Texas Football: Ex 3-Star TE commit Lake McRee trending to USC

After his latest round of finalist cuts, 3-Star Lake Travis TE and ex-Texas football commit Lake McRee halted the Longhorns from getting his pledge back.

There are already two tight ends that have decommitted from the 2021 Texas football recruiting class in the last calendar year. The most recent loss to the Texas 2021 recruiting class at the tight end position came earlier this month, when three-star Atascocita product Landen King decommitted and is now trending to the Auburn Tigers.

The first tight end decommitment to the 2021 recruiting class of the Texas Longhorns football program since the turn of the calendar year was the Austin, TX, native and 6-foot-4 and 215 pound Lake Travis product Lake McRee. Back on Feb. 11, 2020, McRee decommitted from the Longhorns 2021 recruiting class. But it looked like Texas could remain in the running to land his pledge when it was all said and done.

Even that hope of eventually getting a commitment from McRee back to the 2021 class seems dashed by now. Back on May 16, McRee announced his latest round of finalist cuts. And it surprisingly didn’t include the Longhorn among the six finalist schools. The latest round of finalist schools includes two schools each from the PAC-12, SEC, and Big Ten.

Those six finalist schools included the USC Trojans, Washington Huskies, Penn State Nittany Lions, Purdue Boilermakers, LSU Tigers, and Auburn. That means that the likes of the Longhorns, Alabama Crimson Tide, Baylor Bears, Michigan State Spartans, North Carolina Tar Heels, SMU Mustangs, TCU Horned Frogs, Texas Tech Red Raiders, Texas A&M Aggies, and Utah Utes, are all programs that offered McRee and didn’t make it through his latest round of finalist cuts.

McRee has also been rather active on social media recently involving edits and cuts showing him with the USC logo/uniform. Although that is not the only area that proves that McRee is trending to USC recently. The 247Sports Crystal Ball Predictions are starting to give an overwhelming edge to USC to land the commitment of McRee over the rest of the field.

The Rivals FutureCast also has 60 percent of their analysts and publishers picking McRee to land with head coach Clay Helton and the Trojans.

This is a significant change from where various media outlets were predicting McRee to land just a few months ago. Switching from a hometown team like the Longhorns to going to the west coast with USC is a big shift, but there is some traction to this momentum of late. Texas is just having poor luck with keeping tight ends around on the recruiting trail right now.

Moreover, McRee ranks as the nation’s No. 429 2021 high school prospect, No. 18 tight end, and No. 60 prospect out of Texas (247Sports Composite). He missed most of his junior season at Lake Travis due to a knee injury, but should be back in the mix for them for his senior campaign.

According to the 247Sports Team Composite Rankings, the Longhorns 2021 recruiting class ranks at No. 12 in the nation, and remains in the top spot in the Big 12. Meanwhile, USC holds the nation’s No. 5 2021 class and is in the top spot in the PAC-12 (with their 13 commitments as of May 26).