Five-star football recruit picks Houston over Alabama, Texas, Texas A&M – SportingNews.com

Ed Oliver, the No. 2-rated high school football player in the state of Texas, surprised many Thursday when he gave a verbal commitment to the University of Houston.

Oliver is a huge get for the Cougars, who are coming off consecutive 8-5 seasons. The five-star recruit is No. 6 in the ESPN300 list of national recruits for the class of 2016. He is the highest-ranked prospect in the recruiting service era to commit to Houston and first five-star recruit to commit to a non-Power 5 school in the last 10 years.

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The 6-2, 277-pound defensive lineman from Houston Westfield, has offers from Alabama, Baylor, Louisville, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and UCLA.

But he was sold on the Cougars program by new coach Tom Herman, the former Ohio State offensive coordinator who was hired as Houston’s new head coach in December .

Herman brings a championship mentality to the Cougars and told his players in February they needed to earn their way back into the locker room and chained the doors shut.

The defensive tackle posted 84 tackles, 24 for loss, seven sacks and 27 quarterback pressures while leading Westfield to the Texas Class 6A Division II state semifinals in 2014.

Oliver, whose older brother, Marcus, is an offensive lineman at Houston, will still be pursued by larger programs until national signing day on Feb. 3, 2016. But Houston will try prevent him from changing his mind and keep him right at home in the Space City.

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