Impact Analysis: John Houston

A historic signing class of linebackers is now complete as five-star Gardena Serra product John Houston committed to the Trojans at a ceremony at his high school. Houston joins five-star Porter Gustin and four-stars Osa Masina and Cameron Smith in a group that is special as much for its talent as their overall compatibility playing next to one another.

Houston's role in this group should come as a weakside linebacker in USC's 3-4 scheme. He's the definition of rangy, blessed with a great first step and closing speed, and all kinds of coverage ability. Because he's so athletic, Houston can also play on the outside and get to the quarterback as well. Perhaps his best overall quality, then, is that Houston is capable of filling so many roles at linebacker that USC will have the luxury of slotting him in all over the field. That being said, the clear objective for Houston at the next level will be to get stronger. He has very good length at 6-foot-3 but carries only 208 pounds right now, so Ivan Lewis will give him plenty of work. The good news is that his frame, like so many other players in this class, has plenty of room for growth. Houston is far from maxed out physically, which means his best days of football are well ahead of him.

And while that could happen at several positions, weakside linebacker may be the most ideal because it's so easy to envision how well he'd line up alongside his fellow linebacker commits at that position. A number of things have to break right for it to happen, but the potential exists for a starting linebacking corps of Masina at SAM, Smith in the middle, Houston playing WILL and Gustin as a rush end. That alignment would give USC two elite coverage linebackers (Houston and Masina), a prototypical downhill tackler (Smith) and a pass-rushing demon (Gustin), to say nothing about how all of them have skills that overlap in other areas.

If it does indeed come to pass, USC will finally have its long-awaited successors to the 2005 class of Rey Maualuga, Brian Cushing, Kaluka Maiava and Luthur Brown. For now, all that needs to be said is that in a truly spectacular recruiting class, the linebacking group is special enough to be the best unit of the entire bunch. It's thanks to Houston, perhaps the biggest longtime lean on USC's board, that it all came together on National Signing Day