The internet has been going crazy since the moment Kyler Murray and DaMarkus Lodge confirmed they were in Austin for an unofficial visit. Things went up a notch Thursday night when Murray showed up to the Dallas Morning News Awards Banquet wearing an orange tie, and Orangebloods.com published a report of a possible press conference next week announcing a decision has been made. This thing has a ton of moving parts and interesting angles so I'll give you my thoughts on where things stand right now.
1. Earlier today, we posted some
extra burnt ends regarding the situation in which our sources indicated a shared optimism about the situation. I posted a few days ago that I spoke to someone who was acquainted with Kevin Murray and stated he was a fan of Strong and Watson and admired Watson's ability at developing quarterbacks. Based on our separate sources plus what is out there from other sites, I think there is enough of a consensus to say that is correct. An Aggie legend signing off on his son playing for Texas is monumental and it looks like that is what is happening here. I don't get the sense from sources that his father is running this whole thing, but being a former athlete himself he certainly can provide the proper guidance in this situation. Mix in the fact that Lodge enjoyed his visit, and Malik Jefferson is already on campus and you'd have to say the tea leaves are trending positively.
2. Since it's been talked about on nearly every recruiting site around, I'll mention that the report Orangebloods.com put out regarding the visit is a big deal. Say what you want about Geoff Ketchum but he's an established guy with good sources. A lot of his information falls in line with what we've heard so I have no reason not to believe him at this point. Make no mistake about it, this wasn't click bait. This was an all in, ballsy piece in which Ketch all but guaranteed an imminent flip. I will say that Ketch does a great job managing the expectations of his readers and only appears this confident when he has a reason to. If it comes out that this was false information that place will burn, and he doesn't want to be the one dealing with that. If he feels this confident about the situation, it's because he has a reason to.
3. I want to take this opportunity to talk about Kyler the person as I had a chance to interact with him at the Elite 11 camp last summer. This whole situation caused me to go and dig this up.
I spoke with Murray at that camp and he's a very guarded person. That probably comes with the territory when you grow up the son of a college football star and have been lauded as a generational talent for your whole life. Murray keeps things close to the vest and protects the information he wishes to protect. On the flip side he also has no bones about speaking bluntly when he absolutely wants to deny something. With that in mind let's talk about the Dallas Morning News Awards Banquet.
4. So Kyler Murray, fresh off breaking the internet by showing up in Austin wears an orange tie to an awards banquet. While I usually don't put a ton of stock in that sort of thing, but he had to know there would be questions that came with it.
Murray did talk to some media at the event , and addressed his tie situation by saying "Orange goes with brown". Murray also said he's "Still committed to A&M". Two thoughts on that, with as guarded as Kyler is I doubt the choice of wardrobe was purely coincidental. The second thought is probably the most important aspect of this whole thing. Kyler says "I'm still committed to A&M", Here he had an opportunity to silence everyone by making a definitive statement. He could have said, "I took a visit to Texas, but I'm 100% solid to A&M and will be signing with them. I have no plans to open up my recruitment". He didn't, and he made a pretty non-committal statement. That's a huge thing to me because he has never been about the public attention that other recruits have. He committed pretty early and could have taken things all the way to signing day. This whole situation has brought down a lot of public thunder on him, and he could have ended it. He didn't.
5. Here's one under reported thing about this whole deal. How big of a role does Matthew Merrick play in this whole thing? Merrick is coached by Kevin Murray and brought him along with him on his visit last fall to Austin. By virtue of Murray getting to be around the coaching staff on gameday he got to see how Watson operates and spent time with the coaching staff outside of the context of a father-son recruiting trip. I literally haven't seen this talked about anywhere and to me it seems like a pretty obvious positive.
6. Several Aggie sites reached out to sources tonight and debunked the Orangebloods rumors saying there was no press conference scheduled. They didn't specifically address any other aspects of the report, and didn't really debunk anything since Ketchum reported "he heard a press conference
could be scheduled next week".
7. Keep an eye on the Soso Jamabo situation. Jamabo is currently in Austin on an official visit and is very close with Murray. Soso and Murray say they want to play together, but Jamabo cancelled his official visit to A&M last week. UCLA is the main competition for Jamabo, but if he and Murray can work something out he could be huge in getting Murray to take those final steps.
8. Despite all of this we have to remember that recruiting is a funny game and Murray is a unique prospect. Murray is a long time commit to the school his father starred at and did a lot of recruiting for that school. He has friends there as well, and those factors make for some hurdles still in the way. My guess is that if something happens it will be quickly, Murray will want to get some of his uncommitted buddies on campus if he were to switch and the announcement will probably come out of nowhere. I don't foresee a situation where they call something a week ahead of time and make an announcement.
9. If you're looking for positive signs then cheer hard for the press conference. There's no way they call a press conference just to announce they are staying with A&M. This isn't a decommitment situation yet so there's no need to do that. An official announcement weighs heavily in UT's favor.
10. I don't buy the whole "they are trolling" angle perpetrated by Aggie fans out there. As I've detailed they just don't seem like the type of people who would open up this can of worms and deal with it just to pull one over on another school. Kevin Murray's status as a private quarterback coach wouldn't benefit from that either so I can't see it happening from that angle. There is some serious interest here.
11. If this happens to the Aggies it will be catastrophic for them, and as I said yesterday would be the decisive blow to turn the tide for Texas. It would also leave A&M with one scholarship quarterback on campus unless they were to get someone late in the process. It's not a dagger to the heart, it's a knife to the jugular. In MMA terms, Charlie has Sumlin's back with both hooks in and is looking to secure the choke to finish the fight. Kyle Allen certainly had some nice moments in their bowl game, but he's by no means a sure thing. Even if this doesn't happen you have to wonder about all the unrest in Aggieland. Is this something that can save them or is it something that won't matter in the long run? We also talked about the gamble Texas was taking, and it's a big one. All signs point to Zach Gentry defecting barring a masterful job by Watson during his in-home tomorrow. This is an incredibly high stakes game for seemingly all the chips. If Texas wins they take the whole pot. That means Lodge, Mack, Jamabo, Boyd, Hill, Newsome. That's a massive blow going into 2016.
12. Finally, regardless of the outcome how about a hand for Charlie Strong and his staff of "non impact recruiters". In December this looked like a class that would limp to a top 15 finish, and now we are talking about one of the potentially all time classes coming off of a 6-7 season. This staff has put in a tremendous amount of work to stay in the fight and it's always nice to see hard work pay off. Buckle up folks, we are less than 2 weeks away.
to me
