USC Trojans Take Commitment From Recruit Who Allegedly Endangered Teammate’s Life

The USC Trojans and head coach Lincoln Riley are on fire on the recruiting trail as of late.

The Trojans landed a whopping five commitments on Sunday alone, headlined by class of 2025 5-star defensive tackle Justus Terry, who flipped to USC from Georgia.

But the fifth and final commitment of the day, 3-star recruit Gus Cordova, has a lot of people raising red flags.

USC Trojans Recruit Gus Cordova Has A Controversial Past

The red flags have nothing to do with Cordova’s play. The 6-foot-4, 250-pound defensive lineman out of Texas also holds offers from powerhouse programs such as Texas, Michigan and LSU.

But off the field, things are a little bit more dicey.

Cordova finds himself at the center of an incident where several Lake Travis High School players allegedly put peanuts in the locker of a teammate they knew to have a potentially fatal peanut allergy.

“I think the hardest part was, one, it was his teammate. You know, you have this brotherhood and football, and it was disappointing that it was his teammate,” the alleged victim’s mother, Shawna Mannon, said of the incident.

Mannon then revealed that punishment was allegedly handled by the head coach of the team and the school’s athletic director.

“The kids responsible were disciplined, but she expected it to be to a different level,” a report from KXAN states. “They were benched from some football games. She was told the district’s athletic director and head football coach were determining the discipline.”

Lake Travis is one of Texas’s most prominent high school football programs.

“These boys were handed minimal consequences,” Mannon said at a school board meeting on Nov. 16, 2023. “Since this incident, my son has faced backlash and retaliation almost daily.”

Following Cordova’s commitment to USC, the Trojans have faced significant backlash.

Following the commitment, USC sits fifth in 247Sports’ 2025 recruiting class rankings.