The USC Trojans are currently 2-0 and have the No. 1 2026 recruiting class. Things are looking up in Los Angeles as the Trojans head to West Lafayette for their first road game of the season.
The 2027 recruiting cycle is just getting started, but the Trojans and Lincoln Riley may have just suffered their first defeat.
4-star quarterback Peyton Houston has been heavily linked to the USC Trojans since the spring, but it seems that that momentum has waned, and there is a new leader to land his commitment.
Experts Predict Oklahoma To Land Peyton Houston, Not USC Trojans
Rivals National Recruiting Experts, Steve Wiltfong, Sam Spiegelman, and Adam Gorney, all put in expert predictions this morning (9/9) for the Oklahoma Sooners to land the commitment of Peyton Houston.
USC recruiting insider Scott Schrader put his prediction for Oklahoma to land the elite signal caller back on September 5th.
As of July, the USC Trojans were the team to beat. He had a great visit in the spring, and his close friend, WR Ethan ‘Boobie’ Feaster, committed to the Trojans as a member of the 2026 class.
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That all changed over the last few months and reached its pinnacle with a visit to Oklahoma this weekend, when the Sooners defeated the Michigan Wolverines in front of an electric crowd.
On Rivals Recruiting Prediction Machine, USC dropped from the No. 1 spot all the way down to 5th, behind Oklahoma, Texas, and tied with LSU and Clemson. This tells me that while momentum with Houston and Oklahoma ramped up, USC also cooled and backed off. Had they still been pushing hard, this would be a much closer race.
Currently, Houston is the 8th-ranked QB in the 2027 class, according to Rivals Industry Rankings. He is set to announce his commitment on September 15th.
While Houston was the QB that Lincoln Riley went all in on back in the spring for the 2027 class, if there is a class to skip on a QB altogether, it is 2027.
With freshman Husan Longstreet on the roster (and looking really solid in limited action), and elite prospect Jonas Williams committed in 2026, a 2027 commit would potentially have to wait a long time to have a shot at playing.
Obviously, you want a yearly competition and for any QB to have the opportunity to win the job if they are the best option to win, but on paper, it would actually make more sense for USC to skip a QB during the 2027 cycle.
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Just thinking through it from a best-case, common-sense approach, Husan Longstreet will seemingly take over as the starting QB in 2026 as a true sophomore. So he is the starter in 2026 and 2027. He then goes to the NFL, and Jonas Williams takes over as a redshirt sophomore in 2028. Unless he is one-and-done, Williams would likely start a 2nd season in 2029 as a redshirt junior. So in reality, a 2027 quarterback would not have an opportunity to start until 2030 as a redshirt junior.
Aside from an elite quarterback being patient enough to wait that long, in this new era of NIL, USC would have to pay him a handsome amount of money to be a backup for three years. That doesn’t make a ton of financial sense when there will be needs at other positions.
This isn’t over, and the USC Trojans still may push hard for Peyton Houston or another 2027 QB, but if they do not, they might actually be better off for it.