{"id":781239,"date":"2026-07-24T05:27:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T05:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/781239\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T05:27:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T05:27:15","slug":"no-1-cb-john-meredith-reclassifies-to-2026-signs-with-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/781239\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 1 CB John Meredith reclassifies to 2026, signs with Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

As head coach Steve Sarkisian took the stage in Tampa at SEC Media Days, focus shifted to a massive addition to the 2026 roster as consensus five-star cornerback John Meredith reclassified to the 2026 recruiting class and signed with the Texas Longhorns, the school announced on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The decision by the 6\u20192.5, 187-pounder comes a little more than a month after he committed to Texas over Alabama and Texas A&M, but a more important development happened this month when the UIL denied Meredith\u2019s eligibility appeal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And although initially speculation centered around Meredith spending his senior season at IMG Academy in Florida, he was able to complete enough credits to reclassify and enroll at Texas for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

Previously ranked as the No. 3 player nationally and the No. 1 cornerback, Meredith will step into a deep and talented cornerback room on the Forty Acres coached by Mark Orphey.<\/p>\n

The lofty rankings reflect Meredith\u2019s combination of refined technique and elite physical skills that help him play in press or off coverage, the former particularly important in new defensive coordinator Will Muschamp\u2019s aggressive schemes.<\/p>\n

Because Sarkisian was on stage when the news broke, he was able to answer a question about Meredith, who just turned 18.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe provides great length, great speed, tremendous man-to-man ability. Very confident, very aggressive \u2014 all the attributes you want in a defensive back. It\u2019s not a secret why he was a top two or three player in the country in the 2027 class. So for us to get him now, we\u2019ll see how far we can take him,\u201d Sarkisian said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike I told he and his mom, Coach Muschamp, Coach Orphey, we don\u2019t have an expectation on him of a timetable. We\u2019re going to coach him. We\u2019re going to develop him. When he\u2019s ready, I think he\u2019ll be good enough to play. How long that takes to get him ready, that\u2019s going to be the race. That\u2019s the challenge. Week One, Week Four, Week Eight, I don\u2019t know. I do know he\u2019s got the right competitive spirit. I do know he\u2019s got the skill set and the ability to be a good player for us. How long it takes, we\u2019ll find out.\u201d<\/p>\n

There will surely be a learning curve for Meredith since he was unable to participate in spring practice or summer conditioning with the Longhorns. The new five-for-five eligibility rules surely made the reclassification decision easier for Meredith, who should have a chance to compete for a role on special teams while acclimating to college football, even though he probably won\u2019t need to use his fifth season of eligibility \u2014 Meredith always projected as a potential early entrant into the 2030 NFL Draft when he was a member of the 2027 recruiting class., so he\u2019s still most likely to depart for professional football after the 2030 season.<\/p>\n

With the reclassification, even if Meredith isn\u2019t a contributor on defense this season, the decision accelerates his developmental timeline to ensure that he will be in position to compete for a starting job in 2028, and that\u2019s big news for Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As head coach Steve Sarkisian took the stage in Tampa at SEC Media Days, focus shifted to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99,41661,85234],"class_list":["post-781239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports","tag-texas-longhorns-football","tag-texas-longhorns-football-recruiting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}