TYLER, Texas — With less than three months until the 2022 football season, CBS19 Sports is taking a look at some of the top recruits in the 2023 graduating class.
Justin Wells, managing editor for Inside Texas with On3 sports, broke down which East Texas athletes currently have the highest recruitment class.
"The last time I've seen this area so fertile in recruiting was the class of 2015," Wells said. "That's when they had five guys that were all ranked nationally in the top 100."
The class of 2023 doesn't have that many nationally ranked athletes, but one player on the most Power 5 programs' radars is Longview Lobo wide receiver Jale Hale.
"Out of all the recruits in this area, Jalen Hale is probably number one," Wells said. "6'2, 185 pound wide receiver. He's a top 50 national recruit. This kid has over 35 offers. He's been actually recruited since he was a freshman, because I believe, he was one of the first freshmen to ever start on varsity at Longview high School. He just took an official visit to Georgia, the reigning national champions. He's setting up another visit to Ohio State. He's setting up an official visit to Alabama and it looks like if his 7on7 team doesn't qualify this month, he'll be hitting Austin in late June."
Closer to home is Tyler Legacy defensive end Jordan Renaud.
"He's a Top 50, Top 60 National recruit. He holds over 20 offers. A really explosive product 6'4, 235 really explosive defensive end, edge type defender."
Each year there's always a big recruit to come out of the powerhouse Carthage program and Wells believes this season it'll be wide receiver Montrel Hatten.
"He just scores and produces. He's an incredible basketball player, in addition to being a great football player. Hatten holds over a dozen offers, we're talking about Colorado, Missouri, things of that sort," Wells said.
Then there's Tyler High wide receiver Montrell Wade. The Lions are losing a major piece at quarterback with the loss of Eli Holt, but Wade is still a complete prospect.
"He's a really good kid with a handful of offers as well. He's gonna be able to make a choice. I want to say he's probably up to about 15, maybe 20 offers at this point," Wells said. "He'll be able to make a decision to you're pretty quick to to see where he's headed."
Wells added the 2024 class is a long and distinguished list.
"That roller coaster is coming back to the East Texas region and you're going to see a ton more college coaches come through here over the next 12 months," Wells said.
