Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
7 hours ago, Reynolds Woodcock said:

Ewers, Mitchell, Mukuba, Golden, all incredibly important to our success in 23 and 24. Plenty of other starter-level role players as well. 

Y’all are just naming transfers at this point.  Ewers was going to start no matter what and he didn’t exactly hit the ground running.  Five years of great recruiting classes but we are going to have to raid the portal for multiple starters in key positions Arch’s final year.  
 

I didn’t say transfers can’t be successful here.  I said they take time to get up to speed and that we can’t have growing pains like we did at the beginning of this year or we’ll find ourselves missing the playoffs again.  

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
1 hour ago, GTJ1982 said:

Y’all are just naming transfers at this point.  Ewers was going to start no matter what and he didn’t exactly hit the ground running.  Five years of great recruiting classes but we are going to have to raid the portal for multiple starters in key positions Arch’s final year.  
 

I didn’t say transfers can’t be successful here.  I said they take time to get up to speed and that we can’t have growing pains like we did at the beginning of this year or we’ll find ourselves missing the playoffs again.  

Lets Go Win GIF by NFL On Prime Video

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
13 minutes ago, FloridaHorn said:

Great....."With the 16th pick in the NFL draft, the Dallas Cowboys select Sgt. Hulk."

that tracks

 

  • Haha 4
  • Rage+1 2
Posted
2 hours ago, Viper said:

that tracks

 

I don't think that is on Murray. He appears to be doing his job. Yeah, he could have read it better, but 95 is out of control and over penetrates and 3 other players overplay the motion man. Those things don't happen, and the play likely ends up exactly where Murray was. 

Posted
2 hours ago, FloridaHorn said:

Great....."With the 16th pick in the NFL draft, the Dallas Cowboys select Sgt. Hulk."

🤣🤣🤣🤣. My speed and coverage is about that of the current secondary.  So lateral move 

Posted (edited)
4 hours ago, GTJ1982 said:

Y’all are just naming transfers at this point.  Ewers was going to start no matter what and he didn’t exactly hit the ground running.  Five years of great recruiting classes but we are going to have to raid the portal for multiple starters in key positions Arch’s final year.  
 

I didn’t say transfers can’t be successful here.  I said they take time to get up to speed and that we can’t have growing pains like we did at the beginning of this year or we’ll find ourselves missing the playoffs again.  

Ewers was going to start no matter what because we were a tire fire at the quarterback position and he was brought in specifically to address that need.  

We successfully filled select critical roles with transfers in 23 and 24. We failed to do that in 25. We’ll need to do better in 2026. That isn’t an indictment of our program, it’s just describing what it takes to be a national championship contender in modern college football. 

Edited by Reynolds Woodcock
  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted
3 minutes ago, kevwun said:

Now Mosley sucks?  This board has caught a raging case of the stupid.

I absolutely despise our “fans.” Very emotional. Quick to whine about the lack of loyalty in college FB and then want to throw everyone away bc they weren’t perfect. 

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Like 1
Posted

So taking out the opt outs and everyone that has declared for the portal so far + adding the 2026 signing class, this is what I have for 2026:

QB (3): Manning, Lacey, Bell

RB (7): Wisner, Clark, Simon, Terry, Niblett, Cooper, Walker

WR (9): Wingo, Mosley, Livingstone, McCutcheon, Ffrench, Lockett, Stewart, Brown, Bishop

TE (5): Townsend, Washington, Shannon, Winston, Jilek

OL (15): Goosby, Baker, Chatman, Robertson, Brooks, Neto?, Kibble, Cojoe, Cruz, Christian, Coleman x2, Turntine, Robertson, Scherer

Edge (8): Simmons, Jackson, Spence, Vasek, Zina, Orogbo, Wesley, Carlton

DT (8): January, Kanu, L. Johnson, Watson, Charles, Sharma, Terry, Johnson

LB (5): Smith, Barnes, Atkinson, Cummings, Okpala

DB (15): Phillips, Black, Roberson, Littleton, McDonald, JJR, Chester, Filsaime, Williams, Hicks, Cunningham, Davis, Riley, Howard, Matthews

Specialists (3): O'Neal, Collett, Bukauskas

 

Only 78 scholarships used + 16 walk-ons with eligibility remaining after this year.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted

Ian Boyd: Linebacker crisis looming? How the transfer portal can rescue Texas' 2026 defense

Quote

In the world of college football, there are positions that define a team’s floor and positions that define a team’s ceiling. A team’s ceiling comes from the skill positions or “space force” spots on the edges of the trenches and outside. Those positions maximize with elite athletes with highly specialized skills for winning 1-on-1 matchups.

On the interior, you get the more traditional football players who set the floor for a program. These positions require strength, toughness, and an overall understanding of the team’s scheme and strategy. Without those traits, athleticism doesn’t matter and is washed away in the sweat and blood of the trenches. Beyond doing their own jobs, interior positions like the Mike linebacker or free safety also tend to use their understanding of the bigger picture to help direct everyone else on the defense.

A defense can then more easily get away with playing skilled athletes who may not have a good sense of the big picture. The prospective 2026 Texas Longhorn defense is down bad in terms of fielding signal-callers that will allow it to control the middle of the field and direct the action. Particularly after the loss of returning linebacker Liona Lefau to the transfer portal.

The linebacker room in 2026

The 2025 Texas inside linebacker room was one of the more talented units we’ve seen in Austin in some time. Anthony Hill and Lefau tied for the unit lead at 69 tackles apiece, TyAnthony Smith added another 51, Trey Moore had 35 mixing it up inside as one of his positions, and Elijah “Bo” Barnes had one stop. That was basically the whole room, save for walk-ons Brady Sarkisian and special teams star Marshall Landwehr.

With Lefau’s transfer and Moore and Hill off to the NFL, Texas will enter 2026 with two scholarship players at inside linebacker returning to the roster in Smith and Barnes. There’s also Brad Spence, who’s more of an Edge/Sam and doesn’t really play as a true inside linebacker. The Longhorns will add freshmen Tyler Atkinson and Rocky Cummings to the mix. For a position where experience at reading offensive actions and understanding the greater scheme is essential, returning a back-up junior and a redshirt freshman is a terrible start.

The freshmen are a 200-pound freak athlete who needs time to add weight and master the position and a kid who played Edge and tight end this year in high school. Generally those descriptions don’t match a reliable freshman starting linebacker. Smith is the closest thing on the whole roster to a dependable, veteran linebacker and even he was only a back-up in 2025 and one that was very much figuring things out on the job.

The transfer portal

The good news for Texas is that while you don’t necessarily want to be in a position where you unexpectedly have to go find players in the transfer portal to comprise the core of your team or your on-field defensive leaders…it’s actually very feasible. As I wrote the other week, there are particular positions where it’s hard to develop players without simply playing them in games. Quarterback really stands out in that regard but it’s also true of linebacker and safety.

Linebackers have to learn how to read the blocking patterns of the O-line and tight end in front of them, read the route patterns of the receivers outside of them, and track it all while changing the leverage they need to have for either from down to down based on the play-call by their defensive coordinator. It’s hard to do all that without training the brain to see the patterns almost instantly, which happens through extensive repetition. The player who develops that pattern recognition at the G5 level by with game reps over his underclassmen or upperclassmen seasons is often miles better than the more physically gifted underclassman who hasn’t yet played much college football. Mental processing speed comes before literal play speed.

We’ve seen that pattern play out time and again at Texas, with the defense booming or busting based on the experience level of the linebacker corps. The Longhorns now have little choice but to add two or even three inside linebackers in the portal. It’ll probably take that many to ensure a chance at fielding a two-deep of players that understand how to deny access to the middle of the field to opposing teams. Fortunately the G5 and other programs lower on the totem pole than Texas have been working very hard to develop such players for themselves. There should be more than enough available in the transfer portal for the Longhorns to restock the room for 2026.

Just add it to the list of positions to watch in the transfer portal window.

 

Posted
20 minutes ago, kevwun said:

Now Mosley sucks?  This board has caught a raging case of the stupid.

Caught? The front door is unlocked. Raging idiots continuously walk right in and start typing. Unfortunately most stay for forever. That's how we get Helo'd.

  • Haha 1

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...