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    Jeff Howe
    Strong leadership helped guide Texas into the College Football Playoff semifinals the last two seasons. Along with the talent Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns have lost, quality leaders from the 2023 and 2024 rosters have departed the Forty Acres.
    A new leadership nucleus is forming during spring practice. Based on the early returns and what Sarkisian, Arch Manning and Quintrevion Wisner have said in their recent post-practice press scrums, the current Texas squad oozes intensity and swagger, which are rubbing off of a robust group of new faces in the locker room.
    “We come with just a tad bit more juice. Just a tad,” Wisner said on Thursday. “No offense to older guys, but the younger guys, we definitely have more energy.
    “We've got a bunch of freshmen new to the playing lifestyle,” he added. “For them to come in and match our energy and juice is good.”
    With Manning, Wisner and DJ Campbell setting the tone on offense, and Anthony Hill, Colin Simmons and Michael Taaffe leading the defense, these leaders have what it takes to end the program’s 20-year national championship drought.
    That’s saying a lot. It’s an incredibly high bar to clear.
    Nevertheless, these Longhorns give off vibes similar to the 2008 team, one that was more than deserving of a chance to play for the national title.
    Quan Cosby, Colt McCoy, Roy Miller and Brian Orakpo led a club that was arguably college football’s best. The young, inexperienced members of the roster — Sam Acho, Keenan Robinson, Earl Thomas and Fozzy Whittaker among them — got in line, helping Texas win 25 of 27 games over two seasons, including the program’s most recent conference championship before the Longhorns won the Big 12 on their way out of the league in 2023.
    Sarkisian now knows the quality depth it takes to play upwards of 17 games to be the last team standing when the curtain falls on the CFP at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium on Jan. 19, 2026. That’s why the positive early returns on the likes of James Simon, the young wide receivers (Parker Livingstone and four newcomers: Jaime Ffrench, Kaliq Lockett and Daylan McCutcheon and Michael Terry III), Brandon Baker, Nick Brooks, Nate Kibble, Graceson Littleton, Kade Phillips and Santana Wilson are significant developments to monitor as the overall outlook on depth clears up.
    “This is the most young players we've ever had at one time in spring practice,” Sarkisian said during his press conference on Tuesday. “It's been a little bit different for us.”
    According to ESPN.com’s Bill Connelly, Texas enters Sarkisian’s fifth season ranked No. 103 nationally in returning production. Of the 136 FBS programs, the Longhorns are 126th in returning offensive production.
    Still, that shouldn’t keep the Longhorns from competing for the SEC title and getting over the CFP semifinal hump.
    For starters, what Texas lacks in experience it makes up for in talent. Furthermore, the exodus of players with COVID-19 eligibility waivers coinciding with the neverending roster volatility created by the transfer portal has the Longhorns facing the same reality Ohio State (No. 101 in returning production), Georgia (No. 105), Oregon (No. 109), Ole Miss (No. 113 and other SEC and/or national title contenders.
    “These young guys want to be good and they bring good energy,” Manning said on Thursday. “That's what makes practice more fun.”
    With half of spring practice over, Manning has laid the foundation needed to make that vision a reality.
    “He's got a very infectious personality and I think people gravitate to him,” Sarkisian said of Manning on Tuesday. “One of the things I see right now is, naturally, he's leading a group of some younger players, especially the skill spots, like at the wideout spot. His confidence, I think, helps them. His understanding, his ability to connect to those guys in between series and talk to him has been helpful.
    “I also see a competitive spirit affecting the defensive side of the ball,” he added. “I think they like competing against Arch. I think they know he's going to talk a little smack to them. He's going to have fun with it, and I think that's bringing out some personality in an Anthony Hill or a [Malik] Muhammad or a Michael Taaffe.
    “Every day is competitive because they know 16 is going to bring it and if he gets them, he's going to let them know about it.”
    Sarkisian has hammered growth home leading up to spring practice, and he mentioned it several times on Tuesday.
    If Manning starts to trend upward, and the team’s growth mirrors his, Texas can head into the postseason as a team nobody wants to face.
    Jeff Howe
    AUSTIN, Texas — Even with Saturday’s 7-4 win over No. 3 Georgia securing a second series win over a top-three SEC foe, there are six weekends of conference play left in the regular season. It's too early for No. 5 Texas to celebrate.
    Still, Jalin Flores and Will Gasparino highlighted a five-run seventh inning with two-run doubles and righty Max Grubbs held the Bulldogs scoreless during 3.1 scoreless innings of relief, propelling the Longhorns to their 11th come-from-behind win of the season. Pulling off such an effort — ignited when Texas (25-4, 10-1 SEC) trailed Georgia (29-4, 8-3) in the fifth inning, 4-0, and Jaquae Stewart drilled a 409-foot laser to right field for a two-run home run — against one of the nation’s hottest clubs (the Bulldogs had won 26 of their last 27 games coming into the series with three series wins in a row over ranked opponents) — is a credit to the championship culture coach Jim Schlossnagle has established in his first season on the Forty Acres.
    If the Longhorns hadn’t bought into Schlossnagle’s mantra of playing to a standard instead of the scoreboard when he accepted the job last summer, they wouldn’t be the first SEC squad to reach the 10-win mark in conference play.
    “We pitch well enough to where, when we're down, we're not normally down by a ton,” Schlossnagle said. “We've set a culture where you just keep playing and try to keep your eyes off the scoreboard.”
    That’s an apropos description of starting pitcher Luke Harrison’s day.
    The southpaw allowed three RBI doubles among six hits during a 5.2-inning outing (96 total pitches). Nevertheless, Harrison minimized his mistakes (one walk, a balk, and two hit batters) and fired a career-high nine strikeouts before passing the baton to Grubbs, who gave up just two hits and struck out two without allowing any free passes.
    “He kept us in the ballgame,” Schlossnagle said of Harrison. “He kept us close enough.”
    Stewart’s home run was one of the few mistakes Brian Curley made while limiting Texas to three hits and striking out nine over five innings. The Longhorns didn’t panic or press. Instead, they stuck to their process of taking pitches and working counts while looking for an opportune time to strike.
    “An at-bat in the seventh inning needs to be the same as an at-bat in the third,” Schlossnagle said. “It should be at least. We see pitches and try to use the whole field and don't panic. Make the pitcher bring it over the plate.”
    One of the key statistics Schlossnagle tracks in the free pass battle. Texas finished the game with a plus-4 edge in free passes, 7-3. Walks preceding the big extra-base blows by Stewart, Flores and Gasparino helped the Longhorns make the most of their clutch hits.
    “I think we've played really good team offense for two days, and then we try to get the timely hit,” Schlossnagle said regarding what worked at the plate through the first two games of the series. Saturday's win improved the team's record to 3-1 when trailing after six innings.
    “Just sticking with how we like to play offense,” he added. “We don't have as many marquee players — nationally known marquee players — in there, but Flores came up big today with his best at-bat. Obviously, Gasparino has been swinging the bat really well for a while.”
    The same approach that led to a series-clinching win over Georgia positioned Texas for a ninth-inning rally in Tuesday’s 5-3 loss to Texas State. Whereas Kimble Schuessler’s two-out line drive in the bottom of the ninth lacked the lift to get over Dawson Park’s head at second base, Ethan Mendoza’s seventh-inning fly ball got caught in a stiff breeze blowing out to right field, causing outfielder Dan Jackson to misplay it, resulting in an error.
    With runners in scoring position, the next batter up was Flores, who laced the game-tying double to the wall in center field.
    While Schlossnagle would prefer the Longhorns play from ahead, the mindset required to string together come-from-behind wins should benefit Texas over the long haul. Maintaining pitch-by-pitch, inning-by-inning, game-by-game mentality is the only way Texas can make the most of a red-hot start while facing some of the best teams in the SEC.
    “When you have some comeback wins then you don't panic and you just keep playing,” Schlossnagle said. “It doesn't spook you when you get behind.”
    Jeff Howe
    AUSTIN, Texas — When Texas baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle and pitching coach Max Weiner recruited Jared Spencer out of the NCAA transfer portal last summer, they anticipated he’d be a starting pitcher. It wasn’t a certainty considering the 6-foot-3-inch, 210-pound southpaw only made 11 starts in three seasons at Indiana State.
    What Spencer did in Friday’s 5-1 win over No. 3 Georgia provided further evidence that their hunch was correct. The work Spencer has done under Weiner’s tutelage helped him win the job heading up the weekend rotation in the Longhorns’ first season in the SEC, playing the role of staff ace to perfection in front of 7,246 fans at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.
    “Max felt like we could get him some extra pitches,” Schlossnagle said regarding Spencer's recruitment. With Weiner’s help, Spencer developed a changeup to go along with the fastball and slider he relied on heavily during his time with the Sycamores.
    “He can really pitch,” Schlossnagle said. “I think he’s showing professional baseball he’s capable of being a starting pitcher.”
    Spencer once again showed the SEC he’s worthy of being the ace of the pitching staff for No. 5 Texas (24-4, 9-1 SEC), setting the tone for a critical three-game conference series against the Bulldogs. Running his fastball up to 97 mph and mixing it with a slider he used to ring up eight of the 11 Georgia (29-3, 8-2) batters he struck out, Spencer shut the Bulldogs down to the tune of a season-low one run on two hits while throwing a career-high 111 pitches in 7.2 brilliant innings on the bump.
    When asked how he’d describe the win, which allowed the Longhorns to keep pace with No. 1 Tennessee (the reigning national champions no-hit Texas A&M in a 10-0 run-rule victory in Knoxville on Friday) atop the SEC standings, Schlossnagle said it was because Texas had “a great pitcher.”
    “To me, the game begins and ends with starting pitching, even though it’s not as prevalent these days to see guys go deep in games,” said Schlossnagle, who mentioned the two-hit, complete-game shutout with 14 strikeouts No. 7 LSU got from Kade Anderson in a 2-0 win over No. 10 Oklahoma on Thursday. Spencer, Schlossnagle said, “is right up there” with the Tigers' dominant lefty, especially after what he did to a Georgia lineup that entered the game leading Division I home runs per game (2.71) and slugging percentage (.629) while ranking second in hits (339), runs per game (10.5) and on-base percentage (.466) with a .324 team batting average that was No. 14 nationally before Spencer befuddled the Bulldog bats.
    “The story is Spencer,” Schlossnagle said. “You’re holding down that offense. The wind was blowing in early, but the balls we hit went out, and the one ball they hit went out. They're certainly capable of changing the game with one swing.”
    Georgia left fielder Nolan McCarthy’s seventh home run of the season was a 391-foot blast to left field in the top of the seventh inning. Thankfully, the Longhorns had a 5-0 lead at the time, with an RBI double by Kimble Schuessler and two-run home runs by Casey Borba and Will Gasparino (his seventh in the team’s last six games) doing the damage in the middle innings.
    It’s a lot to toe the rubber as the Friday starter for a program that’s won six national championships and whose tradition of starting pitching is second to none. Still, whether it’s embracing the role as the staff ace, shaking off a home run that broke up a shutout or laughing after firing a pitch over the head of Rylan Galvan to the backstop in the eighth inning, Spencer’s mental makeup is helping him climb the ranks of starting pitchers in the SEC as much or more than his electric array of pitches.
    “He's a big, strong guy from Michigan that doesn't get phased by things,” Schlossnagle said. “What's really awesome about Spence is he had to go through a lot of summer school stuff to get enough credits to transfer into Texas after three years of college. It's really hard to do. He could've said 'screw that' at any time and signed because he got drafted. It tells you a lot about him that he went through that because he wanted to be here.
    “He and Max together are a great combination.”
    After getting the Longhorns started on the right foot against the Bulldogs, Spencer ranks among the SEC leaders in innings pitched (tied for fourth) and strikeouts (sixth). Spencer is the face of a Texas pitching staff that came into the series ranked No. 3 nationally in ERA (3.13), sixth in hits allowed per nine innings (6.99) and ninth in walks and hits allowed per nine innings pitched (a 1.19 WHIP).
    Even with Spencer surrendering the home run to McCarthy, the Longhorns have allowed an SEC-low 15 long balls through 28 games. Texas has given up the third-fewest hits in the SEC (186), while a .212 batting average for the Longhorns’ opponents is tied for the third-best in the conference.
    With Spencer leading the charge and Weiner working his magic behind the scenes, a pitching revival is afoot on the Forty Acres. For his part, Spencer isn’t thinking too far into the future.
    Instead, he's living by Weiner's advice, taking a one-pitch-at-a-time approach to his final college baseball season. That's helping him embrace his role and have fun while doing his best to put Texas in the win column whenever he's given the ball.
    “I'm taking it day by day, enjoying it while I'm there,” Spencer said. “[I’m] grateful for the opportunity that I have. I’ll enjoy it and have fun while I can.”
    Jeff Howe
    What On Texas Football has been steadfast in reporting came to fruition on Sunday. Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte officially moved on from Rodney Terry and hired Xavier’s Sean Miller to replace him as the school’s 27th men’s basketball coach.
    The Longhorns are turning the page to a new era inside Moody Center, and I’ve got three thoughts on the 56-year-old Miller taking over on the Forty Acres.
    1. We’ve discussed this on our YouTube channel and the OTF Forum, but I love Miller’s potential to get more juice out of international recruiting than Texas has before.
    Scott Drew made me believe in international recruiting during his early years at Baylor. Due to scholarship restrictions and the stigma attached to the program, Drew and his staff went far and wide to fill out the roster; guard Aaron Bruce (Australia) and center Mamadou Diene (Senegal) were a part of Drew’s first recruiting class, helping the Bears go from the Big 12 basement to the NCAA Tournament in four years.
    Kenny Cherry (Canada), Brady Heslip (Canada), Manu Lecomte (Belgium), Jo Lual-Acuil (Sudan), Yves Missi (Belgium), Jeremy Sochan (England), Flo Thamba (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua (Cameroon) are among the international players who’ve made their way to Waco in Drew’s tenure. International recruiting has been a critical part of talent acquisition for a program four years removed from winning a national championship; it should be good enough for one striving to get back to the Final Four for the first time since 2003.
    Deandre Ayton (Bahamas), Josh Green (Australia), Christian Koloko (Cameroon) and Lauri Markkanen (Finland) are among the international NBA draft picks Miller recruited during his 12 seasons at Arizona. Texas needs all the firepower it can muster to compete in the SEC and Miller shouldn’t leave any stones unturned in his quest to build a competitive roster, especially in areas where he’s found success.
    2. When it comes to competing in the SEC, offense is the name of the game.
    Led by Alabama, which leads Division I with 91.1 points per game, the SEC boasts five of the top 11 scoring teams in the country. The word I’ve received in recent years from folks tied into the NBA scouting community is that the league holds the SEC in high regard as the conference best preparing players for the next level because the SEC has dynamic offensive coaches and big-time scorers; Tre Johnson will join Dalton Knecht (2024), Brandon Miller (2023) and Cameron Thomas (2021) as recent SEC scoring leaders to be selected in the first round of the draft.
    Miller is regarded as a top offensive coach, and there are plenty of numbers to back up the claim.
    Miller’s 2022-23 squad at Xavier, which lost to Texas in the Sweet 16, finished 10th nationally in points per game (80.9). The Musketeers also ranked eighth in adjusted offensive efficiency and No. 33 in adjusted tempo, according to KenPom.com.
    When Miller’s Arizona teams participated in March Madness, the offense was the catalyst. The Wildcats finished 12th, 13th, 20th, seventh, 20th, 15th, and 15th in adjusted offensive efficiency during their seven NCAA Tournament trips under Miller.
    Miller coached two of the 28 teams in Arizona history to average 80 or more points per game (80.5 in 2017-18 and 80.4 in 2015-16). The Wildcats ranked in the top 60 nationally in points per game during seven of Miller’s 12 seasons in Tucson, three of which saw Arizona finish as a top-25 team in scoring.
    3. Strong guard play has been a hallmark of Miller’s teams, which bodes well for Texas if he can put together top-notch backcourts.
    Since T.J. Ford led the Longhorns to the Final Four 22 years ago, three Texas teams have advanced to the Elite Eight. Whether it was Daniel Gibson (2005-06), D.J. Augustin (2007-08) or the three-headed monster of Marcus Carr, Tyrese Hunter and Sir’Jabari Rice (2022-23), the best Longhorn squads since the high point of the Rick Barnes era have featured elite guards.
    The 2010-11 team won 28 games with a future first-round pick and NBA champion (Cory Joseph) leading a deep backcourt. Isaiah Taylor (2013-14) led Texas to the program’s last NCAA Tournament win under Barnes before bowing out to Michigan in the round of 32.
    With the transfer portal opening Monday, Miller’s first order of business is to figure out what he's got with Jordan Pope and Chendall Weaver while looking for reinforcements to account for the impending departures of Johnson and Tramon Mark.
    Jeff Howe
    The Texas women’s basketball team earned a No. 1 seed for the second consecutive NCAA Tournament. The field of 68 was unveiled on Sunday, with the Longhorns’ road to the Final Four in Tampa going through Birmingham as the top seed in Regional 3 (No. 2 TCU, No. 3 Notre Dame and No. 4 Ohio State round out the top seeds in the region).
    Texas (31-3, 15-1 SEC) will begin March Madness on Saturday with a first-round game against the winner of a First Four game between High Point and William & Mary. The Longhorns will then face Illinois, the No. 8 seed in the region, or ninth-seeded Creighton, who round out the four teams heading to the Forty Acres for the opening weekend at Moody Center.
    In the program’s sixth NCAA Tournament under coach Vic Schaefer, Texas is one of the favorites to be the last team standing inside Amalie Arena when a national champion is crowned on Sunday, April 6. The Longhorns are joined on the No. 1 line by No. 1 overall seed UCLA (30-2, 16-2 Big Ten), South Carolina (30-3, 15-1 SEC) and USC (28-3, 16-1 Big Ten).
    Texas split its two regular-season meetings with the reigning national champion Gamecocks, ending their first season in the SEC with a share of the conference championship. The Longhorns lost a coin flip with South Carolina to be the top seed in the SEC Tournament, which coach Dawn Staley’s team won with a 64-45 victory over the Longhorns in the conference title game last Sunday at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, S.C.
    The 2024-25 SEC Coach of the Year, Schaefer has guided Texas to the Elite Eight in three of his first four seasons. After coaching Mississippi State to consecutive national runner-up finishes in the NCAA Tournament in 2017 and 2018 over his eight seasons running the show in Starkville, Schaefer is attempting to lead the Longhorns to their first Final Four since 2003 for an opportunity to win the school’s first national championship since 1986.
    Texas is led on the floor by sophomore forward Madison Booker. The SEC Player of the Year, Booker leads the Longhorns in scoring (16.2 points per game) and ranks second on the team in rebounds (6.6 per game), assists (2.8 per game) and steals (1.6 per game).
    A Naismith Trophy (national player of the year) semifinalist and a finalist for the Cheryl Miller Award (best small forward in Division I), Booker heads into March Madness shooting 45.6 percent from the field, a team-best 43.9 percent from 3-point range and 82.9 percent from the free-throw line.
    Booker and senior guard Rori Harmon, an SEC All-Defensive Team selection and a Naismith Defensive Player of the Year semifinalist, help make Texas one of the top defensive teams in the tournament. The Longhorns allow the fewest points per game in the SEC (55.9 per game) and rank among the nation’s leaders in turnover margin (ninth with plus-7.62 per game), rebounding margin (ninth with plus-9.1 per game) blocked shots per game (14th with 5.2 per game) and turnovers forced per game (18th with 21 per game).
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