Texas Football: 4-Star RB Donovan Edwards leaning to Michigan, Ohio St

A recent offer sent out by the 2021 Texas football recruiting class, 4-Star West Bloomfield RB Donovan Edwards, could’ve come too late.

The 2021 Texas football recruiting class got off to a hot start last offseason thanks to a scorching stretch in terms of landing commitments for head coach Tom Herman. In the latter portion of the 2019 offseason, Herman couldn’t slow down for Texas on the recruiting trail. The 2020 and 2021 recruiting class were picking up a lot of momentum at that point in time.

However, the Texas Longhorns football program really saw their fortunes on the recruiting trail slow down for their 2021 class of late. The Longhorns are needing to build back up the relationships they once held with their top targets on the recruiting trail prior to all the coaching staff turnover that transpired since the end of the regular season.

One Texas offer that was sent out recently that could be fading away from them real fast is four-star West Bloomfield running back Donovan Edwards. The Longhorns offered Edwards back on Feb. 2. But Edwards nearly has 40 offers now and the Longhorns barely made a dent in the number of blue bloods that did so thus far.

The college programs in this state seemingly jumped on the bandwagon of sending Edwards a scholarship offer too late. The Texas A&M Aggies offered Edwards just after Texas, on Feb. 5. Texas A&M is the most recent Power Five offer Edwards received.

The West Bloomfield, MI, native is from Big Ten country, and the big time college programs in that region of the country don’t look to let him get away. The last coach visit he has on his recruiting timeline (with head coach Ryan Day last month) came from a Big Ten school.

The four programs listed as “warm” on Edwards 247Sports recruiting profile are mostly from the Big Ten. The Ohio State Buckeyes, Michigan Wolverines, Michigan State Spartans, and Georgia Bulldogs are those four aforementioned schools listed by 247Sports as “warm”.

However, the 247Sports Crystal Ball Predictions have Edwards split between Michigan and Ohio State. There are eight expert Crystal Ball Predictions, and four got to each of those two schools. Don’t count Michigan State out in Edwards’ recruitment either.

The 5-foot-11 and 190 pound running back Edwards ranks as the nation’s No. 33 2021 high school prospect and the No. 3 running back. This Michigan native is going to be tough to pry away from either Day and the Buckeyes or head coach Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines.

Other significant programs to watch that sent Edwards a scholarship offer thus far includes the Alabama Crimson Tide, Florida Gators, Florida State Seminoles, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Oklahoma Sooners, Oregon Ducks, and USC Trojans. Other Big 12 programs that offered him includes the Oklahoma State Cowboys and West Virginia Mountaineers.

The Rivals FutureCast does give Michigan a 67 percent chance to land the commitment of Edwards as of Feb. 25. But for all intents and purposes, neither Michigan nor Ohio State have appeared to separate themselves to far from the other yet.

It would take a lot for head coach Tom Herman and the Longhorns to make a late run in the pursuit of a prospect who is very close to landing his fifth star. But Texas did have a five-star running back in the 2019 signing class, with Salpointe Catholic’s Bijan Robinson.