USC earned the commitment of Shamar Arnoux, a three-star cornerback from Carrollton, Georgia, on Wednesday. Arnoux is a high school teammate of Julian Lewis. Arnoux had mentioned a number of SEC schools as possible destinations, but he has pivoted to USC. Wait a minute: This all feels very familiar. Justus Terry and Isaiah Gibson are from Georgia, and they committed to USC as well. That did not hold up. We are led to an obvious question: Has USC increased its odds of securing Julian Lewis as a future Trojan, or is the house going to fall down in a few months and leave the Trojans in a worse position? Commitments, as we keep seeing in college sports these days, don’t mean nearly as much as they used to. They feel so temporary, especially because athletes make commitments but still continue to take official visits to other schools. That reality — visiting other schools after having “committed” to one school — distorts our perception of what a commitment actually is, and it prevents fan bases from thinking they have truly won a commitment until the moment the recruit actually signs with a school. We wrote this about Arnoux before he committed to USC:
“He was previously committed to Tennessee from April of 2023 through February of 2024. Outside of the schools mentioned previously, USC, Clemson, Texas A&M and LSU are also contenders for Arnoux.
“The Peach State native is rated a four-star prospect in the 247Sports Composite as the No. 369 overall prospect and the No. 31 cornerback. He had 15 tackles in eight games with a tackle for a loss and a pass defended.”
You can see that Arnoux’s previous commitment to Tennessee didn’t mean much. Will this USC commitment mean as little? It’s hard to ignore the past.
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