Thomas Graham Decommits from USC: Schools to Watch for 4-Star CB

USC’s 2017 class took a hit on Tuesday evening when 4-star corner Thomas Graham announced that he decommitted from an early pledge to the Trojans.

The 5’11”, 170-pounder had been a soft commit to the Trojans since July 2015.

Now, the Rancho Cucamonga [California] High School product—who rates as the nation’s No. 6 corner and the No. 41 player overall in the 2017 class—is back on the market.

Graham has 15 offers to date, and he’s taken recent visits to programs such as Arizona, Notre Dame and Utah.

With Graham hitting the reset button on his recruitment, which programs are worth keeping an eye on as potential landing spots for the talented Golden State standout?

Let’s take a look at a few schools that have already laid the groundwork to become candidates to end up on his short list.

Arizona

According to Ryan Bartow of 247Sports, a trio of Pac-12 schools and Notre Dame "are the teams to watch going forward for Graham."

One of those Pac-12 programs is Arizona—which hosted Graham in late March.

The Wildcats are a program that recruits the state of California hard, as evidenced by the fact that half of their 2016 class hails from the Golden State and three of their four pledges in 2017 are also California natives.

Wildcats head coach Rich Rodriguez and his staff are hoping that trend continues with Graham. Assuming they are able to get him on campus again in the near future, they could become a serious threat to get him to leave his home state for college.

Arizona State

Another program that could factor into the Graham sweepstakes is Arizona State.

However, for the Sun Devils to become a legit player, they need to get the electric athlete to Tempe for a campus visit in the near future.

Similar to the Wildcats, the Sun Devils are very familiar recruiting neighboring California.

Given the program’s ascent under head coach Todd Graham, the Sun Devils have enough momentum to become a player in the race to land the No. 7 overall prospect from California.

Michigan

One program that could become a factor if it offers Graham is Michigan.

The Wolverines signed a trio of prospects from California in their 2016 class, and head coach Jim Harbaugh and his staff have been active with Golden State products in the current cycle.

According to Scout’s Brice Marich, Graham is already showing interest in Michigan despite not currently holding an offer from Harbaugh and his staff.

Things are likely in a holding pattern between the two parties until an offer is extended. If that occurs, the Wolverines could go from dark horse to front-runner in Graham’s recruitment.

Notre Dame

Notre Dame is another program that was able to host Graham recently.

He made the trek to South Bend, and, as Tom Loy of 247Sports reported, the trip went well enough that he’s already scheduled a return trip in the fall for an official visit.

Now with his recruitment wide open, the lane is open for the Irish to make a move on Graham.

Assuming Graham follows through on his plans to return to South Bend, the Irish appear to be his top out-of-state option at this point.

UCLA

With USC seemingly out of the picture, UCLA is the top in-state program in the hunt for Graham.

While geography could help the Bruins in their pursuit of one of the top prospects in their backyard, the fact that Bruins head coach Jim Mora Jr. and his staff were the second program to offer Graham back in February 2015 is also a plus.

As Loy detailed back in February, Graham mentioned plans on visiting UCLA to take in a Bruins spring practice.

Regardless of whether that visit takes place, the Bruins have established a strong relationship with Graham. With that factor and proximity taken into account, UCLA should firmly be in the mix to land him when he makes a final decision.

Sanjay Kirpalani is a National Recruiting Analyst for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes obtained firsthand and all recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports.

Follow @SanjayKirpalani