In one of the easiest editions of TTFT ever…

1. No team in America is even close to the recruiting heater Texas A&M is on. With four commits in two days, including three today, the Aggies are rolling. It’s likely they’re not done, either. With three more big official visit weekends and camps starting up, it could be a very busy summer.

2. Three-star linebacker Aston Whiteside was the first player to commit this week when he committed last night. Whiteside is listed as an outside linebacker but, if you look at his film, he has great downhill speed, an excellent first step and also knows how to drop into coverage. At 6-foot-2 and around 200 pounds, that sounds like a potential JACK to me.

3. The first surprise came this morning when 4-star EDGE Frederick Ards III committed after his weekend official visit. The native of Orlando was a bigtime target for the nearby Gators, but it only took one look at A&M for him to commit to the Aggies. A&M’s EDGE group is absolutely stacked for 2027 with 5-star Zyron Forstall (who was on campus today), 4-star Kaden McCarty and now Ards.

4. The Aggies also picked up the commitment of one of the nation’s fastest risers, defensive back Loia Valade, a recent transfer to West Boca Raton (Fla.). There’s always one or two players who explode onto the scene in the spring of their junior year — for example, Rylan Kennedy. Valade is one of this year’s late bloomers, and his offer list has exploded since late January. A&M was one of the last teams to offer him, but apparently made up for lost time in a hurry. Valade is a high school safety, but he projects to be a nickel for the Aggies.

5. The first commit for the 2028 class, 4-star EDGE Chance Archangel, was on A&M’s radar for 18 months before he committed today after the Big Man Camp. A&M offered him first, kept after him and eventually secured his commitment over LSU and Alabama. Props to the Aggies for recognizing his talent early and pursuing effectively.

6. A&M pitching coach Jason Kelly won’t be back next year after the Aggies decided not to extend his contract. That’s absolutely, 100% the right move. The pitching staff was a debacle in 2026 and cost A&M a chance at Omaha. Throwing Clayton Freshcorn last night was born out of necessity, because there was nobody else they could trust. In every single statistical category, the Aggie pitching staff was worse than last year’s. At this level, you can’t have such a glaring deficiency.

7. Whoever the next pitching coach is, coach Michael Earley needs to hire him pronto. The baseball transfer portal opened yesterday and there are already some extremely good arms looking for new homes, but A&M has to show some stability at pitching coach in order to attract them.

8. I feel absolutely awful for Freshcorn because he went above and beyond for his team last night. He kept him in the game and until he was just flat out of gas — and there was nobody to turn to. He never got the chance to go to Omaha and had to deal with last year’s miserable season. He shouldn’t have had to go out like that.

9. You can go home again, as former A&M turned TCU turned A&M infielder Jack Bell proved today. Bell hit .309 with a .942 OPS in 50 games for the Horned Frogs this past season, but the Aggies may be just as interested in his glove as his bat. Bell made starts at third base, shortstop and second base this past season, and Bell may be coming in to compete with Sawyer Farr for the chance to start at second in 2027.

10. We talk about the toughness of football players all the time, but the gutsiest performances we’ve seen in recent years have come from baseball players. Jace LaViolette played with a broken wrist in last year’s SEC Tournament and drove in a pair of runs a day after suffering the injury and undergoing surgery. Boston Kellner took a fastball to the face, suffered a broken orbital bone and was back in a week from an injury that should have had him out for a month.

And then there’s Chris Hacopian.

Hacopian also took a fastball to the face, needed a root canal after suffering a gnarly injury and was back in the lineup the next day. Then, he had a collision with big right fielder Jorian Wilson that forced him to the DH role, with Earley merely saying his injury would only heal with time. Turns out that injury was a fractured leg. And this guy was out there beating out critical infield singles in the regional and actually hit better after he was hurt than before.

I don’t even know what you can say about that.

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Sponsored by Brent Campbell, Fighting Texas Aggie Class of 1998. Brent is a Commercial Real Estate Broker, serving all of Central Texas and specializing in sales, leasing & development. He leads a retail acquisition and sales team and was recognized by the Austin Business Journal as a Commercial Real Estate Heavy Hitter in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020 & 2023.

In the last 22 years, he has closed deals with a total transactional value of over $375 million and has leased more than 4.5 million square feet. Brent currently serves as the president of the board of directors for Habitat Homes, Inc. and Pathways Youth and Family Services. He is a former president of the Heart of Round Rock Neighborhood Association and a former member of the Round Rock Zoning Advisory Committee, the Round Rock Business and Retention Committee, and the City of Round Rock Ethics Commission, which has led him to begin developing in Williamson and Travis County.

An Austin native, Brent lives in Round Rock where he and his wife have raised four boys. Brent works for Don Quick and Associates, Inc. in Round Rock and can be reached at brent@donquick.com.