The Big 12 Conference season opens Friday, and with Texas ranked No. 1, Baylor at No. 4 and Texas A&M at No. 6 in PG Crosschecker’s latest ranking of the nation’s top 50 college baseball teams, all eyes will be on the state of Texas this weekend. Baylor (10-2) and Texas A&M (11-4) lock horns right off the bat, while Texas (13-1) hosts Missouri.

Generally, teams at the top of the national rankings are exceptionally strong in the junior class (effectively, the current year’s draft class), but that’s not necessarily the case here and we’ll take a most revealing inside look at the three Texas college powers from the perspective of the high-school talent each secured from their 2007 recruiting classes. Baylor, Texas and Texas A&M all had nationally-recognized classes in the November, 2005 NCAA early-signing period. Coincidentally, each got commitments from 12 prep players.

But it’s interesting to note that while all three schools signed strong classes and somewhat predictably are at the top of the national college rankings three years later, only Baylor is getting mileage out of its 2007 class. Not surprisingly, many of its players will be prominent draft picks in June.

Meanwhile, Texas and Texas A&M have little to show for their recruiting efforts three years ago. The core of the Aggies’ stellar recruiting class, which was headlined by lefthander Clayton Kershaw, the seventh overall pick in the 2007 draft, signed professionally out of high school and never set foot on campus. Kershaw was so advanced that he has already reached the big leagues with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Two more A&M recruits, outfielder Matt Sulentic (Athletics) and Zach Britton (Orioles) were lost to the draft as third-round picks. A fourth, lefthander Kevin Angelle, chose to transfer to San Jacinto JC after being drafted in the 11^th round. He is now a junior at Lamar. Yet another premium A&M recruit, shortstop Nick Papasan, was drafted in the 24^th round by the Minnesota Twins and lost on the eve of the signing deadline, just before he was scheduled to enroll in college.

Texas had eight members of its recruiting class taken in the 2006 draft, but appeared to come through unscathed when only one player, shortstop Marcus Lemon, a fourth-round pick, ended up signing a $1 million deal with the Texas Rangers. But almost every player who originally committed to the Longhorns ended up transferring to other colleges.

So while the strength of Baylor’s 2009 nationally-ranked team is the nucleus of its deep and talented 2007 recruiting class, Texas and Texas A&M have been challenged to field teams that are heavily dependent on talent other than what’s in their conventional junior class.

The strength of both Texas and Texas A&M is clearly in their pitching staffs. Texas, with a collective 1.35 ERA to date, has a rotation that includes sophomores Cole Green (2-0, 0.81), Chance Ruffin (3-0, 2.31) and Brandon Workman (2-1, 0.83), and freshmen Taylor Jungmann (2-0, 1.50) and Austin Dicharry (3-2, 0.74). Senior Austin Wood (3-0, 0.66, 3 SV) has been a stabilizer in the bullpen.

Texas A&M’s own power-packed pitching staff has racked up 154 strikeouts in 135 innings so far, and the key arms for the Aggies have been senior Kyle Thebeau (0-0, 3.65, 1 SV), red-shirt juniors Alex Wilson (1-2, 0.95, 19 IP/35 SO) and Travis Starling (0-0, 1.42, 3 SV), sophomores Brooks Raley (3-0, 2.50) and Barret Loux (0-0, 4.11, 18 IP/25 SO), and freshman Ross Hales (3-1, 2.20). Wilson is a talented junior who projects as a possible first-rounder in June, but he neither qualifies as a Texas A&M recruit or a member of the team’s class of 2007 as he is a transfer from Winthrop who missed the 2008 season while recuperating from Tommy John surgery.

In the case of both Texas and Texas A&M, only three players remain from their talented 12-man 2007 recruiting classes. Texas first baseman Brandon Belt is the only such player from either team still considered an impact talent, yet even he didn’t take a conventional route to his present status as he elected to attend San Jacinto JC as a freshman after being drafted in the 11^th round by the Boston Red Sox out of high school. He made good on his commitment to Texas only as a sophomore after being selected in the 11^th round again in the 2007 draft, by the Atlanta Braves.

While Lemon (Eustis, Fla.) was the only player that Texas lost to the 2006 draft from its original recruiting class, two other players, in addition top Belt, chose to attend junior college instead of Texas. Righthander Jordan Walden (Mansfield, Texas), a 10^th-round pick of the Los Angeles Angels, changed course at the last minute and ended up at Grayson County CC. He was signed to a lucrative $1 million bonus as a draft-and-follow the next spring after his fastball reached triple digits. Lefthander Taylor Hammack (Angleton, Texas), a 46^th-rounder, also went the JC route by enrolling at San Jac, and is now at Houston.

Middle infielders Michael Demperio (Marietta, Ga.) and Josh Prince (Lake Charles, La.), both undrafted out of high school, spent their freshman seasons at Texas before transferring back home to Georgia and Tulane, respectively. They are starting at shortstop this season for those clubs. Outfielder Clint Stubbs (Atlanta, Texas), younger brother of former Texas All-American Drew Stubbs, also moved on after his freshman year and is currently at Louisiana Tech.

Righthander Nate Karns (Arlington, Texas), a 10^th-rounder in 2006, and lefthander Carmine Giardina (Valrico, Fla.), a 28^th-rounder, transferred to out-of-state four-year colleges before ever enrolling at Texas. Karns wound up at North Carolina State as a freshman before going back home to Texas Tech a year later. Giardina spent two seasons at Central Florida, before moving on to Division II Tampa for the 2009 season. Righthander Blake Williams (Sweeny, Texas) never did pitch at Texas because of a shoulder injury, and has since resurfaced at Oregon.

Meanwhile, outfielders Russ Moldenhauer (Boerne, Texas) and Kyle Lusson (Austin, Texas), the final two members of the Longhorns 2007 recruiting class, are still members of the team, though they have accumulated nine at-bats between through Texas’ first 14 games. Moldenhauer was a third-round pick of the Angels in the 2006 draft and one of the highest selections in that draft to go unsigned, but his career has been slowed considerably by injuries, notably knee surgery a year ago.

Texas has five juniors on its current roster, but the only one making an impact besides Belt is shortstop David Hernandez, the team’s top hitter in the early going. But Hernandez ended up at Texas only after Demperio and Prince left school, and after transferring there following his freshman season at Fresno State.

From Baylor’s stellar recruiting class, ranked No. 1 in the nation at the time, nine members of the 12-man class remain on the roster. The Bears went 68-53 overall and a mere 23-31 in conference play the last two seasons with those players in the lineup, but all have been key cogs in Baylor’s fast start this season and in the team’s high expectations for 2009, both on the field and in the draft.

PG Crosschecker projected, at the outset of the 2009 season, that Baylor would make more of an impact than any college in this year’s draft with four players in the top three rounds and as many as nine in the top 10. The quartet of early-rounders, righthanders Kendal Volz, Craig Fritsch and Shawn Tolleson, and lefthander/outfielder Aaron Miller, are all members of the Bears 2007 recruiting class.

The 6-foot-5, 225-pound Volz, a 50^th-round pick in 2006, is capable of reaching the mid-90s consistently, and is expected to be the first Bears player selected. But Miller, an 11^th-rounder in 2006, has been moving up fast on the outside this spring, as both a hitter and pitcher, after his stock appeared to regress during an injury-plagued 2008 season. While most scouts initially saw greater upside in Miller at the plate, they are now split after his fastball was clocked at 93-94 mph earlier this season.

Fritsch and Tolleson, both undrafted in 2006, have high-round ability, as well, but their status for 2009 is more clouded than either Volz or Miller as they red-shirted as freshmen—Fritsch because he wasn’t ready to compete yet at the college level, Tolleson because he was coming off Tommy John surgery that shelved him as a high-school senior—and they fall into the gray area of being draft-eligible sophomores.

As much as Baylor’s 2007 recruiting class has remained largely intact, at least when compared to either Texas or Texas A&M, three players from that Bears class fell by the wayside. Outfielder Clay Fuller signed with the Angels after being drafted in the fourth round in 2006, righthander Ryan Jenkins red-shirted along with Fritsch and Tolleson as a Baylor freshman before transferring a year ago to McLennan (Texas) JC, and infielder Jimmy Bailey was dismissed from the team prior to the 2007 season. As a high-school junior, Jenkins appeared to have as much upside as any of Baylor’s highly-touted recruits as he featured a 93-94 mph fastball and 85-mph power slider, but his stuff dipped considerably as a high-school senior and never has returned.

With the start of the Big 12 season slated for Friday, we thought we would provide our take on the top 10 prospects in the conference in each of the 2009, 2010 and 2011 draft classes. It should be graphically evident by scanning the attached lists how strong the 2009 draft class is in the Big 12 overall this year. By the same measure, the 2009 list points out how Baylor’s success this season is heavily dependent on its acclaimed 2007 recruiting class, and, by contrast, how much Texas and Texas A&M have had to scramble to fill the void left when the bottom fell out of their 2007 recruiting classes.

We have also provided a fourth chart, a list of PG Crosschecker’s top 10 high school prospects in Texas for the 2006 draft, along with the whereabouts of those players today.