With the junior day functions wrapping up these next few weeks before spring practices commence, 247Sports’ early 2013 team rankings tell a fascinating story already.

Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin has nabbed seven pledges since Saturday. All 13 of the Aggies' commitments are from in-state.

Continuity is always such a big selling point on the recruiting trail, and relationships make a heavy impact. But examine the coaching tenures of the teams atop the rankings:

Texas A&M: First-year coach (Kevin Sumlin)
Michigan: Second-year coach (Brady Hoke)
Florida: Second-year coach (Will Muschamp)

The names that follow are top-10 staples: national champ Alabama, Texas, Georgia, LSU and Florida State.

But then at No. 9, there’s North Carolina, likewise under a first-year coach in Larry Fedora. Ohio State, under first-year coach Urban Meyer, comes next.

That’s five of the top-10 occupied by programs with relatively new coaching staffs.

When Mack Brown arrived at Texas in the late 1990s, the Longhorns started the trend of loading up on early spring pledges – triggering a gradual shift that has prompted and/or forced colleges to evaluate and pursue prospects much earlier in their high school careers.

But if this year’s budding classes tell us anything, it’s that the post-signing day period has been targeted by new coaching staffs as an avenue through which they are strategically seeking to build recruiting momentum heading into the spring and summer periods. In essence, establish their credibility with the recruiting masses by showing that other prospect peers are buying in, so they should, too.

Each case has its independent variables, and typically new coaching staffs accrue larger signing classes because of their increased roster turnover.

Yet the dynamics in play are compelling.

We have Sumlin trying to make a major public statement in a state Texas has owned. Hoke’s job in Ohio with the 2012 class cannot be understated, and the battle versus Meyer in that region is on. Muschamp needed to regain some fan base favor after his initial season as well as compete with FSU’s continued recruiting prowess. And with prospects flooding out of the state of North Carolina in recent cycles, Fedora has made in-state recruiting their 2013 rallying cry, already nabbing four three-star pledges there while gaining favor with quite a few more.

All of the aforementioned coaches arrived on campus with strong recruiting reputations. So their success on the trail isn’t necessarily newsworthy.

The timing, however, is.