FANTASTIC NEWS!!! 4-star QB TJ Lateef has committed to the Huskers

FANTASTIC NEWS!!! 4-star QB TJ Lateef has committed to the Huskers

The four-star from Orange (Calif.) Lutheran will play his college ball for the Cornhuskers.

For the first time in program history, Nebraska is primed to bring in a Top247 quarterback in consecutive high school recruiting classes.

Orange (Calif.) Lutheran four-star TJ Lateef announced his commitment to the Cornhuskers on Sunday, giving head coach Matt Rhule and Co. another boost of recruiting momentum as the rebuild in Lincoln takes shape. Here is everything you need to know about the massive addition out West:

WHAT TJ LATEEF SAYS ABOUT NEBRASKA

I feel like a priority for them and that meant a lot to me. Nebraska is somewhere I can live and my parents are comfortable knowing I’ll be out there playing the game I love. But if football doesn’t work out professionally, it’s still a place where you can be set up for life just with how much Husker Nation pours into that team and the city. It’s an incredible culture.

“With coach Rhule, it’s not his first rodeo. He’s been doing that, whether it was at Temple or Baylor, and he does a great job of building up programs. I’m excited to be a part of that.”

WHO ELSE WAS IN THE MIX

Colorado and Ole Miss were the other finalists for Lateef, who only took the lone official visit to Nebraska in late April. More than a dozen programs had extended scholarship offers heading into the spring and Lateef had taken an important trip to Boulder to meet with Deion Sanders, yet it’s the Huskers that have emerged on top heading into summer.

WHERE TJ LATEEF RANKS AS A RECRUIT

 

Lateef is the nation’s No. 228 overall prospect, No. 16 among quarterbacks and No. 22 in the state of California for the 2025 class, per the 247Sports rankings.

The 6-foot-1, 185-pound Lateef was the Panini Accuracy Challenge winner among the upperclassmen at the Elite 11 Regional in Los Angeles earlier this offseason. Last year Lateef pushed Orange Lutheran to the CIF Southern Section playoffs, completing 152 of 214 passes for 1,965 yards with 13 touchdowns.

HOW TJ LATEEF FITS WITH NEBRASKA

 

If Lateef maintains his four-star label past signing day, it’d be the first time the Huskers add quarterbacks rated a minimum of four stars in consecutive classes in the modern recruiting era which dates back to 2000. Nebraska hasn’t had this much success recruiting the position in over a decade when the Huskers signed two four-stars, Jamal Turner and Bubba Starling, in 2011 before adding three-star Tommy Armstrong and four-star Johnny Stanton over the subsequent classes.

Five-star Dylan Raiola, of course, was a resounding victory for Rhule in the previous cycle. Lateef is embracing his presence on the depth chart.

I like to compete,” Lateef told 247Sports recently. “If they really go by best man plays, I would love to compete in that and see where it goes. … They have an NFL-based offense and I feel like their biggest goal is to get me to the next level.”

WHAT WE THINK ABOUT TJ LATEEF

247Sports national recruiting analyst Greg Biggins has had Lateef on his radar for three years dating back to his freshman season and projects him to be an impact player in college.

“He’s a pocket passer with dual-threat ability,” Biggins wrote in the scouting report. “He can sit back and make every throw you want from the pocket and has excellent mobility as well. He can make defenders miss and does a nice job extending plays and making something happen outside the pocket. You can run zone read with him and his ability to be an athlete from the pocket adds a lot of dimensions to an offense.”