Texas A&M continues to dominate the California 2025 recruiting trail

Texas A&M’s recruiting success in California has been nothing short of elite

What an offseason it has been for Texas A&M on the recruiting trail under first-year head coach Mike Elko. The Aggies 2025 recruiting class has once again risen in the rankings after landing the second-top-ranked prospect out of California, four-star cornerback Adonyss Currie.

Joining five-star quarterback commit Husan Longstreet, the No. 1-ranked player in California, Currie is just two spots below him at No. 3 in 247Sports’ updated recruiting rankings. Five-star cornerback Dijon Lee out of Mission Viejo (CA) is the second-ranked prospect in the state and recently included Texas A&M in his final four program list.

With the high possibility of securing Lee’s commitment as soon as this summer, the Aggies have dominated the California recruiting landscape, and it’s not just Elko who deserves credit.

Throughout the start of the year, Texas A&M cornerback coaches Ishmael Aristide and Jordan Peterson combined with Aggies defensive coordinator Jay Bateman have traveled up and down The Golden State, not only developing relationships with Currie and Lee, as four-star linebacker Noah Mikhail is set to visit College Station on June 7 before announcing his intentions on June 30.

During the 2023 season, the Aggies consistently dealt with a lack of talent and depth in the secondary, leading to Elko adding seven defensive backs through the transfer portal. The addition of Currie is a good sign that under Elko and Bateman’s defensive guidance, Texas A&M’s future pass defense could be one of the best in the SEC.

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What will Texas A&M safeties room look like if junior Jacoby Mathews transfers in spring portal?

Mike Elko, Jay Bateman, Ishmael Aristide and Jordan Peterson are assessing what the Aggies safeties room will look like if Mathews departs.

Following the 2023 regular season, former Texas A&M junior safety Jardin Gilbert returned home and chose LSU in the NCAA Transfer Portal.

Now Gilbert’s presumed replacement at starting safety is potentially departing from College Station as well. Jacoby Mathews entered the spring transfer portal on Saturday afternoon.

While the incoming junior could still return, head coach Mike Elko, defensive coordinator Jay Bateman and co-defensive backs coaches Ishmael Aristide & Jordan Peterson are likely currently assessing what the Aggies safeties room will look like if Mathews does find a new home.

Gilbert is gone, Mathews is in the portal and incoming junior Jarred Kerr remains from the 2023 roster. Transfers include seniors Trey Jones from Central Michigan & De’Rickey Wright from Vanderbilt.

As a Texas A&M staff member texted Aggies Today on Saturday, “Don’t forget about (incoming sophomore) Dalton Brooks. He’s an all-conference player.”

According to TexAgs executive editor Billy Liucci on X, Mathews’ decision to enter the portal “had a lot more to do with no adjusting to heightened expectations inside the program in all areas.”

Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes and opinions. Follow Shaun on Twitter: @Shaun_Holkko.

New Texas A&M DB coach Jordan Peterson brings a wealth of recruiting success

Returning to College Station since his playing days, new DB coach Jordan Peterson is already one of the top recruiters in the country.

As of this week, new Texas A&M co-defensive backs coach Jordan Peterson, who recently held the role of co-defensive coordinator with Kansas under head coach Lance Leopold during the 2023 season, was officially hired, completing Aggies HC Mike Elko’s staff ahead of the 2024 season.

As an Aggie alum, Peterson graduated from Texas A&M with a bachelor’s degree in sports management in 2009 and his master’s in education curriculum and instruction in 2010. Standing at 5-foot-10, 185 pounds during his playing days at the safety position, Peterson recorded 81 tackles, 15 pass deflections, 4 interceptions, 2 forced fumbles, and 1 fumble recovery during his career.

After serving as a graduate assistant at Texas A&M from 2010-11, Peterson coached at Fresno State (2012-16) and New Mexico (2017-19) before his four seasons with the Jayhawks, where he quickly built his current reputation as one of the top recruiters in the country.

Before departing for College Station, Peterson had already secured three commitments from four-star prospects in Kansas’ 2024 recruiting class. According to 247Sports, he is currently ranked (41st) as a top 50 recruiter in college football for the cycle, joining Aggies WR coach Holmon Wiggins (No. 2) and defensive coordinator Jay Bateman (38th).

Peterson will serve in his role alongside passing game coordinator & co-defensive backs coach alongside Ishmael Aristide, while fellow recruiting ace Bryant Gross-Armiento will stay on with the program as a senior defensive analyst next season.

While impending results on the field are the only way to Judge Mike Elko’s tenure as head coach, he has already assembled one of the top coaching staff on paper. In the ever-changing college football landscape concerning NIL and the transfer portal, Jordan Peterson’s hire speaks volumes regarding Elko’s progressive, forward-thinking outlook.

Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes, and opinions. Follow Cameron on Twitter: @CameronOhnysty.

Report: Texas A&M football program hires Aggies alumnus Jordan Peterson from Kansas as DBs coach

According to a report from Billy Liucci of TexAgs, the Aggies have hired Kansas co-defensive coordinator Jordan Peterson as co-cornerbacks coach.

The old cliche goes “Everything happens for a reason,” and that is certainly evident in Aggieland over the past nine days.

The day after Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko retained Bryant Gross-Armiento as a senior defensive analyst, Wesley McGriff decided to return to Auburn rather than becoming passing game coordinator & co-defensive backs coach alongside Ishmael Aristide.

Now only eight days later, Elko has found McGriff’s replacement and it’s a face that diehard members of the 12th Man will know. According to a report from Billy Liucci of TexAgs, the Aggies have hired Kansas co-defensive coordinator Jordan Peterson as co-cornerbacks coach.

Peterson is a Texas A&M alumnus who played four seasons at Kyle Field before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in sport management in 2009 along with his master’s in education curriculum and instruction in 2010. As a 5-foot-10, 185-pound safety, he racked up 81 tackles 15 pass deflections, 4 interceptions, 2 forced fumbles and 1 fumble recovery.

After becoming a two-time All-Big 12 Academic First Team selection, Peterson got his start in coaching as a graduate assistant in College Station from 2010-11. He coached at Fresno State from 2012-16, New Mexico from 2017-19 and had been with the Jayhawks for the last four seasons from 2020-23.

Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes and opinions. Follow Shaun on Twitter: @Shaun_Holkko.

Seahawks WR Tyler Lockett enjoyed this Twitter joke about Pete Carroll

If there is a saving grace for this sewer of lies it’s the dark sense of humor that many users have adopted

NFL news tends to break on Twitter first, so a lot of us spend our days scrolling the app as part of our jobs. Whether you like it or not, non-football-content tends to find its way onto your timeline. The rest of the posts on the site can usually be broken down into five main categories: news presented in a dishonest fashion, bad-faith political arguments, mean-spirited trolling, naked racism and jokes stolen from other accounts.

If there is a saving grace for this sewer of lies it’s the dark sense of humor that many users have adopted, no doubt influenced by the content there. A genuine out-loud laugh (no, typing out LOL doesn’t count) at the end of a long day of doomscrolling can do a lot of good.

Since this past week has been harder on most of us than usual, we figured we could all use a little bit of levity. This joke we found this morning about Seahawks coach Pete Carroll is pretty wholesome by Twitter’s standards.

Wide receiver and hopefully new offensive captain Tyler Lockett certainly found it funny.

The best jokes always have a ring of truth to them and this one definitely meets the criteria.

Over the years, coach Carroll has invited a wide cast of slick characters to speak at VMAC.

On the awesome side there was former Bulls sharpshooter and current head coach Steve Kerr, who has led his Warriors back to the NBA Finals without Kevin Durant after a few years’ absence. In addition to being a five-time world champion as a player, Kerr is maybe the most innovative basketball coach to come along in decades. He also understands far better than most what’s wrong with our country and isn’t afraid to speak his mind about it.

On the less attractive side of the ledger, Carroll has also invited some true morons to speak to the Seahawks – most notably the famous bigot Jordan Peterson, who recently fled Twitter with no apparent sense of irony as he complained about getting insulted on the platform.

Anyway, in case you can’t tell keeping our focus exclusively on football is pretty difficult for us right now.

Our staff here at Seahawks Wire is feeling profoundly saddened by the recent shooting tragedies in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York.

Fortunately, this is one of the slowest times of the year for NFL news. Things will pick up again soon and we hope to be in a better place to provide you with that content.

For now, it feels fundamentally wrong to try to avoid talking about the elephant in the room. Something has to change this time because we cannot allow these mass-murders to keep happening.

We understand a lot of fans want to read about football as a way to escape the world around them but to hide our heads in the sand as children are slaughtered regularly while no significant effort to stop it is underway is too much to ask.

This particular tragedy feels different because it has revealed so many of the ways that our society is fundamentally broken.

At the top of the list is the fact that the killer was allowed to legally purchase military-grade weapons at his age. Speaking as someone who was once a troubled 18-year old kid, I can’t imagine a more dangerous combination and that concern is bared out by the numbers on mass shooting incidents, which are by and large perpetrated by unstable young men.

At a minimum, this outrage has to motivate us to move the age of legally buying guns at the national level up to 21 years old or better yet 43.

The Seahawks reporter who understands this best is Gregg Bell of the News Tribune, who is an army veteran and has extensive experience with these types of firearms. Here’s what he has to say on the subject.

Whatever we do, we can no longer accept hollow statements from our elected leaders.

For better or worse, this time something has to change.

We leave you today with this biblical wisdom from former Seattle wide receiver Doug Baldwin.

We hope you have a safe holiday weekend with your loved ones. Take care of eachother.

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John Schneider on Colin Kaepernick: Seahawks ‘always looking’ at QB options

Yesterday, general manager John Schneider was asked about Kaepernick by ESPN 710 and he offered a non-answer.

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The Seahawks are one of the last teams in the NFL this offseason that hasn’t added an established starter at quarterback to their roster. It’s possible the team sees Drew Lock as a viable fallback option, but at some point they’ll need to add another body at this position, whether via the draft, free agency or in a trade.

The quarterback who’s made himself the most available to the team is their old rival, former 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick. He hasn’t played since the 2016 season but lately he’s been working out with Seahawks receivers, including Tyler Lockett and Aaron Fuller.

Yesterday, general manager John Schneider was asked about Kaepernick by ESPN 710 and he offered a non-answer, declining to say if the team is interested in him and noting that they’re “always looking” at available quarterback options.

Seattle may be the most progressive team in the NFL, but that’s an extremely low bar. Fans who are holding out hope that the Seahawks will give Kaepernick a legitimate opportunity should probably keep in mind that Pete Carroll invited Jordan Peterson to speak to the team.

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