Texas Football: 4-Star CB target Hunter Washington trending to Florida St

A potential looming loss for the 2021 Texas football recruiting class could be coming from 4-Star Katy CB Hunter Washington.

On May 5, the 2021 Texas football recruiting class lost out on one of its more highly touted cornerback targets. At least among those high school prospects that had received an offer from Texas for the 2021 recruiting cycle, four-star Bloomingdale cornerback (and now Notre Dame Fighting Irish commit) Philip Riley was a bigger target at first for head coach Tom Herman.

Losing out on Riley was not a huge deal for the Texas Longhorns football program and their 2021 recruiting class, but missing out on four-star Katy corner Hunter Washington would be more impactful. Washington got more of a priority from the Longhorns than Riley did.

Back on March 23, Washington did announce that the Longhorns were included amid his top 10 finalist schools. The other nice included on that list of finalist schools were the Oklahoma Sooners, Arkansas Razorbacks, Ohio State Buckeyes, TCU Horned Frogs, Ole Miss Rebels, LSU Tigers, Virginia Tech Hokies, Florida State Seminoles, and Arizona State Sun Devils.

https://twitter.com/Hunter_DB7/status/1242141922690576386

But there was not much movement in the recruitment of Washington through the end of April. It took until May 6 to see if there were any legitimate leanings for the commitment of Washington. The 247Sports Crystal Ball Predictions now has six of six experts picking Florida State over the rest of the field.

Even the Rivals FutureCast picks Florida State with every single one of their analysts and publishers over the rest of the field. It is quickly becoming clear that the 5-foot-11 and 180 pound Katy, TX, native has a favorite out, and that he is leaning out-of-state.

Keeping defensive back talent like that of Washington in-state is important for Herman and recently hired defensive coordinator Chris Ash. The Longhorns do need to keep a strong pipeline of talent at the cornerback position.

What Texas would be losing if they do miss out on the commitment of Washington in the end is the nation’s No. 236 2021 high school prospect, No. 16 cornerback, and No. 37 prospect out of Texas (247Sports Composite).

Outside of the top 10 finalist schools that Washington named more than one month ago, there were 19 others that sent him an offer. The highlights of those were the Alabama Crimson Tide, Auburn Tigers, Florida Gators, Mizzou Tigers, Mississippi State Bulldogs, Penn State Nittany Lions, SMU Mustangs, Tennessee Volunteers, Texas A&M Aggies, Texas Tech Red Raiders, and USC Trojans.

The latest offer that Washington had received came from the Akron Zips out of the MAC. But they didn’t make any headway into his finalist schools since they offered him on March 29. And the three schools he visited in the month of March included Oklahoma, Ole Miss, and Arkansas.