Texas Football: 5-Star OT target Tristan Leigh trending to LSU

The offensive line has to get right in the 2021 Texas football recruiting class or a lot of this cycle will be considered a failure.

The month of June is pretty much marked by one huge day for the 2021 Texas football recruiting class, after landing two commitments in the same social media post. Landing those commitments from the four-star defensive backs; Kennedale safety JD Coffey III and Kimball cornerback Ishmael Ibraheem, boosted the Longhorns among the top 10 ranked classes in the nation, and kept them firmly atop the Big 12 ahead of the Baylor Bears.

It will be interesting to see how the Longhorns are able to possibly continue the momentum on the recruiting trail for the 2021 class. If Texas can land at least two or three more four or five-star commits ahead of the start of the 2020 season, they’ll be in great shape to round out this 2021 class in solid fashion. But that’s not always the easiest task to accomplish.

Texas was able to head into the 2019 season with a ton of momentum on the recruiting trail, and it would continue throughout the early parts of the regular season slate. But it died out pretty quick as the season moved into the offseason.

A name that wasn’t really on Texas’ radar early on for the 2021 recruiting class that they were likely hoping to win over by this point in time is five-star Robinson Secondary 6-foot-5 and 270 pound offensive tackle Tristan Leigh. This Fairfax, VA native has the Longhorns as one of the whopping 40 schools on his lengthy offer sheet.

The highlights of the rest of the schools that offered Leigh thus far includes the Clemson Tigers, LSU Tigers, Oklahoma Sooners, Alabama Crimson Tide, Ohio State Buckeyes, Penn State Nittany Lions, Florida Gators, Florida State Seminoles, Georgia Bulldogs, Michigan Wolverines, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Oregon Ducks, Tennessee Volunteers, USC Trojans, and Texas A&M Aggies. There’s a good number of schools from every Power Five conference on his offer sheet.

Texas was rather late to the party on offering Leigh. They were actually the most recent program to send him a scholarship offer, which came back on April 24. Prior to that, the last offer he received came from the Auburn Tigers on Feb. 28. He even had a visit with the Virginia Cavaliers in that time period between his offers from Texas and Auburn.

Moreover, Leigh is one of the most highly coveted offensive line prospects in a class chocked full of talent with this position group. Leigh ranks as the nation’s No. 11 2021 high school prospect, No. 3 offensive tackle, and No. 2 prospect out of Virginia (247Sports Composite). This is a loaded class out of Virginia which also includes fellow Texas target and five-star cornerback Tony Grimes.

Texas appears to be far out of the running at this point in time to land the commitment of Leigh. In fact the program that is trending for him at the moment in the 247Sports Crystal Ball Predictions is the defending National Champion LSU. Clemson still holds the bulk of the Crystal Ball Predictions, but LSU is starting to creep up on them, along with Penn State and Oklahoma.

And the Rivals FutureCast actually has their analysts and publishers on a clean split between picking Leigh to commit to either LSU or Clemson. This looks like it will be a tightly fought battle between the two teams that faced each other in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game last season.

According to the 247Sports Team Composite Rankings, the 2021 Texas recruiting class ranks at No. 9 in the nation and remains in the top spot in the Big 12. LSU is in two spots behind Texas in the national class rankings.