Texas Football: 4-Star WR target Mario Williams trending toward OU

Another target that got away from the 2021 Texas football recruiting class is 4-Star 5-foot-10 Plant City wide receiver Mario Williams.

One of the targets of the 2021 Texas football recruiting class that head coach Tom Herman and former wide receivers coach Drew Mehringer were after early on in his recruitment is four-star Plant City wide receiver Mario Williams. The 5-foot-10 and 165 pound Florida native wound up getting just shy of three dozen offers, though, and thus got away from Texas.

Texas has not yet landed a wide receiver the caliber of Williams in their 2021 recruiting class. He was a big time target to keep a truly stellar pipeline of talent at the position rolling onto the Forty Acres.

On March 14, the Texas Longhorns football program were excluded from the top five finalist schools that were dropped on the Twitter timeline of Williams. That was a big blow to the Longhorns in pursuing one of the most talented wideouts of this recruiting cycle.

The top five finalist schools for Williams included the LSU Tigers, Alabama Crimson Tide, Georgia Bulldogs, Florida Gators, and the Oklahoma Sooners. Head coach Lincoln Riley and the Sooners were the lone non-SEC school to make the latest round of finalist cuts for Williams.

https://twitter.com/MarioWill00/status/1182738742932627461

Texas was once included in the latest round of finalist cuts for Williams. Herman and the Longhorns did make it into the top 10 finalist schools for Williams that he released on Oct. 11, 2019. He also cut the Miami Hurricanes, Auburn Tigers, Oregon Ducks, and Ohio State Buckeyes in his latest round of finalist schools.

Other significant offers that he had cut already came from the Arkansas Razorbacks, Clemson Tigers, Florida State Seminoles, Michigan Wolverines, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Penn State Nittany Lions, Tennessee Volunteers, Texas A&M Aggies, and USC Trojans. He had pretty much every major program around the country going after him.

Williams ranks as the nation’s No. 40 2021 high school prospect, No. 4 wide receiver, and No. 7 prospect out of Florida. His last visit prior to the NCAA mandate in-person recruiting contact dead period came with Florida on an unofficial back on March 6.

The most updated 247Sports Crystal Ball Predictions for Williams has him trending far toward Oklahoma. There are now seven expert Crystal Ball Predictions in, all of which are given to the Sooners. The Rivals FutureCast also favors Oklahoma heavily over the rest of the field.