Texas Football: 4-Star 2022 DE target Malick Sylla trending to A&M

An initial commitment in the 2022 Texas football recruiting class looks like it could still be pretty far away as of late June.

Although this might change soon, the 2022 Texas football recruiting class is still going on without landing the inaugural commitment, as of the early afternoon of June 22. Texas could be getting much closer to landing that first elusive commit in the 2022 class, though. Head coach Tom Herman and his staff are sending out plenty of offers lately, but the lack of ability to hold recruiting visits right now obviously changes how he has to strategize on the trail.

A big time target on the trail for the Longhorns 2022 class that looked to be a possible candidate to be an early commit is four-star Katy weak-side defensive end Malick Sylla. This 6-foot-5 and 225 pound talented Katy, TX, native is already racking up a number of important offers entering his junior season at Katy High School.

At this point in time, Sylla holds offers from more than 20 schools including the likes of the Alabama Crimson Tide, Oklahoma Sooners, Oklahoma State Cowboys, Texas A&M Aggies, Auburn Tigers, Baylor Bears, Florida State Seminoles, LSU Tigers, Penn State Nittany Lions, Tennessee Volunteers, Oregon Ducks, USC Trojans, and Washington Huskies. The latest scholarship offer he received came from the Colorado Buffaloes back on June 15.

But there is one school that could be rising above the rest in the pursuit of Sylla entering the summer months of the 2020 offseason. The Longhorns in-state rival, Texas A&M, is currently trending to land the commitment of Sylla.

The latest of the 247Sports Crystal Ball Predictions gives head coach Jimbo Fisher and Texas A&M the edge to land the commitment of Sylla over the rest of the competition. The Rivals FutureCast also has 100 percent of their analysts and publishers picking him to commit to the Aggies.

It is too early to say still that the Aggies are a lock to land the commitment of Sylla. He doesn’t have a set decision date yet, and hasn’t even narrowed down a finalist list of schools recently. But if the Longhorns can’t stay amid his top schools this early on, it could be detrimental down the road.

Sylla ranks as the nation’s No. 68 2022 high school prospect, No. 5 weak-side defensive end, and No. 9 prospect out of Texas (Top247). He is one of three weak-side defensive ends the Longhorns have offered for the 2022 class. The other two are four-star Martin product Ernest Cooper IV and four-star St. Augustine product Gracen Halton.

Three schools out of the Big 12 now hold commits in their 2022 recruiting classes. Those include Oklahoma (one commit), Oklahoma State (two commits), and Baylor (one commit). The latest of those Big 12 commits went to Baylor, with unranked Joplin athlete/weak-side defensive end Kaian Roberts-Day giving his pledge back on May 2, 2020.