Former Texas A&M prospects' flips add firepower to UT baseball program's Class of 2024
Bryce Navarre and Adrian Rodriguez's post-high school plans have changed.
Multiple media outlets reported over the weekend that Navarre and Rodriguez had joined the 2024 recruiting class for the Texas baseball program after previously being committed to Texas A&M. Navarre and Rodriguez both acknowledged these commitment changes on their social media platforms.
A 6-foot-1 left-handed pitcher, Navarre attended Montgomery High. Rodriguez was named the Dallas Morning News' 2024 Offensive Player of the Year while playing shortstop for a Flower Mound team that won the Class 6A championship during his junior year.
Navarre and Rodriguez's decisions to play for the Longhorns instead of the Aggies shouldn't be a big surprise. Former Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle replaced David Pierce as the Longhorns' head coach on June 25. Texas also hired ex-Texas A&M assistants Nolan Cain and Max Weiner to respectively be its next associate head coach and pitching coach.
Locked in. @CoachSchloss @ncain39 @TexasOneFund pic.twitter.com/s9Q20MT2Md
— Matt Scott II (@MattScottII) July 5, 2024
Despite the coaching change, Texas has mostly kept its 2024 recruiting intact. Klein Oak outfielder Matt Scott II even tweeted this past week that he was "locked in."
Of the 21 signees that Texas announced in November, just four have publicly said that they will play elsewhere in college. One member of that decommitted quartet − Iowa first baseman Klayton Bolkema − also backed off his pledge to Texas while Pierce was still UT's coach.
The MLB Draft could also change the look of the Class of 2024. Pitchers Kyle DeGroat and Levi Sterling and infielders Jason Flores, Theo Gillen and Bryce Rainer are all currently listed as top-250 prospects by MLB.com, and Gillen and Rainer could both be first-round picks later this month.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Former Texas A&M baseball prospects change commitment to Longhorns