The battle for the services of Houston (Texas) Cypress Falls linebacker Otaro Alaka looks to be once again down to the Texas Longhorns and the Texas A&M Aggies with the news that the longtime Texas pledge has canceled a planned official visit to see the LSU Tigers.
Four-star Texas LB commit Otaro Alaka cancels LSU visit
The Houston-area product visited Texas A&M last weekend.
When Alaka committed to the Longhorns back in April 2013, Texas and Texas A&M were the two teams most strongly contending for his services.
The Aggies are the favorite at this point after Alaka took his official visit to College Station last weekend. All of the predictions for Alaka in the 247Sports Crystal Ball have been for the Aggies since the middle of December, when former Texas head coach Mack Brown announced his intentions to resign after the Alamo Bowl.
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Aiding A&M is the fact that Alaka sees College Station quite differently than he did in the past.
“I enjoyed the visit very much. All the players and coaches were cool and we all had a really good time,” Alaka told Jeff Howe of 247Sports ($). “My perception of A&M has changed a lot. From what people have told me, and from what I’ve heard, it’s a really boring town and there’s not much to do, but really that’s not the case at all.”
However, Alaka isn’t quite ready to decide because he’s going to host both Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin and Texas head coach Charlie Strong on home visits this week. The latter is especially crucial, because Alaka has had so little time to get to know Strong since his hire early in January -- make a strong impression and the Horns may have a chance, make little impression and the Aggies would become the overwhelming favorite.
The 6’3, 205-pounder is a consensus four-star prospect ranked as the No. 11 outside linebacker nationally, the No. 18 player in the state of Texas, and the No. 163 player in the country by the 247Sports Composite rankings. He also holds offers from Arkansas, Baylor, Boise State, California, Colorado, Florida State, Iowa State, LSU, Michigan, Nebraska, Northwestern, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, and Texas Tech.
If Alaka does switch his pledge to the Aggies, the loss would be a significant one for the Longhorns. Texas has struggled to find effective linebackers since the departure of Keenan Robinson and Emmanuel Acho to the NFL after the 2011 season, while Texas A&M is desperate to add linebackers to its class with National Signing Day rapidly approaching.
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