’s spring game into one bursting with pomp and pageantry, in trying to simulate a game-day setting, in large part for recruits.
“We want the guys to see what … it’s going to be like (in the fall),” Fisher said. “Of course they’ll get to see the facilities, and be around the players and what a game-day atmosphere is like.”
It’s shaping up as quite an atmosphere this weekend at A&M, and it’s not all about football. The No. 22 A&M baseball team is hosting Alabama in a three-game series that started Thursday night, and it’s also Parents Weekend at the university, which has an enrollment of approximately 63,000.
There’s more intrigue around the spring game, too, because it’s Fisher’s first and interest had waned the past couple of years under then coach Kevin Sumlin. A year ago, 13 suites in Kyle Field had been reserved for the 2017 spring game. This year, it’s more than 80 (and counting).
The Pepsi Fan Zone on the north side of Kyle will be larger than it was for the 2017 Alabama game, and Fisher has asked for more than 100,000 fans to show up.
Among the notable recruits expected are five A&M pledges in safety Brian Williams, receivers Kam Brown and Chase Lane, linebacker RJ Orebon and safety Demani Richardson, according to 247Sports.com.
The list also includes at least 23 high school players taking official or unofficial visits to soak in the spring game, 247Sports writes, including a handful of players the Aggies are in a fight with the likes of Texas and Oklahoma to sign in December (the new early signing period) or in February.
In addition, the state’s No. 1 player, offensive tackle Kenyon Green of Atascocita, plans to be at A&M for a second consecutive weekend, according to 247Sport’s Brian Perroni.
Battle for the prospects
Herman, with a year’s jump-start on Fisher, nailed down seven of the state’s top 10 prospects in the class of 2018; A&M had two and Alabama snagged one. This year, three of the state’s top-10 players have made nonbinding pledges to programs, with A&M and UT each having one and Illinois the other. The Aggies and Longhorns are in on many of the others, which is where something like Saturday’s spring game in College Station comes in.
In terms of the current Aggies, the glorified scrimmage will mark the end of spring drills, and the Aggies will reunite in early August with their first opener under Fisher on Aug. 30 against Northwestern (La.) State.