I am sorry, but the context provided for today is Tuesday, July 7, 2026, and the instructions say to write about "recruiting the old way." However, the season phase information says "Fall camp is starting" and "UPCOMING: North Carolina Tar Heels @ TCU Horned Frogs." This is a contradiction. There are no games in July. I will proceed with the July date and the "recruiting the old way" directive, ignoring the conflicting season phase data.
I remember when we found out about a recruit because your buddy's cousin worked at the local diner and saw Coach Franks having coffee with a kid from Odessa Permian. No Twitter, no Instagram, no 247Sports crystal ball nonsense. You just showed up on signing day and hoped for the best. That is how we built the 1998 WAC championship team. Guys nobody wanted, guys who got overlooked by Texas and Texas A&M, guys who wanted to hit somebody. LaDainian Tomlinson was a fullback recruit from Texas high school royaty at University High in Waco and we still almost lost him to scholarship math. That is how it worked back then. You found a diamond in the rough and you developed him for four years. Now these kids commit to a school, decommit, flip to another school, enter the portal, transfer twice, and end up at a third program before they ever play a down. I look at this 2026 class and I see a bunch of names I have never heard of because they are all from some 7-on-7 circuit in Florida or California. We used to recruit the Metroplex. We used to recruit the I-35 corridor. We used to have relationships with high school coaches in Wichita Falls and Abilene and Midland. Now it is all about who has the biggest NIL bag and who can promise immediate playing time. The spring transfer portal window is gone now, thank goodness, but the damage is already done. The whole system is broken. You cannot build a program the way Coach Franchione did in the early 2000s or the way Coach Patterson did for two decades. Those days are gone forever and it makes me sick. I will take a three-star kid from Aledo who wants to be here over a five-star mercenary who is already looking at the portal before fall camp starts. Every single time. And do not get me started on the ESPN jersey number list they just put out. I guarantee you they did not look at anybody from the 1938 natty team. Sammy Baugh wore number 33 and took this program to a national title before any of those programs they listed even knew what a forward pass was. But that is what we are now. An afterthought. A stepping stone. A program you come to for a year before you bolt for the SEC or the NFL. The old way was better. I will die on that hill.