Texas Football: OU trending for key 4-Star Longhorns LB target

A key commitment to watch this afternoon for a target of the 2021 Texas football recruiting class is set for 4-Star OLB Clayton Smith.

On May 15, a pretty highly anticipated commitment decision will come in from a big time target of head coach Tom Herman and the 2021 Texas football recruiting class. Four-star Texas High 6-foot-4 and 220 pound outside linebacker Clayton Smith recently named Texas as one of his finalist schools. He announced that via social media ahead of what should be one of the most important bits of recruiting news Texas has coming its way this week.

Linebacker became a heightened position of focus and importance for the Texas Longhorns football program in the last month. Texas recently landed a commitment from three-star 2021 linebacker Morice Blackwell last week. And it could be a position group that Herman and the Longhorns pursue throughout the rest of the offseason in the NCAA Transfer Portal.

But the Texarkana, TX, native Smith is one of the biggest focal points for the Longhorns 2021 recruiting class. He ranks as the nation’s No. 107 2021 high school prospect, No. 8 outside linebacker, and No. 17 prospect out of Texas. He’s a very highly touted linebacker that could make an early impact if he lands on the Forty Acres.

On May 13, Smith dropped his commitment decision date and the top six finalist schools he’s choosing between. Those six finalists are the Oregon Ducks, Oklahoma Sooners, Kentucky Wildcats, Florida State Seminoles, LSU Tigers, and Longhorns. Smith also holds offers from more than 20 other schools including the Baylor Bears, Michigan Wolverines, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Penn State Nittany Lions, and Washington Huskies.

There are some leading indicators heading into the Friday afternoon commitment announcement of Smith that he is trending away from the Longhorns. The Rivals FutureCast has every single one of their analysts and publishers making predictions on this matter picking Smith to commit to Oklahoma over the rest of the field.

And the 247Sports Crystal Ball Predictions have each one of their nine experts picking Oklahoma for Smith’s commitment. He was previously trending to the defending National Champion LSU prior to the last week or two.

Missing out on Smith would be detrimental to the 2021 recruiting class of the Longhorns. But since they did recently land commitments from Blackwell and four-star defensive end Jordon Thomas, it’s not worth panicking over. Texas also has four-star linebacker, and top 150 high school prospect in the nation, Derrick Harris Jr. committing in the 2021 class.