Two weeks after Texas returned home from the Sugar Bowl, the Longhorns have turned the page to 2024.
Newcomers moved in over the weekend, and classes began Tuesday for the spring semester, meaning winter workouts are underway. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian is looking to build on the Longhorns’ most successful season in more than a decade: a 12-2 finish and the program’s first appearance in the College Football Playoff.
SEC play begins in September, and the Longhorns’ roster will look a bit different when the season kicks off on Aug. 31 against Colorado State. Here are some thoughts on the recent developments and how the team looks now.
The return of QB1
Quarterback Quinn Ewers’ decision to play another season of college football is good for all parties. Ewers has NFL tools, but scouts still want to see more. If Ewers had declared for the 2024 draft, scouts projected him as a Day 2 pick, according to Dane Brugler, The Athletic’s NFL Draft analyst. He could certainly benefit from another year of development in Sarkisian’s offense.
In 2023, Ewers improved in most statistical categories over his 2022 showing, including completion percentage (up to 69 percent in 2023 from 58.1 in 2022), yards per attempt (8.8, up from 7.4) and passing efficiency (158.5, up from 132.5). Ewers also took a step forward in deep ball accuracy, a recurring issue in 2022, though there’s still room for growth.
Quinn Ewers’ deep-ball accuracy (20+ air yards)
2023 (for PFF)2022 (for PFF)
16 of 27, 580 yards, 4 TD, 1 INT
16 of 52, 414 yards, 3 TD, 2 INT
34.0%
30.7%
12.3 yards/attempt
7.9 yards/attempt
161.5 passer rating
108.7 passer rating
In a year when Texas will turn over the majority of its receiving production — 80 percent of the team’s 2023 receptions are gone — having Ewers back is a big deal. The progress he showed, both on and off the field, was encouraging. If he can take a similar step in 2024 and be a stabilizing force for the new skill talent around him, it will ease the transition for the offense.
Sark restocks WR corps
Of the dozen Longhorns headed to the NFL Draft, a third of them were major parts of the passing attack: receivers Xavier Worthy, Adonai Mitchell and Jordan Whittington and tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders. Those four accounted for 217 of the team’s 317 receptions. Only three of the eight scholarship receivers Texas carried last season — 2023 freshmen Johntay Cook, DeAndre Moore and Ryan Niblett — are back, and only Cook has a college reception.
But Sarkisian has done an admirable job of restocking the depth chart.
Texas emphasized receiver in its 2024 recruiting class, signing four prospects, all of whom enrolled this month. More importantly, Sarkisian added much-needed experience in the transfer portal, landing Isaiah Bond (Alabama), Matthew Golden (Houston) and Silas Bolden (Oregon State). Texas enters the spring semester with 10 scholarship receivers on the roster.
The Bond-Golden-Bolden trio accounted for 140 receptions, 1,818 yards and 19 touchdowns at their previous schools in 2023. Paired with Ewers and Sarkisian, it’s not hard to picture those numbers going up in 2024. Worthy, Mitchell and Whittington combined for 172 catches, 2,364 yards and 18 touchdowns in 2023.
Golden and Bolden also bring value in the return game. The pair combined for three special teams touchdowns last season — Bolden returned a punt for a score and Golden returned two kickoffs for scores. That shouldn’t be overlooked considering Texas’ top returners, Worthy and Keilan Robinson, are moving on.
Cook, Moore and Niblett have a combined 238 career snaps to their name, per PFF. Bond, Golden and Bolden have a combined 3,188, and each has logged at least 1,000 in his career.
Replacing Sanders, who caught 45 passes for 682 yards in 2023, is a tougher task because there just aren’t a ton of 6-foot-4, 243-pound athletes like him readily available. But Gunnar Helm, who’s entering his senior season, provides 39 games of experience and saw his role grow last season. Texas also signed four-star recruit Jordan Washington, who’s 6-4, 225 and has 10.5-inch hands, which would be in the 90th percentile of NFL tight ends, according to the school. There are three more returnees at the position in senior Juan Davis and redshirt freshmen Spencer Shannon and Will Randle.
Texas could also tap the portal to fortify the position. Stanford transfer Ben Yurosek, one of the country’s most productive tight ends, is scheduled to visit soon after recently visiting Georgia. Alabama tight end Amari Niblack, who announced over the weekend that he was entering the portal, may also be an option.
Questions on the D-line
One of the most important tasks Texas has in 2024 is filling the holes on the defensive line left by departed stars T’Vondre Sweat and Byron Murphy.
The duo, which anchored one of the best run defenses in the FBS, had breakout seasons. Sweat won the Outland Trophy, and Murphy was the Big 12 Defensive Lineman of the Year. Now both are off to the NFL.
This will be a critical offseason for defensive linemen Alfred Collins and Vernon Broughton. The upperclassmen logged plenty of snaps rotating in behind Sweat and Murphy in 2023. Per PFF, Collins was on the field for 357 defensive snaps while Broughton saw 335. By comparison, Sweat saw 503 while Murphy played 438.
Both are experienced: Collins has 48 career games to his credit, Broughton 40. Each has been solid, but can they make the jump to become all-conference-type players in 2024, as their predecessors did in 2023? If they can, it bodes well for the Texas front as it enters its first SEC campaign.
Depth will be worth watching here, too. With Trill Carter having transferred, there isn’t much experience behind Collins and Broughton. Jaray Bledsoe (87 snaps in 2023), Aaron Bryant (51), Sydir Mitchell (17) and Zac Swanson (one) are all green.
The addition of 2024 recruit Alex January, who’s 6-5 and 320 pounds, will help, but the loss of D’antre Robinson, Texas’ four-star defensive line signee from Florida, hurts. Robinson recently was granted a release from his letter of intent following the departure of defensive line coach Bo Davis, who joined the LSU staff. Quality defensive linemen can be hard to come by in the portal, but this is a place where the Longhorns could use an addition to provide experience to the rotation, as they did with Carter last offseason.
Odds and ends
• Texas lost only two of its 17 scholarship offensive linemen: starting right tackle Christian Jones (who was out of eligibility) and reserve interior lineman Sawyer Goram-Welch (who transferred to Coastal Carolina). The Longhorns return starters Kelvin Banks, Hayden Conner, Jake Majors and DJ Campbell as well as a ton of depth behind them. Having that much returning up front combined with a soon-to-be third-year starter in Ewers is a great place to start on offense.
• The return of edge rusher Barryn Sorrell, linebacker David Gbenda and defensive back Jahdae Barron is huge for the defense. Sorrell, along with Collins and Broughton, gives Texas a ton of experience up front. Gbenda, who’s entering his sixth year, really grew into a playmaker in 2023 and will help soften the loss of star linebacker Jaylan Ford. And Barron, a Jim Thorpe Award semifinalist, should have a shot at winning the award this year if he keeps progressing at his current rate.
• Sarkisian continues to value production and experience in his portal recruiting. Last offseason, all five transfers were at least entering their third year and started at their previous stops. This winter, Bond and Golden are starters entering their third year, safety Andrew Mukuba (Clemson) and edge rusher Trey Moore (UTSA) were both multi-year starters at their previous stops and Bolden is entering his fifth year.
• On the scholarship front, Texas is returning 59 scholarship players from its 85-man 2023 roster. Of the 26 who departed, 13 either entered the NFL Draft or exhausted their eligibility. The other 13 hit the portal.
• So far, 28 scholarship newcomers are expected: 22 high schoolers and six transfers. That puts Texas at a projected 87 scholarships without accounting for any potential spring portal attrition.
• Of note, Texas’ 14 returning starters are the most among the four 2023 College Football Playoff participants.
• Of Texas’ 22 high school signees, 18 are January enrollees. Sarkisian said last month that it’s a big deal for the program to have that many prospects on board this early. In addition to helping the players acclimate to college life and the Longhorns’ winter conditioning program, the added depth increases the quality of spring football.
Sarkisian said it allows the team to split into four groups on two fields as opposed to just one, giving everybody opportunities for more practice reps.
“What a difference in spring practice in the fact that I almost have a full roster for spring ball,” Sarkisian said. “When normally in spring practice, you’re really limited — a lot of times at the line of scrimmage — we can’t practice the way we want to practice.”
(Photo of Quinn Ewers: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
2024-01-18 18:03:25
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