Once again, Baylor recruiting loss will be a Big 12 member’s gain.
On the first day of this month, it was reported that 2016 Baylor signee Brandon Bowen had been granted a release from his National Letter of Intent. Less than a week later, Bowen has decided to begin his collegiate playing career at TCU.
Scout.com was the first to report the development. 247Sports.com subsequently confirmed the initial report, although it should be noted that the Horned Frogs have yet to address what if any future the defensive lineman has with Gary Patterson‘s football team.
A four-star member of BU’s 2016 recruiting class, Bowen was rated as the No. 12 weakside defensive end in the country. He was also the No. 23 player at any position in the state of Texas.
As we have previously noted, Bowen became the 11th member of the Bears’ 22-recruit class this past cycle -- that’s exactly half, for the math-deficient amongst our readers -- to leave Waco over the last two months, with eight of the 11 leaving after being released from their NLIs and another becoming a recruiting free agent thanks to botched NLI paperwork. The previous 10 to leave were, in alphabetical order, B.J. Autry, Parrish Cobb, Tren’Davian Dickson, Devin Duvernay, Donovan Duvernay, Jeremy Faulk, Patrick Hudson, Kameron Martin, J.P. Urquidez and DeQuinton Osborne.
That group had been part of a class that ranked in the Top 20 nationally.
Dickson, though, transferred to Houston; Martin signed with Auburn; Osborne left for Oklahoma State and Cobb for Bedlam rival Oklahoma; and Hudson, Urquidez and the Duvernay twins all migrated to Texas. Autry and Faulk, both JUCO signees, were initially suspended before leaving the football team and university under a cloud of controversy last month.
Add it all up, and seven 2016 Baylor signees ended up moving on to another Big 12 program where they can torment the Bears for at least the next four years, with an eighth staying in the state of Texas at an up-and-coming Group of Five program. All in all, and setting aside the nauseating off-field issues that directly led to the mass exodus, this has been an absolutely disastrous personnel development for the football program over the last couple of months -- a situation that’s not expected to get much better anytime soon as the Bears have just one commit left in its 2017 class.
That whole Biblical reap, sow thing, I guess.