After barely two weeks in the transfer portal, Rex Maurer, who we ranked as the top recruit in the high school boys class of 2023, officially announced that he will transfer from Stanford to Texas.
Excited to announce that I will be continuing my college career at the University of Texas. I’d like to thank Bob and Erik for giving me this amazing opportunity. I’d also like to thank Eddie, Wyatt, and the team for welcoming me to Austin.
Finally, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who made my time at Stanford a great experience.
Hook’Em
Maurer took the last quarter of the school year off from Stanford, and has been training at Texas under new head coach Bob Bowman (and representing Longhorn Aquatics in long course competition), so, it seemed like only a matter of time before Maurer announced his transfer to Austin.
On the other hand, his brother Luke just announced yesterday that he’s transferring from Stanford to USC for a fifth year. The Maurer brothers’ mother, Lea Maurer, is the head coach there, so Trojan fans might have been holding out a small ray of hope that Rex would join the family in Southern Cal.
Both Maurer parents are famous Stanford alums. Lea, (née Lea E. Loveless) earned a bronze medal in 100 back and a gold medal as part of the USA’s 4×100 medley relay team at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Her husband, Eric Maurer, racked up collegiate accolades at Stanford, including multiple All-American finishes and a 50 free title in 1992.
Rex had some mixed results during his one season on the Farm, depending on how you want to measure success. He hit lifetime bests in each of his three primary events, finished 3rd in all three individual events at the final Pac-12 Championships, and earned All-American status as part of Stanford’s 7th-place 200 medley relay at NCAAs. However, two of those lifetime bests came at midseason, and he didn’t make finals in any individual event at NCAAs.
| PB before Stanford | PB at Stanford | |
| 500 free | 4:12.33 | 4:11.88 |
| 400 IM | 3:41.94 | 3:38.10 |
| 200 back | 1:42.30 | 1:39.75 |
He’ll presumably be looking for a little more consistency — and NCAA scoring — at Texas, where his primary event lineup melds nicely with both Texas tradition and Bowman’s swimmer historic successes.
Maurer is the second highly ranked recruit from that class to make the move to Texas after one year at a Bay Area school, as former Cal swimmer Aaron Shackell announced his Texas transfer earlier last month.
Shackell is primarily a mid-distance freestyler, while recent Texas transfers Hubert Kos (coming with Bowman from ASU) and Ben Sampson (CMU) both swim the 400 IM and 200 back as primary events.
Texas is coming off its worst NCAA finish in over a decade (7th), but the Longhorns are reloading quickly under the new coaching staff, especially in the 400 IM and mid-distance freestyle. Besides the aforementioned transfers, freestyler Coby Carrozza recently announced he’ll be staying for a fifth year, and David Johnston, who’s been an NCAA A-finalist multiple times in the 400 IM and 500 free, will presumably return to Austin after taking an Olympic redshirt this past year.
