California safety Christian Pierce has built a nice collection of offers this spring, but he is ready to take the next steps in the process. Thursday, the three-star recruit from Rancho Cucamonga High School decided to trim his list down to just three schools leaving Washington, USC and UCLA as the remaining contenders in the race to earn his commitment.

Pierce has had an opportunity to visit all three schools with his trip to Washington coming earlier this month, and now he will work toward making a decision at some point this spring.

Being able to make the rounds and continue to build relationships has been helpful to Pierce in determining the schools most in play for his commitment. The leaders started to emerge as Pierce began taking a deeper look into how schools interacted with him throughout the process.

“I started to realize that just because a coach texts me a couple times that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re recruiting me very hard,” Pierce said. “You will have schools that put in a lot of effort and you realize that. Then you’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, they’re recruiting me pretty hard.’ Or, they will let you know that you’re the number one on their board. Or, ‘You’re the number one safety on our board,’ in my case.

“... They will let you know. You’ll be able to tell, and that’s something that I’ve learned. These guys are really recruiting me. These guys are showing me a lot of love, and I gotta show love back. Or, these guys are kind of iffy. So, now I have to put them in their own category. That’s kind of what I’ve learned in these past couple months with this recruiting process.”

The 2023 prospect has been able to build a relationship with the new coaching staff at Washington for several months now after he was one of the first prospects coaches decided to offer after arriving early in the winter.

Jumping into the mix so soon after Kalen DeBoer was named head coach has held some weight with the three-star safety.