BREAKING: Top 100 QB Peyton Houston commits to LSU

The first quarterback domino for LSU Football’s 2027 class has dropped with Evangel’s Peyton Houston committing to the Tigers.

Houston announced his commitment to LSU on Monday morning, which comes just days after he and his family soaked in the atmosphere of Death Valley at night during the program’s win over Florida.

Houston becomes the first LSU commitment for the 2027 recruiting class, which features double-digit Rivals 300 prospects from Louisiana.

Houston is notably the first quarterback commitment for the Tigers, as well. LSU has offered a handful of Top 100 quarterback in next year’s class, including local Baton Rouge 5-star Elijah Haven and the Lone Star State’s Colton Nussmeier.

With an offseason filled with speculation as to which quarterback LSU offensive coordinator Joe Sloan and the Tigers would grab, the first name off the board is the Evangel star who set Louisiana’s 5A state passing record a year ago when he finished his sophomore season with 4,480 yards passing.

Houston reflects on offseason visit to LSU, push from the Tigers

Houston made multiple trips to LSU’s campus this offseason, including a trip this spring that allowed the 4-star prospect an opportunity to dive even deeper into the program.

“LSU was a vibe,” Houston told The Bengal Tiger. “We got to spend a lot of time with (offensive coordinator Joe) Sloan and were able to get inside of his mind and see what he likes to do with the quarterbacks, what he preaches, harps on. And we got to see the ‘bad’ side of him, too, for sure, when he had to get into the quarterbacks. But that’s where you want to be. You don’t want a coach that’ll just kind of let you laissez faire everything, but will be on you and not let anything slide.

“And we got to see what life outside of football would be like and the programs they’ve got set up for the players and how they can suit them to get to the next level and also to be prepared outside of football.”

Peyton and his mother Naomi and father Shaun “divided and conquered” the morning with Peyton following starting quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, Naomi watching the reserve quarterbacks and Shaun watching the offensive linemen to share notes later and attempt to put together as complete a picture as possible.

And they each shared their enjoyment of getting the full scope of the day’s work from pre-practice meeting, through the full practice and then back into post-practice meetings, seeing the detailed planning, approach and correction and adjustments — including wealth of technology and all-around intentionality of quarterback development.

“There was about a two-hour period between practice and the post meetings where we had a chance to go in and meet with (Director of Athletic Training Jack) Marucci, and that’s always a pleasant visit,” Shaun said. “He went a little bit more in detail on how they use the virtual reality system, but he also talked about how they now have chips in the footballs and are able to be a lot more advanced in terms of the things that are measured.

“Like with theirs, they can actually do the spin rate and do the velocity, but they can also do the arm angle. So let’s say the quarterback throws a dot deep down the football field, and you want to repeat that, they can actually pull it up on the computer and they can see, ‘OK, your arm was at this height and angle,’ and now you can go out there and just work continuously and get to the best quarterback mechanics possible. So I thought that was really unique.”

As in-depth as the day was from a football standpoint, it also provided a greater glimpse overall Peyton called “a day in the life” of an LSU football player, including a meeting with a representative from the university’s Tiger Life team focused on more personal development, down time with several recruiting and support staffers, playing dominos with the team chaplain and heavily Louisiana meals at the Performance Nutrition Center for lunch and nearby Walk-On’s for dinner with Sloan and offensive analysts Tim Rattay and Trey Holtz.

“That was big, just knowing that at LSU it’s not gonna be just about football, but they’ve got people set in place to help you off the field, too,” Peyton said, then joking, “And learning dominos, man, now I’m ready to compete against anybody — I’m lying. I’m still kinda bad at dominos, but it’s OK.”