No Magic Guard Coming

[Steamboat Willie]

There’s no sure-thing interior OL left in the portal, but that doesn’t mean Texas is out of options. The portal is still full of linemen without homes, and if you’re smart, you’re digging through FCS and D2 tape for cheap guys with size and traits. Not every answer has to be a headline.

Texas can put five starters on the field right now. The issue is how thin the margin is if one interior spot struggles. “Probably fine” is not a real plan when you’re trying to protect Arch Manning.

The good news is the solution might already be in the building. Baker probably fits better at guard, and Cojoe could be the swing piece if he’s healthy. Let Cojoe and Siani fight it out at tackle, slide the loser inside, and suddenly the line looks a lot sturdier.

No panic. Just competition. And don’t be shocked if the fix comes from the roster instead of the portal.

[Migas & Fajitas]

Tyus Jones nor Anthony Black are coming? Ba dum tssss..

[drag worm]

Good lord we’re a mess if putting five starters on the field is considered a success. 

[John F.]

My brain when I saw the thread title 

[hookem1014]

If someone told me this a month ago I’d probably laugh and say there’s no way Texas doesn’t sign any starting caliber guards from the portal. 
We gave Quinn a very good O Line in 2023 and 2024 and nothing for the most hyped QB to ever play at Texas. Coaching malpractice if the OL doesn’t greatly improve in 2026

[drag worm]

43 minutes ago, hookem1014 said:

If someone told me this a month ago I’d probably laugh and say there’s no way Texas doesn’t sign any starting caliber guards from the portal. 
We gave Quinn a very good O Line in 2023 and 2024 and nothing for the most hyped QB to ever play at Texas. Coaching malpractice if the OL doesn’t greatly improve in 2026

That's what I just can’t come to grips with either. The mods must be being silent on this so as not to jinx the last minute fireworks. That’s all I can imagine is going on. 

Edited 5 hours ago by drag worm

[DiggsTX]

A gameplan of rollout and "Coleman's down there somewhere" or check down to an RB might work honestly

[cmk4pres]

The staff didnt learn anything from last year. 

[TTown]

Lockette signed with Maryland so maybe a good sign since we had him on a holding pattern waiting on bigger fish lol. Or another royal screw up. Won't know for a few days fingers crossed.

[Tim Longoria]

2 hours ago, Migas & Fajitas said:

Tyus Jones nor Anthony Black are coming? Ba dum tssss..

Anthony Black has made me a little money on Prize Picks

[Tommy]

Returning 4-5 starters from last year doesn't mean anything when the starters last year weren't good enough to begin with. Even when the O-line supposedly improved toward the end of the season, they still weren't that good and Arch just got a lot better at making one defender miss. 

On this line, only Goosby is a bonafide hit. Like T Hills said today, Baker doesn't really have a tackle bod. Wouldn't say Connor Robertson is better than Majors (undrafted). And we're all hoping Siani is a Goosby level value-steal. 

[HornsUpThumbsDown]

2 hours ago, hookem1014 said:

If someone told me this a month ago I’d probably laugh and say there’s no way Texas doesn’t sign any starting caliber guards from the portal. 
We gave Quinn a very good O Line in 2023 and 2024 and nothing for the most hyped QB to ever play at Texas. Coaching malpractice if the OL doesn’t greatly improve in 2026

Nothing as in went to college playoff semi finals… check around college football pretty good… see this years cheez it and prior years Alamo bowls for context 

[Jordan91]

All started when Sark kept Flood. 

[Here for the Wins]

38 minutes ago, Tommy said:

Returning 4-5 starters from last year doesn't mean anything when the starters last year weren't good enough to begin with. Even when the O-line supposedly improved toward the end of the season, they still weren't that good and Arch just got a lot better at making one defender miss. 

On this line, only Goosby is a bonafide hit. Like T Hills said today, Baker doesn't really have a tackle bod. Wouldn't say Connor Robertson is better than Majors (undrafted). And we're all hoping Siani is a Goosby level value-steal. 

If you weren’t aware, there were only 3 guys drafted last year as Centers.  Just how many teams do you think have bonafide hits?

Arch was pretty solid at making one defender miss all throughout the season.

[Atticus]

You would think they’d bring in a guy as a fallback option by now if they fully struck out. 

Few more days until IU/UM guys close their window. 

[Tommy]

1 hour ago, Here for the Wins said:

If you weren’t aware, there were only 3 guys drafted last year as Centers.  Just how many teams do you think have bonafide hits?

Arch was pretty solid at making one defender miss all throughout the season.

absolutely, your typical playoff team does not have 5 NFL draft picks on the line, even Miami/IU this year. However, you judge the line based on performance. 2025 O-line was not good, even towards the end. So the only thing you can look toward improving is either the personnel or the development. Losing Campbell, Texas is also much worse than Guard than last year. Losing Brooks and Cruz are significant for depth. Texas brought in one single starting caliber player, but still projected to be a multi-year development. So from a portal perspective, Texas has lost personnel and decreased its position in the O-line

Arch improved in throwing accurately under pressure throughout the season. Florida aside, he faced marginally lower pressure as the season progressed, but he grew to be much more able to take the hits/scramble while nicely targeting his receivers. IMO that's why people are thought the o-line improved. Watching the time 24 Quinn received vs 25 arch is night and day

[Here for the Wins]

5 minutes ago, Tommy said:

absolutely, your typical playoff team does not have 5 NFL draft picks on the line, even Miami/IU this year. However, you judge the line based on performance. 2025 O-line was not good, even towards the end. So the only thing you can look toward improving is either the personnel or the development. Losing Campbell, Texas is also much worse than Guard than last year. Losing Brooks and Cruz are significant for depth. Texas brought in one single starting caliber player, but still projected to be a multi-year development. So from a portal perspective, Texas has lost personnel and decreased its position in the O-line

Arch improved in throwing accurately under pressure throughout the season. Florida aside, he faced marginally lower pressure as the season progressed, but he grew to be much more able to take the hits/scramble while nicely targeting his receivers. IMO that's why people are thought the o-line improved. Watching the time 24 Quinn received vs 25 arch is night and day

I’d agree with you a bit on the Oline improvement that it was perhaps more modest than some believe.  OU, for example, was pretty poor pass protection but Arch hit Wisner on two check downs I believe.  Then rolled right to hit Livingstone.  We ran the ball for yards, but Wisner had a lot of YAC.  Arch did better.  I believe the play calling helped too.  Unfortunately at Georgia we dropped too many balls then fell apart late.

I am in the minority on this.  I think we’ll be fine here.  I may be more concerned about RB pass protection.

[David Yancey]

Don’t worry ladies and germs, the Brockermeyer twins are otw!!!!

[Blue Horn]

How Sark completely fumbled the ball on the OL again is beyond me.  What is worse is that he showed the door to half the OL.  We have all the skilled talent in the world, but without a functional OL it is meaningless.  

[512Horn]

Big yikes

[Glass Joe]

This OL portal cycle feels more like a failure of execution, whereas last year’s OL portal failure was due to poor room evaluation / talent planning.

I think the Texas staff had their eyes on a handful of P4 starter-caliber OGs going into this portal window, but miscalculated on those OGs actually entering the portal (current team retention efforts likely won out).  

Given the number of OGs that actually DID enter the portal which Texas seemingly passed on (Lockett, WKU Guard, etc), it would suggest Texas was confident their primary targets would be there, but alas…nope.  I guess there is technically still some Bray Lynch hope, but he’s a replacement-level OG relative to Cole Hutson so we are not upgrading LG this cycle.

So, we now appear to be in a situation where we are sorting through the secondary OGs currently available in the portal.  My guess is our current situation is forcing the evaluation staff to look at A LOT more Guards than expected to find a decent 1-2 guys to recruit and sign.  My assumption is once all our primary targets were not available, we had exhausted our Big Board at IOL, so now we have to evaluate to reset the available Board.

A disappointing outcome, but not the end of the world.  Their may be a replacement-level P4 OG in the portal, and that would effectively be a 1-for-1 swap with the level of play we got from Cole Hutson (and a big improvement over what we got from the other LGs in the first half of the season).  Baker appears set to move inside to RG, which may provide better pass blocking than DJ Campbell, but not likely as good run blocking as DJ.

Net-net:  we aren’t improving the IOL play at all this offseason, and we lost some young depth pieces along the way (Kibble, Cruz).  We better hope Jackson Christian and Sikorsky are ready to be in the Top 8 OL this season…or we are up a creek.

[Jhablinski]

Brutal

 

will be another lost season and a waste of a ton of money on skill talent