Texas Football: CB target Ennis Rakestraw picks Mizzou over Horns, Alabama

A crucial target of the 2020 Texas football recruiting class entering National Signing Day, 3-Star CB Ennis Rakestraw, just committed to Mizzou.

National Signing Day (Feb. 5) started out in a weird fashion for the 2020 Texas football recruiting class, with one of their key targets announcing his commitment decision early in the morning. Texas lost out on the race to land three-star fast rising Duncanville cornerback Ennis Rakestraw when he announced his decision as one of the first prospects to do so on National Signing Day.

The Texas Longhorns football program lost Rakestraw to the former Big 12 foe Mizzou Tigers. He picked Mizzou over two programs that were considered to be the favorites to land him, including the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Longhorns. The final set of 247Sports Crystal Ball Predictions favored Alabama to land Rakestraw over the likes of the Arkansas Razorbacks, Longhorns, and Mizzou.

A late rise in the recruiting rankings wouldn’t have been too surprising in Rakestraw’s case. The 6-foot and 180 pound Dallas-Fort Worth native ranked as the nation’s No. 893 2020 high school prospect, 69th best cornerback, and 107th best prospect out of the state of Texas. That was a slight rise from his previous ranking outside of the top 1,000 high school prospects in the nation for this recruiting cycle.

There was literally almost writing on the wall when it came to where Rakestraw was ultimately leaning toward for his commitment on National Signing Day. Previous to announcing his commitment to Mizzou, Rakestraw had the Tweet announcing his offer that he received last fall from Mizzou pinned to his timeline.

https://twitter.com/EnnisRakestraw/status/1225108428357373954

Rakestraw later added the Tweet for his commitment to head coach Eliah Drinkwitz and the Tigers on his Twitter timeline on Feb. 5. Drinkwitz had quite the reaction to the announcement that Rakestraw was committing to take his talents to Columbia too.

Texas did need to add a cornerback to their 2020 recruiting class. Losing out on Rakestraw’s commitment does hurt since the Longhorns only have one true cornerback signed in the 2020 class. Rakestraw was about their last big-time target for this cycle at the position.

Other significant offers that Rakestraw held that he didn’t decide to pursue came from the Baylor Bears, Georgia Bulldogs, Miami Hurricanes, Michigan State Spartans, Ole Miss Rebels, South Carolina Gamecocks, and SMU Mustangs.