Tag: Texas Longhorns

Texas Longhorns trio lands on USA TODAY Sports All-America Teams

Kelvin Banks, Jahdae Barron, and Alfred Collins recognized for standout performances in 2024 season.

Three Texas Longhorns players have earned spots on the USA TODAY Sports All-America teams. The selections were made by a panel of voters covering college football for USA TODAY Sports and the USA TODAY Network.

Kelvin Banks OT – First Team

Junior offensive tackle Kelvin Banks is one of college football’s premier linemen. A starter in 37 consecutive games, Banks was named a 2024 Lombardi Award winner and SEC  Jacob Blocking Trophy award winner. His standout performances earned him SEC Offensive Lineman of the Week honors twice this season and recognition as the Outland Trophy National Player of the Week on Oct. 15.

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Banks entered the 2024 campaign as a preseason First-Team All-American, receiving nods from the Associated Press, CBS Sports, ESPN, Sporting News, and The Athletic. He also made the preseason First-Team All-SEC and was featured on watch lists for the Outland Trophy.

Jahdae Barron DB – First Team

Senior cornerback Jahdae Barron has been a cornerstone of the Texas Longhorns’ defense, appearing in 51 games with 33 starts over his collegiate career. In 2024, Barron was named a semifinalist for the Jim Thorpe Award and Bednarik Award, while also earning recognition as a quarterfinalist for the Lott IMPACT Trophy. His stellar play was highlighted by being named Jim Thorpe Award National Player of the Week on Nov. 19 and Co-SEC Defensive Player of the Week on Nov. 18. Later this evening he will find out if he will be named the Jim Thorpe award winner.

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A preseason second-team All-SEC selection, Barron entered the year on watch lists for the Bronko Nagurski Trophy and Chuck Bednarik Award. He ranks tied for sixth in program history with three non-offensive touchdowns.

Alfred Collins DL – Second Team

Senior defensive tackle Alfred Collins has been a consistent presence for the Longhorns, appearing in 53 games with 17 starts over his career. In 2023, Collins earned honorable mention All-Big 12 honors. Off the field, Collins has excelled academically, being named to the Academic All-Big 12 First Team in 2021 and the 2020-21 Academic All-Big 12 Rookie Team. He has also been recognized as a three-time member of the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll.

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Collins debuted in the 2020 season opener against UTEP and has since developed into a key contributor on the defensive line. His high school career was equally impressive, earning All-American and all-state honors, as well as being a three-time all-district selection and a two-time District Defensive Lineman of the Year. Collins also participated in the 2020 All-American Bowl.

Clemson QB is Austin native, but spurned his hometime Longhorns in 2021

Clemson QB Cade Klubnik is a former 5-star from Austin Westlake. Why didn’t he stay home to play for the Texas Longhorns?

Cade Klubnik has been the Clemson Starting QB for two full years. He’s passed for almost 7,000 yards with the Tigers. But why did the 5-star Westlake graduate head east to South Carolina and not stay home to play for Texas?

Back when Klubnik was going through his recruiting cycle, the UT staff was recruiting him hard. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian was surprised when the Texas State Champion picked Clemson.

“Big fan of Cade,” Sarkisian said. “We recruited him hard. Obviously, local kid. Really possesses a great deal of competitive spirit, and you could see that when he was in high school at Westlake.”

But the son of two former Aggies had his eyes on Dabo Swinney. Klubnik’s family says he wanted to play for Dabo since his sophomore year in High School. Sark adds, “Thought we were the hometown team, and he had always had a dream of going to Clemson.”
But while Klubnik wanted Clemson, Clemson didn’t necessarily want him. Dabo Swinney had his eyes on another 5-star QB, Ty Simpson out of Tennessee. Dabo made it clear to Klubnik there would only be a scholarship for him if Simpson chose to go elsewhere. 
In the meantime, Texas A&M and Texas were trying to land Klubnik themselves, both Klubnik described as “dream schools.” The Aggies decided to move on and signed Conner Weigman (who just announced he’s transferring to Houston).
In early February, Texas tried to ramp up the pressure. According to ESPN, Klubnik got an anonymous text from someone at Texas letting him know that Maalik Murphy was scheduled to visit campus and likely to commit. If he wanted to go to Texas, now was the time to commit.
Klubnik waited and the Longhorns did get that commitment from Murphy on Feb. 13 as Sark wasn’t taking any chances in 2021 as he tried to put together his first UT recruiting class. “He let that window close on both (schools) because he wanted to play at Clemson,” his father, Tod Klubnik, told ESPN.
Klubnik decided to wait on Clemson, but he didn’t have to wait long. On Feb. 26, 2021, Simpson picked Alabama. Clemson offered Klubnik a scholarship that same day. Less than a week later, Klubnik committed to the Tigers.
Sark is happy it all worked out for the junior QB and thinks its cool he’s coming home to Austin for the playoff game. “For him, I think, what a cool story of getting into the College Football Playoff and the first-round game is right here back in Austin, back home for him. A lot of really cool storylines of this ballgame, and that’s definitely one of them.”

How to watch Texas Longhorns vs. NM State today: Time, TV channel, streaming

It’s Texas vs NM State on Thursday. Here’s how to watch, with info on time, channel, TV Schedule and streaming info.

Texas basketball (7-2) fell short in its toughest challenge of the season, losing to No. 20 Connecticut on Sunday. Head coach Rodney Terry is eager to see how the Longhorns respond. They’ll have little time to regroup with New Mexico State (4-5) set to visit Austin on Thursday.

Texas will be home for the Holidays as they’ll play the next four games in the Moody Center, the Longhorns host an all time record of 34-6 inside Moody (4-1 this season). Texas does not play on the road until Jan. 4 at Texas A&M to start SEC play.

Here’s how to watch the Texas vs. NM State game Thursday night, including time, TV schedule and streaming information:

What channel is Texas Longhorns vs. NC State game on today? Time, TV schedule

TV Channel: SEC Network

Start time: 7:00pm C.T

David Saltzman (PXP) and Justin Mason (analyst) will call the action.

Where to watch Texas vs. New Mexico State on livestream

Streaming options for the game between Texas and NC State include both FUBO, ESPN+ and SEC+

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Texas vs. NC State game odds:

All College Football Odds via BetMGM:

  • Texas is a -19.5 point favorite vs New Mexico State
  • Total (Over/Under): 138.5 points
  • Point spread: Texas -19.5 -105 New Mexico State +19.5 -115

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Seven Texas Longhorns land on All-SEC teams

That list includes Kelvin Banks Jr., Quinn Ewers, Jahdae Barron, Gunnar Helm, Anthony Hill Jr., Quintrevion Wisner, and Andrew Mukuba

Throughout the 2024 college football campaign, the Texas Longhorns have been one of the best teams in the SEC. During their first season in a new conference, the Longhorns did not disappoint, as seven players earned spots on All-SEC teams. That list includes Kelvin Banks Jr., Quinn Ewers, Jahdae Barron, Gunnar Helm, Anthony Hill Jr., Quintrevion Wisner, and Andrew Mukuba.

The Longhorns’ offense was well represented, with Banks earning first-team All-SEC honors. Ewers and Helm earned second-team All-SEC honors, while Wisner earned third-team All-SEC honors. With that talented group leading the way, Texas has been able to frustrate opponents on a weekly basis.

As the offense has thrived, the defense has played a critical role. That was on display Tuesday, with Barron receiving first-team All-SEC honors, Hill receiving second-team All-SEC honors, and Mukaba receiving third-team All-SEC honors.

With the Longhorns focus now shifting to the postseason, they will need their stars to continue to perform. In Ewers third year under center, he has thrown for 2,665 yards and 25 touchdowns while averaging 242.27 yards per game. His success has partly been due to Helm and Wisner, who have emerged as reliable weapons in an offense full of talent.

They will also need help from a defense that will face some of the best offenses in the country. The Longhorns are in good hands with Mukaba, who ranks fourth in tackles, and Hill, who has at least one sack in four straight games, leading the way.

Over the next few weeks, this group will be key to ending the Longhorns championship drought after proving they are among the best in the SEC at their positions.

Texas OT Kelvin Banks wins the Lombardi Award

Texas Longhorns Offensive Tackle Kelvin Banks has won the Lombardi Award, given to the most outstanding linemen in college football.

Texas Longhorns offensive tackle Kelvin Banks has won the prestigious Lombardi Award, given to the most ‘outstanding college football lineman, whether on offense or defense, who displays exceptional performance and ability and embodies the character and discipline that Vince Lombardi championed throughout his life.’

The Rotary Club of Houston announced the award Wednesday. Banks joins past Longhorns Kenneth Sims, Tony Degrate, and Brian Orakpo as winners of the honor.

Wednesday was good to Banks, who also won the SEC’s Jacobs Blocking Trophy for offensive lineman of the year. He was also named first-team All-SEC selection this week.

Banks, who has protected Quinn Ewers blindside for three seasons, is also nominated for the Outland Trophy. Texas’ T’Vondre Sweat took home the 2023 Outland.

The junior from Summer Creek HS in Humble, TX started all 12 games in the regular season and missed his first career game on Saturday in the SEC Championship game, snapping a streak of 39 straight starts for that began with the first game of his true freshman year.

Texas DC Pete Kwiatkowski among finalist for coach of year awards

Texas defensive coordinator named to the finalist Broyles award list.

Texas Longhorns Defensive Coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski has been named one of the top five finalists for the Broyles Award, recognizing the best assistant coach in college football. The Broyles Award committee revealed the finalists for the 2024 honor on Wednesday.

Kwiatkowski has played a pivotal role in leading the Longhorns’ defense this season, turning the unit into one of the most aggressive defenses in the country. Under his guidance, Texas has excelled in key defensive metrics, including scoring defense and takeaways, helping the Longhorns secure a top spot in the rankings as well as solidify their spot in the College Football Playoff.

The finalist:

– Marcus Arroyo, OC (Arizona State)
– Bryant Haines, DC (Indiana)
– Al Golden, DC (Notre Dame)
– Tim Banks, DC (Tennessee)
– Pete Kwiatkowski, DC (Texas)

SEC releases 2025 schedule, who will Texas Longhorns play next season?

The SEC has released the 2025 football schedule for all conference teams, including the Texas Longhorns who have a very similar road as 2024

The SEC has released the 2025 football schedules for every team in the conference. The schedule is 14-weeks long and each team gets two open dates. Texas will play the same set of SEC teams they did in 2024, but the location will be reversed.

We’ve known Texas’ opening weekend opponent for quite some time. The Horns will open on the road in the Horseshoe to take on Ohio State. Cooper Manning has talked about how thankful he is that Arch has gotten some playing time this year so the Buckeyes aren’t his first ever start.

Then Texas has a relatively easy non-conference schedule for the rest of September. UT will host San Jose State, UTEP and Sam Houston with a bye week mixed in.

October will be completely on the road. Texas travels to Florida, then the OU game in Dallas, followed by back-to-back trips to Kentucky and Mississippi State.

To start November, Texas returns home to DKR to take on Vanderbilt. Then on Nov. 11, the Longhorns will travel to Athens, GA to face the Georgia Bulldogs in what will certainly be one of the biggest games in all of college football in 2025. The Longhorns do get a bye week before heading to Georgia.

Finally, Texas heads back to DKR for home dates with rivals Arkansas and Texas A&M.

Texas Longhorns 2025 Football Schedule:

  • 8/30 at Ohio State
  • 9/6 vs. San Jose State
  • 9/13 vs. UTEP
  • 9/20 Idle
  • 9/27 vs. SHSU
  • 10/4 at Florida
  • 10/11 vs. Oklahoma (in Dallas)
  • 10/18 at Kentucky
  • 10/25 at Mississippi State
  • 11/1 vs. Vanderbilt
  • 11/8 Idle
  • 11/15 at Georgia
  • 11/22 vs. Arkansas
  • 11/29 vs. Texas A&M

 

Texas Longhorns don’t deserve 5th seed in College Football Playoff

The Texas Longhorns don’t deserve to have the fifth seed in the college football playoffs if the CFP committee used the basketball model.

The Texas Longhorns don’t deserve the 5th seed in the college football playoffs. They really don’t. UT should be the 3rd seed.

The first version of the 12-team CFP has drawn a lot of criticism from around the country for its seemingly unbalanced design. The feeling is that giving the top four conference champions a first round bye is too much of a reward. Especially, for weaker conferences like the ACC, Mountain West or the Big 12.

Fox Sports Joel Klatt is one of those calling for seeding the playoff according to the CFP Rankings as opposed to handing top seeds to conference winners. “It’s not a true meritocracy,” Klatt said, “Now it’s not a true playoff. It’s not a true bracket. You set out to do something like value the conference championship game and in doing so you devalued the conference championship game. … We don’t artificially pull the levers of power to bump teams up based on sentiment.”

Under the current format, the top four conference champions from the SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 and highest ranked Group of 5 get the top four seeds and a first round bye. The fifth team in that group makes the playoff but doesn’t get a top seed.

This differs greatly from the NCAA College Basketball Tournament. March Madness has a very successful and very popular format. Every conference champion makes the tournament, but no team gets a preferential seed based solely on that.

The hoops model is the format Texas coach Steve Sarkisian prefers. He told ESPN on Selection Sunday, “I look to the NCAA Basketball Tournament. If you win your conference tournament you get an automatic bid into the tournament. But then there’s seedings. Right? There’s one seeds, there’s two seeds, so on and so forth. And no where in there does it say that if you win your conference you get an automatic one seed. And so, I think if we can get to that model from a football perspective moving forward, that teams get seeded predicated on their ranking.”

The result of handing lower level teams high seeds is teams like the Longhorns are moved down and have to play an extra game. “The reality of it is, if we went just off of ranking, we would be the third seed in the tournament as opposed to the fifth. If we go by that (basketball) model, yes there’s automatic bids into the tournament, but that doesn’t necessarily give you, let’s call it a one seed where you get that bye in the first round,” Sark said.

Another bi-product of moving lower ranked teams up is some of the deserving top seeds get a tougher path because higher ranked teams are lower in the bracket.

Klatt points out, Oregon may have been done in most by the format. “Congratulation Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks,” Klatt said. “You got absolutely screwed by the playoff committee because their sentiment of trying to create artificial floors rose some of these teams to levels where they shouldn’t be. That’s the problem. The reward for 13-0 and having the best regular season in all of college football, which is supposed to be the most valuable regular season in all of sports, the reward for that is having to play the highest odds teams to win the national championship. They’re going to have to possibly go through Ohio State, Texas and Georgia to win the national championship.”

If the bracket was set the rankings, Texas would have a No. 3 seed, an extra week off and a path deserving of the consensus third ranked team in the nation.

Texas loses another Defensive Lineman to the Transfer Portal

Texas Longhorns 4-star DT Sydir Mitchell Enters Transfer Portal

Texas defensive tackle Sydir Mitchell has entered the transfer portal, according to multiple reports. The second-year player and former four-star recruit has three years of eligibility remaining.

Mitchell, a 6-foot-5, 335-pound lineman, appeared in four games during the 2023 season. He made his Longhorn debut in the season opener against Rice and recorded solo tackles in wins over Wyoming and Kansas, as well as in the Big 12 Championship Game victory against Oklahoma State.

Mitchell, a native of Oradell, N.J, was a standout at his high school Bergen Catholic. He was a two time all-division honoree and a two-time state champion, he was selected for the 2023 Under Armour All-America Game.

Over his high school career, Mitchell earned numerous accomplishments, including first-team honors in the Super Football Conference United Red All-Division team in multiple seasons. He was rated as one of the top defensive linemen in the country by ESPN, On3, Rivals, and 247Sports.

Mitchell also played basketball during his prep career and was named a MaxPreps Freshman All-American as an offensive lineman in 2019.

It’s unclear where a possible landing spot for Mitchell might be. The Texas Longhorns will take on the Clemson Tigers on December 21st in the first round of the College Football Playoff.

Eagles add an offensive tackle in ESPN’s latest 2025 NFL mock draft

Philadelphia Eagles land Texas Longhorns offensive tackle Cameron Williams in ESPN’s latest 2025 NFL mock draft

The Eagles are 11-2 and heading to the playoffs for a fourth straight year, but it’s never too early for a look ahead to the 2025 NFL draft.

Philadelphia will have 18 free agents and more potential losses, including Brandon Graham, Josh Sweat, Darius Slay, James Bradberry, Avonte Maddox, and Dallas Goedert. Some salary cap and personnel decisions will be made over the next four months before the new league year begins in March.

ESPN’s Field Yates released his latest mock draft for the 2025 class, and he has the Eagles rebuilding through the trenches and selecting Lane Johnson’s eventual replacement at right tackle.

28. Philadelphia Eagles (11-2)
Cameron Williams, OT, Texas*

The Eagles’ approach to the draft feels like a team facing a second-and-1 situation — they are usually playing ahead of the sticks, creating optionality to think for now or the future. This one is about the future. Right tackle Lane Johnson is still a top player in the NFL. He’s also turning 35 years old before next season and might play only two or three more years. Williams, meanwhile, moves very well for his size, though he needs to be more consistent. He would have time to develop here, and few teams have a better OL development program than Philadelphia.

Philadelphia is among the few teams in the NFL that have an aggressive and efficient approach to investing in the offensive line. Howie Roseman (GM) and Jeff Stoutland (OL coach) have continued to build one of the best units in the league, and it starts with identifying the best prospects.

Williams is still extremely raw, having played 32 games with just 11 starts for the No. 4 ranked Longhorns. A 2024 Joe Moore Award semifinalist, Williams was named SEC Co-Offensive Lineman of the Week and could be able to learn behind one of the best right tackles in the game, Lane Johnson.

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