Texas’ talented group of newcomers look to help the Longhorns get over the hump.
This offseason has been one of the craziest in college football history. Between the coaching carousel and the transfer portal, teams all over the country will look much different next season.
Texas was able to keep some key players along with adding many sought-after newcomers to the program.
Defensive starters DeMarvion Overshown, D’Shawn Jamison and Keondre Coburn decided to come back for one last season in Austin.
The Longhorns captured some strong recruiting momentum down the stretch to finish with the No. 5 class in the nation. The class addresses Texas’ need in the trenches on both sides of the ball. The offensive line haul was especially impressive, with two five-stars Devon Campbell and Kelvin Banks.
Former five-star quarterback Quinn Ewers and multiple other talented players join the roster via the transfer portal.
The influx of talent has brought some much-needed optimism to the program. The fresh faces on the roster will be tasked to help the Horns bounce back from last year’s 5-7 campaign.
Here are six newcomers who should make a major impact in the 2022 season for Texas:
Texas leads the conference in talented newcomers for 2022.
In the upcoming college football season, the Big 12 conference will have their hands full with the newcomer of the year awards. On top of the loaded recruiting classes, there is the transfer portal.
There was plenty of action as football players made the decision to leave the Big 12, and plenty more opted to join the conference. That doesn’t even take into account the players that transferred within the conference.
However, our focus will be on the transfers from outside the Big 12 that joined for the upcoming college football campaign. The Texas Longhorns were among those who accumulated a lot of talent through the portal and with their top-five class.
Here are our top 12 players to transfer into the conference based on their transfer portal ranking from 247Sports. The Longhorns account for 33% of them.
The talk in Texas is the Longhorns No. 5 ranked recruiting class in the 2022 cycle, but make no mistake the team under Steve Sarkisian loaded up in the transfer portal.
All four players they added to the class are expected to play major roles on this team. Everyone knows about the quarterback and his two newest weapons. Not to mention Texas secured one of the best offensive line hauls that we have ever seen.
Photo by Mike Cravens / Austin American-Statesman / USA TODAY Network
This year’s transfer cycle has been defined by the game of musical chairs at quarterback. Steve Sarkisian landed one of the nation’s top young talents at the position in Ohio State transfer Quinn Ewers, who will step right into the starting role and be the face of the program’s continued rebuild. The Longhorns further upgraded the passing game by adding former Alabama tight end Jahleel Billingsley, who has the talent to play at the next level, and former Wyoming wide receiver Isaiah Neyor, one of the top deep threats in the country in 2021.
It was clear that the Texas staff had a clear view of what they wanted to do this offseason. On top of securing the top recruiting class in the Big 12, Sarkisian also brought in a lot of talent through the transfer portal. The biggest came when Quinn Ewers chose Texas over Texas Tech and TCU. He is in line to be the quarterback of the next couple of seasons, as he would have been had he stuck with his original commitment. The Longhorns ended up winning in the end, now the question remains if he can lead them to the promised land.
Adding Jahleel Billingsley to replace the loss of Jared Wiley and Isaiah Neyor replacing Joshua Moore was massive. However, the defense might have been the underrated part in all of this. Texas flipped Ohio State commit Terrance Brooks and landed Buckeyes defensive back Ryan Watts in the transfer portal. It appears the staff put together a solid building block.
The Sooners on the other hand were big losers in the transfer portal according to Myerberg. Fans can thank Texas native Lincoln Riley for nuking that team from the inside. He did grow up as a Texas Longhorns fan after all.
It hasn’t been a total flop: OU has rallied under new coach Brent Venables to sign Central Florida quarterback Dillon Gabriel and one of the deepest transfer groups in the FBS. Gabriel’s production in the Group of Five and familiarity with new offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby’s system makes him the favorite to claim the starting job. The Sooners also addressed two areas of concern in the secondary and overall line play; McKade Mettauer (California) is a likely starter on the offensive front, while Jonah La’ulu (Hawaii) and Jeffery Johnson (Tulane) bolster depth on defense. It’s still hard to overlook the fact that OU lost one of the best players in the country at the most important position on the field.
Two five-star quarterbacks opted to exit stage left. Mario Williams is an up-and-coming wide receiver in college football. He opted to join Caleb Williams at USC with Riley. Oklahoma did secure a top 10 class in 2022 but those losses could be monumental. It is a wait-and-see approach for first-time head coach Brent Venables and those north of the Red River. As of right now, it appears the advantage arrow points to Austin.
Texas still has many question marks they need to address, but also have the chance to excel in some areas.
Steve Sarkisian and Texas have had as good of an offseason as they could have asked for after a disappointing 5-7 campaign.
Texas signed a top-five recruiting class that focused on adding much-needed talent to the trenches. 13 of the 27 signees are either offensive linemen or on the defensive front seven. Kelvin Banks became the first five-star offensive lineman to sign with Texas since the 2009 cycle.
The Horns also hit big in the transfer portal, bringing four guys who will push for immediate playing time. Former Alabama tight end Jahleel Billingsley and Wyoming wide receiver Isaiah Neyor are proven players ready to contribute. Ohio State transfers Quinn Ewers and Ryan Watts were targeted by many schools after entering the portal.
Texas will continue to look to use the portal this offseason as more players will presumably enter the portal after spring ball.
Looking ahead to the 2022 season, Texas still has many question marks they need to address, but they also have the chance to excel in some areas.
Here are Texas’ biggest strengths and weaknesses heading into 2022:
10 players who have the potential to have big seasons in 2022.
Texas will have many fresh faces in the program next season.
Over 30 recruits and transfers will make up an exciting group of newcomers joining Texas’ roster.
Steve Sarkisian has a good amount of talent to work with between the newcomers on the team and the young players who have been held over from last season.
Despite the 5-7 record, many around the program feel they are knocking on the door for a massive improvement. Texas proved they could compete with any team in the conference last season but struggled to find ways to win in the second half of games.
Finding some breakout players could turn Texas into real competitors in the Big 12 conference. Last season Xavier Worthy and Bijan Robinson established themselves as elite players. Who on the roster could share similar leaps in the 2022 season?
Here are 10 players who could break out into major contributors next year:
Texas needed a proven commodity to pair opposite Xavier Worthy and they got exactly with the addition of Neyor.
Wide receiver production took a major hit when Jordan Whittington went down with an injury midway through the 2021 season. A trio of Worthy, Neyor and Whittington has the potential to be explosive.
Whoever ends up winning the quarterback battle next season will have a plethora of weapons to throw to.
Here is a look at some of the notable wide receivers on Texas’s roster:
Texas has a top 10 transfer portal class up to this point.
The Longhorns had major flaws during the 2021 season, and while recruiting can help solve some, getting experienced players from the transfer portal was a must.
Steve Sarkisian made it abundantly clear that he would be pursing players at multiple positions in the transfer portal to sure up a team that finished 5-7 during his first year as the head coach. If you were blindfolded and pointed at a position group, it is likely that you would be pointing at a group that needed major help.
While the staff was able to round up one of the strongest recruiting classes of offensive linemen ever assembled at Texas, there were still other areas of concern such as wide receiver, defensive back, and linebackers.
For a while, there seemed to be a common theme of Texas being tardy to the party and offering top transfers late into their recruitment. In multiple cases, that was a main reason why they didn’t land a player, like defensive end Jared Verse (Florida State) or even receiver Jacob Cowing (Arizona) who basically made it sound like he would commit if Texas had offered.
The 6-foot-3, 210-pound sophomore appeared in 19 games for Wyoming from 2019-21. He totaled 47 receptions, 1,039 receiving yards and 11 receiving touchdowns, while recording 73 rushing yards and one touchdown on 10 attempts.
Neyor is from Lamar High School in Arlington, Texas.
