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  • Texas Longhorns News

    A place for any Longhorn Fan to get the latest news from the On Texas Football team.
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    Jeff Howe
    AUSTIN, Texas — It’s one thing for Texas to enter the transfer portal and land a plug-and-play offensive tackle like Melvin Siani.
    The arrival of the Wake Forest transfer, who flashed legitimate NFL potential as the Demon Deacons’ left tackle in 2025, strengthened the Longhorns' offensive line by allowing the staff to move Brandon Baker inside from right tackle to right guard.
    It’s quite another, however, for Siani to surpass internal expectations before playing a game in burnt orange.
    “Honestly, I'll be quite frank with everybody — I thought I was getting a pass protector when we recruited him,” Steve Sarkisian said after the Longhorns’ Monday morning camp practice. “I'm getting a tough-ass run blocker who is a good pass protector. That's encouraging for us because, clearly, we know how important the run game is going to be for us.”
    Sarkisian was right to believe in Siani’s ability to protect the quarterback. According to Pro Football Focus, the 6-foot-6-inch, 317-pound Siani allowed only nine pressures on 456 opportunities in 2025.
    Siani’s PFF grade of 67 as a run blocker (PFF considers a grade of 70 above average) wouldn’t indicate he dominated Wake Forest’s competition in the ACC (although the Demon Deacons were most successful running the ball over the left side of the line). Still, Siani’s grade on 372 run-blocking snaps would’ve been the fourth-best grade among Texas offensive linemen last season, trailing only Trevor Goosby (82.1), DJ Campbell (73.6) and Cole Hutson (71.6).
    Siani graded slightly higher as a zone blocker (68.4) than on gap runs (64.3). With Siani’s athletic ability and Baker's move to guard, the revamped right side of the Longhorn offensive line has the tools to help Sarkisian establish a ground attack with a zone-based foundation.
    Nevertheless, that might be the tip of the iceberg for the Texas running game considering Siani has barely scratched the surface of his potential.
    Siani played one season of high school football in Canada before attending Wyoming Seminary, a college preparatory school in Pennsylvania. After preserving a season of eligibility after playing in just four games as a true freshman at Temple in 2023, Siani opened the 2024 season as the starting right tackle for the Owls, making nine starts in 11 games and playing 600 snaps.
    Siani has shown enough growth to be on the radar as a prospect for the 2027 NFL Draft. Mike Renner of CBS Sports has Siani ranked as the No. 10 offensive tackle prospect for next spring’s draft with a late-third-round grade (Siani is listed on the Texas roster as a senior, but he has two seasons of eligibility remaining).
    Where Renner (and, presumably, NFL coaches, scouts and executives) wants to see Siani improve is where Sarkisian has seen notable growth in the seven months that Siani has been a member of the program.
    “Where I need to see Siani improve is in his play strength and balance,” Renner said. “Often, those problems go hand in hand, as the latter compensates for the former. He gets overaggressive trying to make first contact and ends up on the turf. He'll have two years to fix that problem against SEC competition if he wants to.”
    And Texas might be the perfect place for Siani to continue his upward trend.
    Along with Goosby’s return tempering expectations for Siani as a portal addition at one of the most important positions on the field and the aforementioned factors working in his favor (like playing next to Baker, who has a full season of SEC trench battles under his belt), Siani is in an offense that’s similar to the one he played in at Wake Forest under offensive coordinator Rob Ezell.
    Ezell was a graduate assistant at Alabama while Sarkisian was an analyst for Nick Saban in 2016 and was an analyst for the Crimson Tide when Sarkisian returned to Tuscaloosa as Saban’s offensive coordinator in 2019 and 2020 (Kyle Flood followed Sarkisian from the Atlanta Falcons to be Alabama’s offensive line coach and then to Austin). Siani's experience in Ezell's offense paid off when he started learning the Longhorns' offense in the spring.
    “Some of the plays literally have the same name because it’s all that Nick Saban tree,” Siani said in an interview with "3rd and Longhorn" earlier this month. “There’s a lot of similarities in the offense that just made that transition even easier and more seamless. I wasn’t complaining at all.”
    The only complaints coming from Siani's side of the line of scrimmage will likely be the opposing defenders reacting to being on the receiving end of the physical play of Texas' budding star.
    Jeff Howe
    Between what Steve Sarkisian said after the first scrimmage of Texas camp and what sources told On Texas Football about what went down on Saturday, there are three things on my mind with 20 days to go until the 2026 season opener.
    — I’ve been a part of post-scrimmage media sessions in which Sarkisian’s thoughts on the running game didn’t give off positive vibes.
    The opposite was true on Saturday. Sarkisian was encouraged by what he described as a “pretty good” day running the football.
    Specifically, the tone set by the first-team offensive line (left tackle Trevor Goosby, left guard Laurence Seymore, center Connor Robertson, right guard Brandon Baker and right tackle Melvin Siani) is the most positive offensive note from the scrimmage.
    “We've been harping on physicality and we've been harping on running the ball all offseason and I thought they did that today,” Sarkisian said. “I thought they played a physical brand of football.”
    It can be argued that the offense should’ve succeeded moving the football on a day when Raheem Biles, Brad Spence and Justus Terry were out and Colin Simmons was held out for large portions of the scrimmage. Nevertheless, with Kyle Flood’s top group still learning how to play together (keep in mind that Goosby missed most of the spring recovering from shoulder surgery, Baker was making the transition to guard, Siani was a spring newcomer and Seymore didn’t get to campus until June), coming out of the first scrimmage with confidence after winning its share of battles against Will Muschamp’s defense is a far cry from where the offensive line’s collective confidence stood through the first half of last season.
    With Derrek Cooper, who Sarkisian described as “a hard-charging guy” who’s been pushing the veteran running backs and “going for it and trying to earn his opportunities,” helping reestablish a physical edge in the backfield (something Jabbar Juluke deserves his share of credit for cultivating), the offensive line doesn’t need to be perfect for the offense to succeed. From that standpoint, the unit is a microcosm of the offense as a whole: the multitude of playmakers in the fold should make the Texas offense one of the most potent attacks in the country if every player focuses on doing their job with some level of consistency.
    — Arch Manning’s legs and his feel for when to bail out of the pocket and pick up whatever yardage he can also take pressure off the offensive line.
    It was Manning’s arm, however, that was under the microscope on Saturday.
    Two interceptions (one by Jonah Williams near the goal line and a pick-six by Graceson Littleton) seemed to overshadow the big plays on which he connected with Cam Coleman and Ryan Wingo.
    Sarkisian described Manning’s scrimmage as “a little up and down,” although he took the blame for the uneven collective showing when Manning, Coleman, Wingo and Emmett Mosley V were on the field together.
    “Blame Coach Sark for not being quite as fair to him,” said Sarkisian, who wanted Saturday to feel more like an NFL preseason opener for Manning and the proven commodities in the passing game. “(It was) one series and then sit for, you know, 30 minutes and then one series and then sit again.”
    The team’s second scrimmage next Saturday will be a different format, Sarkisian said. To use the comparison between college scrimmages and NFL preseason games, the second scrimmage is typically what NFL teams would do in their dress rehearsal (the third preseason game), with the starters seeing more action and the coaches structuring it more like a regular-season game.
    That should lead to a more even performance by Manning, who “had a great first week and a half of training camp,” Sarkisian said.
    Ahead of the scrimmage, I said there was nothing Manning could do short of putting up a complete clunker that I’d consider a red flag. To that end, I’m not concerned about Manning and neither is Sarkisian, who said Manning “can play cleaner than he played today and a little bit more efficient, a little bit more accurate."
    While the interceptions on their own shouldn’t be discarded or completely written off, Manning’s play in the second half of last season was impressive enough to make me believe that the early-season struggles he went through are behind him for good and won’t rear their ugly head in his second season leading the Longhorn offense.
    — Maraad Watson was the member of a deep Texas interior defensive line rotation I was most intrigued by before playing like one of the Longhorns’ top run-stoppers in the scrimmage. If the 333-pound Watson can truly play multiple shades as a reliable early-down defender, he could become the biggest asset in Kenny Baker’s room.
    Watson’s ability to play closer to the ball would allow him to spell Ian Geffrard and maintain the kind of presence Muschamp wants in the middle of his defense. A tandem of Geffrard and Watson would also let the development of Zion Williams and Josiah Sharma continue, rather than forcing them into high-leverage snaps if they're not ready for such roles.
    Watson can also play next to Geffrard if the Longhorns want more beef on the interior, forming an impenetrable wall in front of Biles, Justin Cryer and the playmaking potential Texas has at the second level.
    Geffrard, Alex January and Hero Kanu in the fold set a high floor for the kind of presence and production Muschamp and Baker can count on from the guys who serve as the tip of the spear defensively. Watson and Justus Terry, however, will determine where the ceiling is for a group that looks deeper and more versatile than it did last season.
    Blake Munroe
    We asked OTF subscribers to rank the best Texas Longhorns of the modern era (1992-present) and the results gave us some pretty fascinating takeaways.
    First and foremost, Vince Young absolutely ran away with the No. 1 spot. Vince received more than 82% of the first place vote, with only one ballot (out of hundreds) not including him in the top three spots.
    His lowest ranking from anyone who voted for him? No. 4.
    Ricky Williams was nearly as universal. Ricky appeared on 94.9% of ballots, and 88.1% of those voters had him inside the Top 3.
    In fact, Vince and Ricky were basically the consensus top two. On 76% ballots, they occupied the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in some order.
    Then things got really interesting.
    Colt McCoy did not receive a single first-place vote, yet still finished comfortably at No. 3. Derrick Johnson finished fourth.
    This created what looked like a pretty obvious Big Four among the fan base:
    Vince, Ricky, Colt, DJ
    After that, the debate really started.
    Cedric Benson edged Bijan Robinson for No. 5 despite Bijan appearing on more ballots. Bijan showed up on five more ballots than Cedric did, but the fans who voted for Cedric generally ranked him higher. Bijan was the only player, outside of Vince and Ricky, in the eventual top ten to receive a first-place vote.
    The tightest race came near the bottom of the Top 10, however:
    Michael Huff - 226 points
    Casey Hampton - 225 points
    Earl Thomas - 220 points
    Six total points separated three Texas legends.
    Hampton actually had stronger high-end support than Huff, with 19 Top-5 votes compared to Huff’s 11, but Huff appeared on more ballots and narrowly grabbed the No. 8 spot.
    When we compared the fan vote to the OTF staff composite, both groups independently produced the exact same Top 6 in the exact same order:
    Vince Young, Ricky Williams, Colt McCoy, Derrick Johnson, Cedric Benson, Bijan Robinson
    Ten staff voters and hundreds of fan voters somehow agreed on the top six perfectly.
    That’s pretty remarkable.
    Now let’s argue.... here is your Top 15, as selected by OTF Subscribers:

    Jeff Howe
    AUSTIN, Texas — Even though Texas couldn’t go through a fully padded camp practice until Tuesday, developing and maintaining a physical edge and playing with high levels of physical and mental toughness were arguably the primary themes of the Longhorns’ first five practices.
    Steve Sarkisian referenced physicality or toughness 13 times in the opening statement of his post-practice media availability on Monday. For a coach who likes to point out that you get what you emphasize, Sarkisian knows the kind of team Texas has to be to get where it wants to be in 2026.
    “There's a mindset to it that this team, maybe, better than some other teams, have really embraced that mindset,” Sarkisian said. “I think that's a credit to the coaches, as we touched on that first practice, that they've got these guys buying into the physicality of which we need to play the game. Our players aren't naive to the schedule that we have and the teams that we're going to play and that physicality is going to be required to have the type of team in the season that we want to have.”
    — If physicality hasn’t been the main theme of the first week of camp, it might be that Sarkisian and the Longhorns are getting back to basics.
    Whether it’s something as significant as starting the program’s Culture Wednesday meetings in the spring instead of the summer, or moving players into the dorms on campus for camp, Sarkisian is taking the steps he feels are necessary for Texas to consistently play the fast, physical, smart and tough brand of football he sought to bring to the Forty Acres when he was hired in 2021. While describing the process the Longhorns are going through to put that kind of product on the field, Sarkisian delivered one of his most profound statements of the offseason.
    “When I think about the style of play in which we want to play the game and that we have to recreate it every year,” Sarkisian said. “It just doesn't happen.”
    Although it hurt everyone in the program to miss out on a third consecutive trip to the College Football Playoff, in hindsight, it might’ve been the best thing to happen to Sarkisian and the program. Along with using the transfer portal window to turn the roster and put together a championship-caliber squad, the time between the team’s triumph over Texas A&M in the regular-season finale and its Citrus Bowl win over Michigan forced Sarkisian to take a long look at what changes had to be made to get Texas back on the path toward a championship.
    So far, Sarkisian’s changes to the coaching staff, the program’s offseason structure and what he, as the leader of the organization, had to fix to be better in 2026 have benefitted the organization.
    — Leadership doesn’t form during camp so much as it crystallizes. The best news in that regard is that Arch Manning continues to let his authentic voice and leadership style evolve, which is a big part of him taking the next step in the hierarchy of college football quarterbacks.
    “Arch loves football. He loves to practice. He loves to work. It's funny because Arch probably talks a little more shit than people give him credit for outside of our building, so in practice there's a good amount of banter that goes on,” Sarkisian said. “Now, Arch has more confidence.”
    It’s hard to be the kind of leader a quarterback needs to be when he isn’t confident. It’s also hard for said quarterback to be confident when he isn’t playing well.
    Manning has done a 180 in that regard, fighting through some forgettable performances in the first half of last season to end his 2025 campaign playing as well as any quarterback in the country.
    It’s fun to think about the jawing back and forth between Manning and Colin Simmons that Sarkisian described on Monday. What Sarkisian’s words said about where Manning’s confidence and comfort levels are ahead of the season, however, shouldn’t be lost while taking delight in the head coach dropping an unexpected expletive during a press conference.
    Bobby Burton
    Season and individual tickets to Texas football home games are now completely sold out. That’s amazing.
    Here’s the first part of the official university release:
    “Excitement surrounding the 2026 Texas Football season continues to build in anticipation of the Longhorns’ home opener on September 5. Season tickets and individual game tickets for all home games at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium are officially sold out through Texas Athletics.
    The sellout continues the incredible momentum surrounding the program under Head Coach Steve Sarkisian and marks the fifth consecutive season that Texas fans have sold out DKR well before the opening kickoff of the season. While tickets available to the general public are sold out, returning and incoming UT students can still purchase the Big Ticket with Football student ticket package, providing access to 100+ Texas Athletics regular season home events during the 2026-27 season. Student tickets for football home games must be claimed during each game’s mobile ticket claim process.”
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