National Signing Day Team Spotlight: No. 15 USC
National Signing Day has come and gone and while the 2025 class is not finished since there is a late signing period in February as well, most of the action happened this week.
Rivals is breaking down each Top 25 recruiting class and we continue here with No. 15 USC.
MORE TROJANS: USC’s 2025 recruiting class
MORE TEAM SPOTLIGHTS: No. 1 Oregon | No. 2 Texas | No. 3 Georgia | No. 4 Ohio State | No. 5 Alabama | No. 6 LSU | No. 7 Michigan | No. 8 Auburn | No. 9 Texas A&M | No. 10 Tennessee | No. 11 Florida | No. 12 Notre Dame | No. 13 Miami | No. 14 Ole Miss
WHAT WENT RIGHT …
Landing five-star defensive lineman Jahkeem Stewart – and beating LSU – on National Signing Day was a monumental victory for the Trojans. Stewart is arguably the best defensive player in the 2025 Rivals250 and pairing him with position coach Eric Henderson, who has NFL experience, could be a match made in heaven.
After five-star quarterback Julian Lewis flipped to Colorado, the Trojans did a great job of having a backup plan and flipping local four-star standout Husan Longstreet from Texas A&M. The Trojans also dodged some major bullets late as Romero Ison, Harry Dalton and Stephen Miller didn’t flip to Southeast programs.
WHAT WENT WRONG …
USC had an extraordinary amount of decommitments. So many that if all (or even many) of them stayed pledged to the Trojans they would have easily been in the running for the No. 1 class in the country.
And this is USC’s conundrum moving forward: The Trojans landed a ton of early commitments from elite Southeast prospects only to see them flip elsewhere later. USC still needs to recruit that part of the country but there is always some disappointment and pain associated with keeping those commits through signing day.
Five-stars Lewis, Justus Terry, Hylton Stubbs and Isaiah Gibson were once committed to USC along with elite four-stars Jerome Myles, Hayden Lowe, Anquon Fegans, Ty Jackson, Dominick Kelly, Carde Smith, Shamar Arnoux and Daune Morris.
That’s a lot to lose but credit still goes to USC for finishing with a top-15 class despite all those departures.
PARTING PREDICTION
Prediction: Stewart will be a first-round NFL Draft pick in three years.
Stewart reclassified to the 2025 class from 2026 but he’s such a phenom on the defensive side of the ball (and he’s going to be coached by someone with NFL experience who will squeeze all of his talent out of him).
What separates Stewart from so many others is his will to work and his desire for greatness. He didn’t play a lot of high school football because of transfer rules which is a concern because the resume isn’t exactly there. But when he’s on the field he dominates and he was awesome at the Rivals Five-Star over the summer.
If Stewart stays focused and takes to coaching at USC, he’s going to gain excellent exposure in the Big Ten and should be a household name in no time.
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