LOS ANGELES — In January of 2024, as USC made their rounds for winter visits to high schools near and far, quarterbacks coach Luke Huard stopped by Corona Centennial to see Texas A&M QB commit Husan Longstreet.
By this point, Lincoln Riley already had his QB1 of the future cemented, Georgia’s high-profile Julian Lewis bound tightly to the Trojans since August 2023. Riley had, in part, convinced Lewis to reclassify from 2026 to 2025. Lewis and father T.C. were active in helping USC try to land other recruits. The road forward was paved, because Riley has only ever recruited one quarterback at once, a pattern of monogamy that’s persisted since his days at Oklahoma.
Except there in Corona this past January, Huard told Longstreet he was the guy he wanted, as Centennial assistant Anthony Catalano recounted to the Southern California News Group.
Nearly a year later, as Lewis’ verbal USC commitment dangled by a string amid continued talks with Colorado and Georgia, Huard popped back up at Centennial on Friday night for a Southern Section Division I quarterfinal with Mission Viejo. Longstreet, for months, had been “all focused on Texas A&M,” as his father Kevin told the Southern California News Group back in the summer. But USC had launched the blitz in recent weeks with Lewis’ pledge uncertain, and Longstreet was set to visit for the Trojans’ game against Nebraska on Saturday.
After the game Friday, Catalano asked Longstreet his plans for Saturday. Longstreet, an even-keel five-star, simply grinned at him. Catalano winked. Yup, Longstreet told him.
“And I kinda knew,” Catalano told the Southern California News Group.
On Sunday, the monumental shift in USC’s future officially clicked, ESPN reporting Lewis had decommitted from USC in a potential catastrophe — only for Longstreet to announce on Twitter he’d flipped from Texas A&M to USC in news that rocked the recruiting world.
“I’m home #committed #fighton,” Longstreet wrote, simply, on Twitter.
Losing Lewis, certainly, was never ideal, as USC also saw Lewis’ high-school teammate Shamar Arnoux flip to Auburn a few days ago. But nabbing Longstreet, ultimately, became more than a backup plan for Riley and staff. Amid ever-present chatter around USC’s seeming lack of focus on local recruits in the 2025 cycle, Longstreet represents a massive cornerstone for Riley and the Trojans’ recruiting efforts in Southern California.
They’d gone about the process in a “really different way,” as Catalano put it, with USC somehow managing to woo five-star Longstreet while simultaneously holding their singular commitment to another five-star in Lewis. But credit, most of all, goes to Huard, as Catalano said he didn’t realize how strong of a relationship the USC QBs coach and Longstreet had until recent developments.
“I still think it’s because all along Luke wanted him, number one,” Catalano said of Longstreet’s flip to USC, “and was pretty up-front with that.”
The first major hints of USC’s two-pronged approach came in the summer, when Lewis still hadn’t publicly shut down his recruitment. Around the same time, USC’s House of Victory had presented a final-of-sorts NIL offer to Lewis’s camp that was upwards of $1 million, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation told the Southern California News Group. But Lewis was still taking visits — Indiana, Auburn and Colorado — and Riley began making a push for Longstreet, hopping on the phone with him near-daily.
“I really feel like Husan’s been the number one guy they’ve wanted since July … as an entire staff, Lincoln included,” Catalano said.
At that time, Longstreet stuck firm to his pledge to Texas A&M, Catalano said. But across the past three weeks, with Lewis seeming to increasingly waver, USC re-mounted a push. And Longstreet felt his offensive skills — a pocket-passer who can get mobile — would fit better in Riley’s system at USC than at A&M, Catalano said.
“It was just a matter of time for Lincoln to get involved,” Catalano said, speaking on Huard’s pre-existing relationship with Longstreet, “and Husan to really fall in love with him, too.”
The jewel of USC’s 2025 class has now been swapped, with Longstreet now pledged just a few weeks before December’s signing day.