4-star Texas C target Branson Bragg announces commitment to Stanford

The Texas Longhorns will have to continue their search for center Zach Shackelford’s replacement elsewhere.

On Friday, Crandall product and key Longhorns center target Branson Bragg brought his recruitment to a close, announcing his commitment to the Stanford Cardinal over Texas, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma, among others.

Bragg said that he was accepted into school in Palo Alto last week and that was all he needed to end his recruitment.

A four-star prospect, Bragg named Texas in his top eight on March 25, but his recruitment was largely thought to be a two-horse race between the Longhorns and the Cardinal. Prior to his pledge, Bragg’s Crystal Ball was heavily in favor of the latter, with Stanford owning 86 percent of his projections, but the belief was that this was much more of a back and forth recruitment than the surface may show.

Even on into June, reports indicated that Texas felt good about its chances, as did Stanford, but once again, the allure of top-tier academics on the West Coast was something Texas couldn’t quite out-recruit.

Consequently, the Longhorns are now tasked with finding their center of the future with the top target now off the table. Bragg was one of just two center prospects with a Texas offer this cycle, and the other, three-star Florida product Vincent Murphy, is committed to South Carolina.

Bragg is a consensus four-star prospect ranked as the No. 139 player nationally, the No. 3 center, and the No. 22 player in the state of Texas, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings.