{"id":384252,"date":"2026-07-23T20:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T20:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/384252\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T20:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T20:08:12","slug":"5-star-cb-john-meredith-reclassifies-to-2026-class-texas-commit-was-no-3-overall-prospect-in-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/384252\/","title":{"rendered":"5-Star CB John Meredith Reclassifies to 2026 Class, Texas Commit Was No. 3 Overall Prospect in 2027"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas is bringing one of the top prospects in college football to Austin one year earlier than expected.<\/p>\n

Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian announced<\/a> Thursday at SEC media days that five-star cornerback recruit John Meredith will reclassify to the class of 2026.<\/p>\n

Meredith was previously ranked as the No. 1 cornerback and No. 3 prospect in the nation for the class of 2027, per 247Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The news comes after Meredith attempted to transfer Texas high schools only to be denied varsity eligibility at his new school following the transfer, per the Star-Telegram’s Charles Baggarly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meredith announced<\/a> his commitment to Texas on June 19 while still appealing that decision. His appeal was denied July 9, two weeks before Sarkisian’s announcement, per Baggarly.<\/p>\n

Sarkisian said Thursday the Longhorns don’t yet have a “timetable” as to when Meredith, who turned 18 earlier this summer, will be making his college debut.<\/p>\n

“He provides great length, great speed, tremendous man-to-man ability,” Sarkisian said Thursday (h\/t OrangeBloods’ Anwar Richardson). “Very confident, very aggressive, all the attributes you want in a defensive back.<\/p>\n

“It’s not a secret that he’s a top two or three player in the country in the 2027 class. So for us to get him now\u2014 we’ll see how far we can take him.”<\/p>\n

Sarkisian continued: “We’re going to coach him, we’re going to develop him. When he’s ready, I think he’ll be good enough to play. How long that takes to get him ready, that’s going to be the race, that’s the challenge.<\/p>\n

“Week 1? Week 4? Week 8? I don’t know. I do know he’s got the right competitive spirit. I do know he’s got the skillset and the ability to be a good player for us. How long it takes, we’ll find out.”<\/p>\n

The new five-for-five<\/a> rule, which grants DI athletes five years to play five seasons, means Meredith won’t be redshirting his freshman season.<\/p>\n

Defensive coordinator Will Muschamp and cornerbacks coach Mark Orphey will be tasked with helping Meredith make a relatively quick jump to college football at a position already staffed by rising sophomore Kade Phillips and Rutgers transfer Bo Mascoe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas is bringing one of the top prospects in college football to Austin one year earlier than expected.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-384252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}