In a major effort to improve the roster for the 2022 season, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian was not shy about attracting talent from the transfer portal.
In fact, he emphasized multiple times that the portal was going to be a major source of the new roster additions. Now that the dust is pretty much settled, we see he was serious.
The Longhorns brought in the No. 8 transfer class according to 247Sports, headlined by Ohio State quarterback and former perfectly rated recruit Quinn Ewers. Their success in the portal earned them one of 247Sports’ winners of the college football offseason.
Did the Longhorns have a perfect offseason in the transfer market? Of course not. If that were the case, Ochaun Mathis would be a Longhorn instead of a Cornhusker. But Texas still improved its roster through the portal. The biggest addition is Ohio State QB transfer Quinn Ewers, who ranked as the No. 1 overall recruit in the 2021 class. To many in Austin, he’s viewed as the missing piece the Longhorns have searched for since Colt McCoy left campus over a decade ago. He’ll have weapons, too, thanks to a trio of four-star transfer pass catchers: Isaiah Neyor, Agiye Hall and Jahleel Billingsley. All three are dynamic playmakers who add talented depth to a room that lacked it last year. Finally, Ohio State transfer Ryan Watts is a projected starter at cornerback, a part of Texas’ defense that struggled last season.
Perhaps just as importantly, the Longhorns managed to avoid losing key pieces off last year’s team, making it a successful offseason in the portal.
If there was anything to nitpick, it would be on the defensive side of the ball when it came to the transfer portal for Texas. They missed out on multiple transfers that would have greatly boosted the defense, specifically, across the defensive front. The Longhorns swung and missed on Ochaun Mathis (Nebraska), Jared Verse (Florida State), Caleb Johnson (Miami), and Drew Sanders (Arkansas).
On the bright side for Texas, they will have one more chance to land a solicited pass rusher in FAMU EDGE transfer Isaiah Land.
Even if they don’t add Land to their transfer class, it will still go down as one of the best transfer classes in the country and will help the program for years to come.
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