The USC football team is adding another key piece ahead of the 2025 season.
According to multiple reports, Rancho Cucamonga High cornerback RJ Sermons, a four-star recruit and one of the top prospects in the Trojans’ top-ranked 2026 recruiting class, plans to reclassify to the 2025 class, leaving high school a year early to enroll at USC this summer.
Sermons, whose father, Rodney, was a running back at USC in the mid-1990s, adds depth to a secondary that lost five starters from last season’s team.
Sermons committed to the Trojans in December, choosing USC over finalists Alabama, Georgia, Notre Dame and Oregon. The 6-foot, 185-pounder has elite speed. He currently owns the state’s top times in the 100- and 200-meter dashes at 10.30 and 20.88 seconds and just won the CIF-SS Division 1 titles in both events last week.
Sermons, ESPN’s No. 28 overall prospect in the 2026 recruiting cycle, joins ESPN 300 defensive back Kendarius Reddick (No. 179 overall) and Trestin Castro (No. 269) among the top defensive prospects in USC’s freshman class, as well as five-star defensive lineman Jahkeem Stewart, who reclassified from the 2026 cycle last fall after playing in just 12 high school games.
Sermons had 46 tackles, one interception and five pass breakups during his sophomore season at Rancho Cucamonga before an injury limited him to six games as a junior last fall.
USC earlier added two starting-caliber cornerbacks via the transfer portal – DJ Harvey (San Jose State) and Chasen Johnson (UCF). They join returnees DeCarlos Nicholson, Braylon Conley, Marcelles Williams and Prophet Brown. Freshmen Alex Graham, James Johnson and Castro also joined the secondary in the spring.
