South Carolina football beats out SEC foe to land talented Alabama linebacker

South Carolina beat out another Southeastern Conference school in getting a verbal commitment from Keenan Britt on Saturday.

Britt, a junior linebacker from Oxford High (Alabama), picked the Gamecocks over Auburn and others. He is the third USC commit for the Class of 2026, joining South Pointe’s Anthony Baxter and linebacker Rodney Colton (Georgia).

The Gamecocks beat out Auburn, where Britt’s brother KJ played from 2017-20. (KJ is currently a linebacker for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.)

Keenan made three unofficial visits to the Tigers. USC offered Britt early last month and he made a visit to campus at the end of July. Others schools in the mix were Oregon, Mississippi and Arkansas.

Britt had a relationship with new USC director of player personnel and recruiting Darren Uscher when Uscher was at Oregon and they were recruiting Britt. During his visit, he met with USC coach Shane Beamer and defensive coordinator Clayton White, among others.

“I saw the whole campus. I think the campus is awesome,” Britt told Phil Kornblut. “Of course, Coach Beamer and Coach White, we talked a lot about football and how I would fit in their defense. We talked a lot about ball. Of course, I met Robby Ashford, (Vicari) Swain, the safety, and I met with Debo (Williams) and them.”

247Sports Composite ranks the 6-foot-2, 230-pound Britt as the 25th-best linebacker in the country for his class and 13th-best prospect out of Alabama. As a sophomore, he had 107 tackles, eight sacks, 20 tackles for loss, 20 quarterback hits and two caused fumbles despite missing two games.