Anthony Hines to Texas A&M: Aggies Land 5-Star LB Prospect

One of the most heavily recruited players in the class of 2017 made a huge announcement Friday, as linebacker Anthony Hines officially committed to Texas A&M. 

Hines revealed his decision with the following tweet:

According to Scout, the Plano East High School (Plano, Texas) standout is a 5-star prospect and is the No. 1 inside linebacker recruit and the No. 19 overall prospect in the nation.

Most schools seemed unlikely to ever get a crack at courting Hines since he made an early commitment to Mississippi State. After considering other options, however, he opted to reopen his recruitment in November 2014.

From that point forward, Hines was pursued by a bevy of top-notch schools. Per Scout, that included Penn State, Ohio State, Florida, UCLA, Texas, Texas A&M and many more.

He put himself on the map in a big way during the 2015 season, registering a remarkable 205 tackles, 24 stops for a loss and nine sacks as a high school junior, according to MaxPreps.

That led to massive amounts of praise from many top talent evaluators, including Tom Lemming of CBS Sports Network:

Even USA Football took notice of Hines' development, and as seen in this GIF, courtesy of the U.S. national team, his game translated well to that stage:

Hines' improvement in recent years has been nothing short of impressive, and it bodes well for him as he gets ready to make the leap to the college game.

There will undoubtedly be a transitional period of some sort due to the difference in speed, strength and athleticism from high school to college, but Hines possesses all of those traits in spades.

He has proved to be a sideline-to-sideline linebacker with great instincts, and that alone should allow him to contribute fairly early in his collegiate career.

If the upward trend he is currently on continues in the coming years, he has the ability to be one of the top all-around linebackers in college football in the near future, and he could help the Aggies make further strides in the competitive SEC.

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