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    Jeff Howe
    Before the Texas Longhorns return to the practice field for the third week of spring ball on Tuesday, I want to look at five players who appear poised to further establish their roles on the 2026 squad.
    — The injuries and on-the-mend status of multiple safeties have opened the door for Derek Williams Jr. to lock down the starting spot next to Jelani McDonald. Factor in the combination of Williams being almost 16 months removed from the knee injury that ended his 2024 season, with the return of Blake Gideon to the Forty Acres, and the redshirt junior has a chance to get back on the upward trajectory his career was on before the injury.
    Williams, who started over Andrew Mukuba early in the 2024 season before a hamstring issue cost him three games, made impact plays as a true sophomore. Along with Malik Muhammad, Williams was playing a significant role in the secondary by the end of his freshman season in 2023.
    Williams' return to his pre-injury form would significantly cushion the blow of Michael Taaffe’s departure. At the very least, Williams has an opportunity to enter the summer a significant step ahead of everyone other than McDonald in the safety room if he takes advantage of his opportunity.
    — I’ve been thinking about Ryan Niblett’s potential to be for the 2026 backfield what Keilan Robinson was in 2023.
    But what if I’ve been thinking about the wrong back for a specialty role?
    Now is the time when Michael Terry III can do enough unique things to stand out in a crowded backfield.
    Terry continues to make strides and, even if he’s behind Raleek Brown, Derrek Cooper and Hollywood Smothers in the pecking order, he can carve out a significant role on offense.
    Along with his potential as a runner and a receiver, Terry’s progress could force Steve Sarkisian’s hand to bring the Wildcat back in the mix on offense. Such a package would give Terry a unique role he can sink his teeth into while minimizing the risk of making Arch Manning a true additional hat in the running game.
    Wildcat or not, forcing Sarkisian to create something for him is something Terry can do if his development is expedited.
    — Even though Laurence Seymore was recruited out of the transfer portal to be a plug-and-play guard, the Texas offense will be better if Seymore has to battle for a starting role.
    Dylan Sikorski has a chance to come out of the spring with Sarkisian and Kyle Flood believing in him as a starting-caliber player.
    One of the more intriguing practice tidbits from the weekend was Sikorski and Jackson Christian getting first-team snaps at guard. The Longhorns won a recruiting battle with Tennessee to get Sikorski when he decided to transfer from Oregon State, so it’s not crazy to think he could emerge as legitimate competition for Seymore.
    That’s assuming his elevation up the depth chart wasn’t a one-off situation. After last season, Texas can't enough quality depth in the trenches.
    — Nothing feels set in stone from a depth standpoint at cornerback, other than Graceson Littleton, Bo Mascoe and Kade Phillips separating themselves as the top group. If Samari Matthews is indeed the second-most talented cornerback on the roster, which is what a source told On Texas Football over the weekend, he should have a chance to compete with Kobe Black and Warren Roberson for snaps behind Mascoe and Phillips.
    One of the reasons why Sarkisian made a coordinator change and hired Muschamp is his long-stated desire to play tighter, more physical man coverage. Like Phillips, Matthews has the physical traits that should translate to being a good man-cover guy early in his career.
    Confidence goes a long way at cornerback. Matthews is reportedly bringing it with him to the practice field by the truckload.
    — I keep making the comparison between Sterling Berkhalter and Tarique Milton, who Sarkisian took out of the transfer portal for the 2022 season.
    Given Jordan Whittington’s injury history, Texas needed an insurance policy in case he went down in the middle of the season. Thankfully, the Longhorns didn’t need to cash the policy, but the early returns from Berkhalter’s addition suggest landing the Wake Forest transfer was a shrewd move by the staff.
    At a time when Emmett Mosley V is on the mend, Kaliq Lockett is on the shelf and Ryan Wingo is working his way back, Berkhalter can establish himself as someone Sarkisian can trust.
    Sarkisian has kept his receiver rotation tight throughout his tenure, with few targets available for anyone outside of the top group. If Berkhalter can maintain the consistency he’s shown through the first two weeks, he has a chance to be in the mix of the guys who are afforded playmaking opportunities in games.
    Jeff Howe
    With Adrian Rodriguez out of action while recovering from what Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball.com described Monday as “a minor hand procedure,” No. 2 Texas has a hole at shortstop and in the middle of the batting order.
    Jim Schlossnagle continued to go with Rodriguez (.271/.386/.383) in the clean-up spot despite the sophomore battling through a hand issue. Injured during the 2025 season, Rodriguez underwent surgery in the fall and while he was ready for the start of the 2026 season, the issue lingered and particularly bothered him in situations when he’d swing and miss in the box, which led to him often grimacing in pain and, at times, requiring attention from the team’s medical staff during at-bats.
    Rodriguez’s ability to hit from either side of the plate and the respect opponents continued to show him, even while he clearly wasn’t 100 percent, justified keeping him in the middle of the order. With Rodriguez out, Schlossnagle has the option of moving Casey Borba (.333/.438/.667) up to the No. 4 hole, where his team-leading 31 RBI and nine home runs (tied with Aiden Robbins for the team lead) would give the Longhorns a formidable option.
    The bigger issue for Texas (23-4, 7-2 SEC) is two-fold: What do the Longhorns do at shortstop and what corresponding moves would be made in the infield?
    The most likely option is to move Temo Becerra from third base to shortstop. Josh Livingston would be the most likely plug-and-play option to fill the void at the hot corner, but the staff could choose to lean on Borba's experience at third base.
    Borba has become a reliable defensive first baseman, perhaps too reliable to move him back across the diamond. Regardless, Borba and Livingston were in the mix at first base leading up to the season, with Livingston, Becerra and Callum Early competing for the starting nod at third base.
    Schlossnagle has said that Maddox Monsour has the tools to play shortstop. Would Texas roll the dice with a freshman?
    With Jonah Williams on the shelf recovering from shoulder surgery, resulting in Jayden Duplantier becoming a full-time corner outfielder, Monsour and Ashton Larson are the primary designated hitter options. Schlossnagle has also been high on Presley Courville, who made his return from injury in Friday's 4-3, 10-inning win over No. 8 Oklahoma.
    If Rodriguez is back within a month (Rogers reported that he’s expected to be out 2-3 weeks, meaning a return for the team’s road series against Vanderbilt in late April could mark Rodriguez’s return if he were to miss the next three weekends), the Longhorns have enough options at the plate and in the field to make do. Even though Rodriguez’s hand issue hampered him at the plate, he continued to play top-notch defense, which is what Texas is likely to miss most in the interim.
    After sweeping the Sooners in a three-game series to keep pace with No. 4 Mississippi State and No. 5 Georgia atop the SEC standings, the Longhorns return to action at UFCU Disch-Falk Field against Texas State on Tuesday. Texas will then travel to South Carolina for a three-game series against the Gamecocks beginning Thursday.
    Jeff Howe
    AUSTIN, Texas — When a strong, steady gust of wind kept Carson Tinney’s 111 mph shotgun blast off the bat with the bases loaded in the seventh inning of Friday’s 10-inning, 4-3 win over No. 8 Oklahoma from leaving UFCU Disch-Falk Field, Jim Schlossnagle accepted No. 2 Texas’ possible fate.
    “I was like, 'Dang it, man!'” Schlossnagle said after the Longhorns’ comeback triumph over the Sooners, while recalling his thoughts while watching a likely grand slam get knocked down short of the Yeti Yard’s mesh wall in left field. “This is an awesome ball game, but it might not be our night.”
    Texas (22-4, 6-2 SEC) only had one hit when the dust settled on the seventh inning — a two-out single up the middle of the diamond by Adrian Rodriguez in the first inning — after Oklahoma (19-7, 4-4) entered the frame with a 3-0 lead. While Luke Harrison’s workmanlike seven-inning performance on the mound (five hits, three earned runs and two walks allowed and one hit batter with six strikeouts) and timely defensive plays kept the Longhorns in the game, they were dealing with an offensive hangover after Thursday’s 14-run, 17-hit onslaught en route to a run-rule romp.
    “In the game of baseball, normally, you get 17 hits and you're probably going to get two the next day,” Schlossnagle said. “That's what it was looking like there throughout the course of the game, but our guys stayed with it.”
    Schlossnagle credited Harrison for minimizing the damage whenever the Sooners looked poised to put crooked numbers on the scoreboard with runners on base. Thankfully, the aforementioned defensive highlights — Tinney wiping out third baseman Camden Johnson’s attempt to steal third in the first, Temo Becerra nailing Johnson with a throw home after fielding a ground ball hit to him in the third and Andrew Ermis ending the top of the 10th by catching center fielder Jason Walk trying to steal second base, completing a strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play after Sam Cozart fanned left fielder Trey Gambill — got Texas out of a few nerve-racking jams.
    “He gave us length in the game,” Schlossnagle said of Harrison, who combined with Cozart (three strikeouts with just one baserunner allowed in three innings) to limit Oklahoma to a 1-for-10 night with two outs and with runners in scoring position while limiting the Sooners to a 2-for-12 effort with runners on base. On the heels of Ruger Riojas scattering six hits and striking out eight in a seven-inning complete game on Thursday, Harrison's extended outing and Cozart only throwing 30 pitches means Schlossnagle and Max Weiner have everyone in the bullpen available for Saturday's series finale (4 p.m., SEC Network).
    “For us to play 17 innings of baseball or so in two days and we've only used three pitchers, that's good for us."
    Tagged for 10 runs in two SEC starts, lefty starter Cameron Johnson struck out eight in a solid five-inning outing for the Sooners. The Longhorns only pushed two runs across the plate through eight innings, with 12 walks issued by Skip Johnson’s pitching staff accounting for the bulk of the offense Texas generated.
    “We had him on the ropes a few times,” Schlossnagle said of Johnson, who induced two inning-ending double plays on a night when he dialed up his fastball on 81 of his 95 pitches. “He made enough pitches and he throws enough strikes and then enough pitches that are close to the strikes and he throws so hard that he gets you to chase the ball out of the strike zone.”
    Although the Longhorns struck out 11 times, the walks helped the offense break through. A bases-loaded, pinch-hit walk drawn by Josh Livingston got Texas into the scoring column in the eighth.
    The Longhorns’ patience finally paid off in the ninth inning, with Ethan Mendoza’s leadoff base knock scooting all the way to the wall in center field for a triple, allowing Tinney to come through with a game-tying RBI single (a rocket back up the middle too hot or reliever Jackson Cleveland to handle).
    Six of the seven Texas hits on Friday came in the eighth, ninth and 10th innings, including Becerra’s leadoff single to right and Ashton Larson’s game-winning, opposite-field RBI single, which landed just inside the left-field line to clinch a series victory.
    Taking the series from the Sooners with wins that followed two different scripts has positioned the Longhorns atop the SEC standings, with a chance to stay there should they complete the series sweep on Saturday. Similar to going on the road and winning a three-game conference series with then-No. 5 Auburn after a humbling midweek home loss to Tarleton State, Texas put Tuesday’s late-inning collapse in a 9-7 road loss to Houston firmly in the rearview mirror before notching a series win over a formidable conference foe.
    “We've only lost four games, but, as you guys know, three of them have just been brutal, tough,” Schlossnagle said after the Longhorns' first win of the season when trailing after eight innings. “To have one that kind of goes our way in a close one like that is big time.”
    Jeff Howe
    Sean Miller’s Texas squad spent Sunday away from the court after advancing to the Sweet 16 with Saturday’s NCAA Tournament second-round win over Gonzaga.
    The downtime allowed Jordan Pope to get treatment for an ankle injury he sustained late in the 74-68 win over the Bulldogs, which allowed the Longhorns to reach the second weekend of March Madness for the first time since 2023 and the second time since 2008.
    “With Jordan, I think we’ll be fine,” Miller said Monday during a Zoom call with reporters. “We didn’t do anything yesterday, so we weren’t together, but he’s gotten treatment and moving forward.”
    A source told On Texas Football on Sunday how close it could get Pope “to 90-95 percent will come down to Sunday through Wednesday."
    Texas (21-14) doesn’t travel until Tuesday for its West Regional semifinal at San Jose’s SAP Center against No. 2 seed Purdue on Thursday (6:10 p.m. CT, CBS). The Longhorns will be on the court for practice Monday afternoon, giving Pope more time to rest before putting his ankle to the test against a veteran backcourt led by Braden Smith, who broke Bobby Hurley’s NCAA record for career assists (1,091 after Sunday’s 79-69 second-round win over Miami) in Purdue’s (29-8) first-round rout of Queens.
    “You go and break that record, I think that says everything about his ability to pass, play-make, make his teammates better,” Miller said of Smith. “He’s one of the best in the game and a big, big part of why Purdue is so great offensively.”
    The fifth all-time NCAA Tournament meeting between Texas and the Boilermakers will feature two of the most experienced backcourts in the country. Smith and Fletcher Loyer have played a combined 294 collegiate games (147 each), which actually falls short of the 305 combined games played by Pope (134) and Tramon Mark (171).
    Pope is averaging 11 points, 2.3 assists and 1.3 rebounds per game in the Longhorns’ three NCAA Tournament victories. Although his 7-for-22 mark from beyond the arc is behind the pace at which he’s converted 3-point shots throughout the season (36.9 percent through 35 games), Pope’s clutch 3-pointer with 1:29 left in a 79-71 first-round win over BYU is one of several big-time plays Texas has gotten from the Oakland, Calif., native during the team’s unlikely run to the Sweet 16.
    “I don't know if there's too many guards that are playing in the Tournament that are playing at a higher level than Jordan Pope,” Miller said after Pope scored 17 points on 7-for-18 shooting (3-for-8 from 3-point range) with three assists and no turnovers in the win over Gonzaga. “He means a lot to our team. What he's really mastered is that he controls the game and he's our point guard, but he adds such a strong scoring punch that he can change the game from the 3-point line.”
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