The SEC held media days in Dallas for the first time in conference history to commemorate Texas and Oklahoma's entry. Twelve of the 48 players who represented their programs were Texas high school football alums. For perspective, 25 percent of the athletes were Texans while 12.5 percent of the schools are located in Texas.

LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, a former Flower Mound Marcus star, will argue anybody any day - high school football means more in Texas. 

“I think Texas high school football is the SEC of high school football,” Nussmeier said.

The numbers back him up. After compiling the 400 total recruits who ranked in the 247Sports Top 100 from the 2021-24 cycles, Texas and Florida lead SEC states by a wide margin with 64 recruits.

Total Top 100 Recruits in 2021-24 Cycles (per 247Sports)

Mack Brown built a Great Wall of Texas in the late 2000s when the Longhorns were competing for national championships, boxing out other out-of-state programs so he could hand-pick his players. Using data from the 247Sports Top 50 in-state players from 2005-11, an average of 4.9 players in Texas's top 50 recruits committed to an out of state SEC school. 

Texas A&M cracked the door to the state's recruiting hotbed when it entered the SEC for the 2012 season. Using data from the DCTF Top 50 rankings from 2012-24, the cycles where Texas A&M was Texas's sole SEC team, an average of 8.8 players in Texas's top 50 recruits committed to an out of state SEC school. 

But now there are three SEC teams - Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma - who prioritize the state of Texas in recruiting.

The SEC, however, will not be scared off from recruiting Texas because they can't afford to. Schools in states such as Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Kentucky don't have the population to only recruit their state. Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman said his program considers home turf within a six-hour radius of Fayetteville, which includes the DFW area.

“Texas, there’s so many kids down here that can play," Pittman said. "If you look at our state, we just don’t have a populated state. We may have anywhere from six to eight kids that can play football in the SEC, at least in our opinion. That doesn’t make us right, but at least in our opinion. You come into Dallas, and you’ll get - What do you think? Fifty?”

Texas A&M entered the conference in 2012 as a program hoping to benefit from the SEC's brand on the recruiting trail. According to ESPN's Dave Wilson, the Aggies' highest-ranked recruiting class in their last six seasons in the Big 12 was 16th. Texas and Oklahoma, on the other hand, enter the SEC as bonafide recruiting juggernauts. Both programs averaged a top ten recruiting class over the past five years, which included a transition between head coaches. Using 247Sports' rankings, had Texas and Oklahoma been SEC members during the 2023 cycle, they would've ranked third and fourth in the conference, respectively. On a USA Today list of the college football programs who spent the most money on recruiting in 2023, Oklahoma ranked fifth and Texas came in at sixth.

Brent Venables called Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC a partnership of the elite with the elite. It's true of the brands, and of the recruiting prowess. Of the ten programs who spent the most money on recruiting, Clemson (second), Michigan (eighth) and Oregon (ninth) were the only non-SEC teams.

And there's more than enough Texas players to share.

"Texas and Texas A&M can't sign all the good football players in the state. They're going to go to other places," Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said. "We're going to continue recruiting (Texas) regardless of two, three or four teams in the league."

Now it's up to Power Four head coaches in Texas to figure out how to sell the state's best products on staying home. While recruiting has developed into a national phenomenon with an increasing amount of players choosing to attend out of state schools, the Transfer Portal provides Texas programs a second chance to land a hometown hero.

"In my experience as a head football coach, I've always recruited locally to the school I've been at," Houston head coach Willie Fritz said. "Because kids seem to be happier when they're closer to home."

Texas's Big 12 and ACC programs will now have to fend off an increased presence of out of state SEC schools in recruiting. But the early returns suggest the non-Texas and Texas A&M Power Four schools in Texas can still compete with college football's upper echelon in recruiting. TCU, Baylor and SMU all have top 30 classes in the 2025 cycle per 247Sports.

But while summer commitments provide programs momentum, the fall football schedule determines whether or not those players sign.

"Without winning, it's all kind of an empty deal," Baylor head coach Dave Aranda said. "The kids are going to want to know that you can make the Playoff and you can be competitive in the Playoff."