Texas Football: Talented 4-Star LB has Longhorns among final 6

A sizable get for the 2021 Texas football recruiting class could eventually come from 4-Star Texas High OLB Clayton Smith.

There’s a key target that the 2021 Texas football recruiting class could be beginning to close in on of late. Four-star Texas High outside linebacker Clayton Smith recently dropped his six finalist schools on social media, and he’s sat as a top target among four-star prospects from this recruiting cycle for head coach Tom Herman for a while now.

The Texas Longhorns football program was one of the first 10 schools to send a scholarship offer Smith’s way. Up to this point, Smith has now received offers from more than 25 schools. He even landed offers from the Michigan Wolverines, Mississippi State Bulldogs, Penn State Nittany Lions, and Arizona State Sun Devils just last month alone.

But none of the more recent schools to offer Smith made it through his latest round of finalist cuts. Over the weekend, Smith dropped his top six. Among those final six were two Big 12 programs, one of which is Texas.

The other five of these finalists were the LSU Tigers, Oklahoma Sooners, Kentucky Wildcats, Florida State Seminoles, and Oregon Ducks.

The 6-foot-4 and 220 pound Texarkana, TX, native Smith does have interest from schools all over the country. That was evidenced by the finalists he named literally spanning coast-to-coast.

However, Smith ranks as the nation’s No. 105 2021 high school prospect, No. 8 outside linebacker, and No. 16 prospect out of Texas (247Sports Composite). His sole 247Sports recruiting ranking does tout him a bit higher, as the nation’s No. 61 high school prospect, No. 6 outside linebacker, and No. 9 prospect out of Texas.

The 247Sports Crystal Ball Predictions are trending in the Longhorns favor at the moment. Both of the expert Crystal Ball Predictions made for Smith right now have him committing to Texas.

However, the only two publishers with picks in for the Rivals FutureCast are picking Smith to commit to LSU over Texas and the rest of the field. Texas could be the leader in Smith’s mind right now, but the lead might not be all that big over LSU.

During his junior season in high school, Smith really showed off his versatility at Texas High. He registered 10 receptions for 237 yards and six touchdowns on offense. And on defense, he raked in 94 total tackles, 40 tackles for loss, 20 sacks, eight forced fumbles, and three fumble recoveries. Only time well tell what he could do during his senior campaign.