Tony Sanchez frustrated by agents in transfer news, talks selling points for NMSU football
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It’s been a busy week for college football coaches, and New Mexico State’s Tony Sanchez is no different.
The early signing day period went from Wednesday, Dec. 3, to Friday, Dec. 5, and several players have officially signed their letters of intent to the Aggies, including local three-star wide receiver JaDarius Sanders from El Paso, TX.
Separately, others are already starting to announce their intentions to enter the transfer portal when it opens next month, either themselves or through their agents.
Those agents are rubbing Sanchez the wrong way. He held a signing day press conference on Wednesday and questioned agents who inform reporters of their players’ impending portal entry before the agent or the player can tell the coach. Several NM State players have had their transfer portal news go public this way, including key ones like wide receiver Donovan Faupel, tight end Gavin Harris and defensive lineman Ezra Christensen. Others, like wide receiver TJ Pride, have announced it themselves.
While Sanchez declined to say if he was specifically referring to those players or their agents, he went into detail on the issue nonetheless.
“You can’t be too knee-jerked about any of this stuff,” Sanchez said. “Because essentially, you’ve got agents that are saying kids are possibly going to the portal, and you’re meeting with kids, and kids are saying, ‘Well, I’m not necessarily leaving.’ But they want to throw things out there to get leverage, to see what offers they can get, and it’s just a weird old game.
“The majority of guys, they’re pretty upfront about whether or not they want to come back. There are some that want to go out, and they don’t necessarily want to leave, but they want to test the waters. That’s just the deal of college football now.”
Sanchez said some agents only care about sending their players to the “highest bidder” so they can get a higher percentage of their NIL money, and that the “good agents” put their players before themselves and inform coaches before the media. Sanchez also believes players who have the latter agents are more likely to end up in a better situation, whether they stay or leave the Aggies, and be more relaxed about the portal process.
“The ones that really care about the kids, you can tell, because they’ll call you,” Sanchez said. “You have a good conversation. And you know what? It might not be enough. They might have opportunities at other places… but there’s good dialog there, so I’ve seen more of that in this cycle than I have in the past, but there are still some of those other guys out there that … they’re working in the corner.
“But our guys have been really good. That’s the one thing that we’ve developed around here … None of our young men are nervous about coming in and talking to us. We don’t make them feel bad about thinking about it.”
As the portal takes, it’s also given in a small way for NM State. The Aggies announced two transfers from Division II schools, Texas A&M-Kingsville cornerback De’Marcus Peters and Livingstone College defensive lineman Jordan-Lebron Downey, as part of their early signing class alongside six high school and junior college recruits.
National outlets aren’t high on NM State’s recruiting class so far, with 247Sports and Rivals ranking it last and second-to-last among its ranked FBS teams respectively as of Friday afternoon (Rivals doesn’t have a ranking for Penn State).
The Aggies aren’t done adding players, and more will arrive when the transfer portal officially opens from Jan. 2-16, 2026, and on Feb. 4, 2026, for National Signing Day.
Sanchez’s selling points include the Aggies’ new locker room and future renovations to their weight room, practice field and field at Aggie Memorial Stadium. He also cited NM State’s “competitiveness” in 2025 due to many of its games being decided in the fourth quarter and its track record with player development.
“It’s one of those deals where we have a lot to sell,” Sanchez said. “And one of the things we sell is, if you want to be recruited and developed at a high level, there’s no better place. Because when you look at the players that have come here, and you look at, unfortunately, the guys that have moved on, and the success that they’ve had moving on, it’s directly related to their time here at New Mexico State and what we were able to do for them.
“I don’t know anybody in (Conference USA) that can boast that they’ve had as many kids that have been as impactful on Division-I football in the last two years than former Aggies.”
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: NMSU’s Tony Sanchez talks agents sharing transfer news with no warning
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