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    Jeff Howe
    Nobody needs a reason to celebrate the life and football career of Tommy Nobis.
    Nevertheless, the countdown to the 2025 football season reached 60 days on Tuesday, making it the perfect time to reflect on Nobis’ gridiron legacy.
    It’s hard to argue against Nobis being the best defensive player to come through the Texas program. The only sophomore starter for Darrell Royal’s 1963 national champions, Nobis remains the standard for what a Longhorn defender should be, even though his last snap on the Forty Acres was almost 65 years ago.
    One of the most decorated defensive players in college football history, Nobis won the Maxwell Award in 1965, meeting the criteria for the University of Texas to retire his No. 60 (a Longhorn must be named a consensus All-American and win a recognized national player of the year award to get their number retired). Before the Texas defensive charge that led to LenDale White coming up short on fourth-and-2 late in the fourth quarter of the 2006 Rose Bowl, Nobis thwarting Joe Namath’s attempt to convert a fourth down in the 1965 Orange Bowl (a 21-17 win for the Longhorns over the Crimson Tide in college football’s first-ever live prime-time telecast) was arguably the top defensive play in school history (the top competitor might be the fumble Pat Culpepper and Johnny Treadwell combined to force on the goal line in a 7-3 win over Arkansas, helping Texas secure the 1962 Southwest Conference title).
    ***
    Tributes for Nobis poured in when he died in 2017.
    Mike Perrin, who oversaw the Texas athletic department between the end of Steve Patterson’s forgettable tenure and the powers that be hiring Chris Del Conte, was a freshman during Nobis’ final season on the Forty Acres.
    “Tommy Nobis was an icon not just at The University of Texas,” Perrin said, “but in all of college football.”
    Bill Little, who was the sports editor of The Daily Texan as a UT student when Nobis played for the Longhorns and, later, the football program’s sports information director, said of Nobis, “There are few players that strike fear in opponents the way Nobis did in his time.”
    There’s no shortage of scribes, observers, coaches or players willing to back up Little’s opinion. Hall of Fame running back Larry Csonka is one of them, going on the record that he’d "rather play against Dick Butkus than Nobis."
    ***
    Inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1981, the one tribute Nobis should’ve received while he was alive was enshrinement alongside Butkus, Csonka and other gridiron legends in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
    Rich McKay, the CEO of the Atlanta Falcons, wrote an open letter regarding Nobis’ Hall of Fame candidacy in 2020.
    “It is time to rightfully acknowledge, appreciate, and celebrate one of the greatest to ever play the game: the late Tommy Nobis,” McKay wrote. We can — we should — do that by immortalizing Nobis with a bronze bust at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.”
    It’s long been acknowledged that Nobis, who was the Falcons’ first-ever draft pick (No. 1 overall in the 1965 NFL Draft) and wore his “Mr. Falcon” moniker like a badge of honor, played on some dreadful squads. In 11 seasons with the Falcons, Nobis never played in a playoff game, enjoying just two winning seasons in his NFL career.
    Nobis is one of only four defensive players on the NFL’s 1960s All-Decade Team not currently in the Hall of Fame. Nobis, the 1966 NFL Rookie of the Year, was a two-time All-Pro who was named to the Pro Bowl five times.
    Longtime Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Furman Bisher once wrote the following regarding Nobis' exclusion from the Hall of Fame: “There isn't much more one can say about Tommy Nobis. In the glow of a winning team, where he would have been a star on the isolated camera, he would already have been residing in Canton. It's not a Falcons thing, it's a Nobis thing, and here is a man who lives up to all the ideals I would establish for admission to the Pro Football Hall of Fame."
    ***
    The finest two-way player I have ever seen," is a quote often attributed to Royal regarding Nobis' ability on the field. Royal maximized Nobis’ unique skill set by playing him at guard on offense.
    So, when Kelvin Banks became the first Longhorn offensive lineman to win the Outland Trophy last season, that’s not entirely true. Nobis, lining up as a ferocious lead blocker for Royal’s Wing-T offense, won the Outland Trophy two years after Scott Appleton became the first of the program’s five Outland Trophy winners in 1963 (Appleton, Nobis, Banks, Brad Shearer in 1977 and T’Vondre Sweat in 2023 put Texas behind only Nebraska’s nine and Alabama’s six Outland Trophy winners for the most produced by one school).
    ***
    I’m happy that during his Tuesday appearance on “Coffee & Football,” Ramonce Taylor mentioned how Mack Brown’s staff initially recruited him to Texas to be a part of Duane Akina’s secondary.
    I remember going to watch Taylor’s last high school game (Belton’s bi-district playoff loss to Leander at Killeen’s Leo Buckley Stadium in 2003), believing I was watching a prospect who had a chance to become the next great Longhorn defensive back.
    Then, I watched Taylor cut through the defense like a hot knife through butter.
    I left the stadium knowing Texas had to find a way to let Taylor touch the football. Thankfuly, that’s something Taylor said was in the works before his epic senior year started; Taylor rushed for 2,370 yards and 29 touchdowns as an all-state running back, he was an all-district basketball player while sharing the court with current Stephen F. Austin men’s basketball coach Matt Braeuer and won his second consecutive state championship in the long jump.
    ***
    Whether it was Taylor, Curtis Brown, Earl Thomas, Quandre Diggs or Ja’Tavion Sanders, the true two-way players who’ve come through the Texas program over the last two decades have, for the most part, ended up on the side of the ball where they were meant to play. Jermaine Bishop Jr. is the one 2026 recruit, currently committed to the Longhorns, who should be the source of a healthy internal debate regarding whether he’ll help Steve Sarkisian’s offense or Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense.
    Bishop caught 83 passes for 1,565 yards and 18 touchdowns as a junior, ending the season with 2,009 all-purpose yards. Even though Bishop posed for photos with the Jim Thorpe Award during his June official visit and has a bright future as a defensive back, I agree with Gerry Hamilton’s take on this week’s episode of the “Recruiting Breakdown" regarding Bishop's future.
    Sarkisian could see enough of Xavier Worthy in Bishop’s game to at least experiment with ways to get the ball into the hands of such an electric, game-changing talent.
    Jeff Howe
    Twelve different coaches have led the Texas football program since the launch of the weekly Associated Press poll in 1936.
    Of the 10 who lasted at least four seasons, none have more wins through their first four than Steve Sarkisian. With a 38-17 record, Sarkisian’s win total matches that of Mack Brown (1998-2001), who had a 38-13 mark heading into the 2002 season.
    Sarkisian is part of a group of Longhorn coaches in the AP Poll era — with Blair Cherry, Ed Price, Darrell Royal, Fred Akers, David McWilliams and John Mackovic — who won an outright conference championship within their first four seasons. Sarkisian and Cherry are the only coaches from that group to coach Texas to multiple AP top-five finishes by the end of their fourth season, with Sarkisian’s 2023 (No. 3) and 2024 (No. 4) final rankings counting toward the program’s 22 all-time top-five finishes.
    Although Sarkisian has accomplished a lot while improving the program’s win total from five (2021) to eight (2022) to 12 (2023) to 13 (2024), history suggests the best is yet to come.
    For the most accomplished coaches in school history (Royal, Akers and Brown), their fifth season is when business started to pick up.
    Brown achieved the first back-to-back 11-win seasons in school history, going 11-2 in 2002, a season the Longhorns punctuated by thumping LSU in the Cotton Bowl, 35-20 (the Tigers returned most of the 2002 roster for the 2003 season, which ended with Nick Saban’s first national championship). The program enjoyed nine consecutive seasons of 10 or wins under Brown, whose 2005 national championship-winning season came in his eighth as Texas coach; Brown coached Texas through a memorable six-season stretch (2004-09) in which it went 69-9 with two Big 12 titles, a Rose Bowl win over Michigan at the end of the 2004 season, a Fiesta Bowl victory over Ohio State to cap a 12-1 season in 2008 and a trip to the BCS title game during the 2009 season.
    A forgettable 42-11 loss to Arkansas, after vaulting No. 1 in the AP Poll, and a 14-14 tie against Houston kept Akers’ 1981 club from claiming a share of the national title, but a 14-12 win over Bear Bryant’s third-ranked Crimson Tide in the Cotton Bowl lifted Texas to a No. 2 final ranking. It was the program’s best finish since splitting the 1970 national title with Nebraska (a Cotton Bowl loss to Notre Dame dropped the Longhorns to No. 3 in the final poll, although the UPI declared the Longhorns No. 1 at the end of a 10-0 regular season).
    Over his fifth, sixth and seventh seasons running the program (1981-83), Akers coached Texas to a 30-5-1 record and an outright Southwest Conference title in the 1983 season, which ended with a brutal 10-9 loss in the Cotton Bowl to Georgia.
    When it comes to near misses at a national championship, Sarkisian has a lot in common with Akers.
    Seven years apart, Akers led the Longhorns into a Cotton Bowl played on Jan. 2 with the national championship hanging in the balance, only for his team’s title hopes to be dashed, with titles Texas could’ve claimed going, instead, to Notre Dame (1977) and Miami (1983). Sarkisian has led the Longhorns to the brink of the College Football Playoff National Championship in each of the last two seasons, a pair of opportunities all for naught, with Texas getting painfully close to college football’s top prize before succumbing to Washington and Ohio State, respectively.
    If the Longhorns went to battle with a healthy Jonathon Brooks in the Sugar Bowl two years ago, or if CJ Baxter’s knee injury didn't end his sophomore season before it started, Sarkisian might’ve already gotten Texas over the hump. The mission to win the school’s fifth national championship begins in 61 days, an appropriate number considering the link between Sarkisian, Royal and a running back injury muddying a title-winning picture.
    The 1961 season, Royal’s fifth at the helm, saw the Longhorns race out to an 8-0 start, climbing to No. 1 in the AP Poll for the first time since 1946. With Jimmy Saxton leading the offense, Texas won its first eight games by an average margin of 26.6 points; a 28-7 Red River rout of Oklahoma was the closest anybody came to nipping Royal’s bunch.
    Long before Marcell Dareus simultaneously launched Alabama’s dynasty under Saban and brought an abrupt end to a golden era of Texas football under Brown with an ill-timed blow to Colt McCoy’s shoulder, Saxton was on the receiving end of arguably the most controversial hit in school history. Whether Bobby Plummer’s knee intentionally connected with Saxton’s head at the end of a 45-yard gain is irrelevant; the shot forced Saxton to miss enough of the game to render the offense helpless in a 6-0 loss to the Horned Frogs, a defeat Royal reportedly said was the toughest he endured during his coaching career.
    The first consensus All-American running back in school history, Saxton was the third-place finisher for the Heisman Trophy and held the school’s single-season record for yards per carry (7.9), which stood for 59 years until Bijan Robinson’s 8.2 yards per rushing attempt in 2020 established a new program standard. A 25-0 win over Texas A&M and a 12-7 victory over Ole Miss in the Cotton Bowl helped the 10-1 Longhorns end the season with a No. 3 ranking from the AP, but Royal wouldn’t claim his first of three national championships until two years later.
    Texas was arguably the best team in college football for four seasons in the middle of Royal’s 20-season tenure (1961-64), compiling a 40-3-1 record with three SWC titles, a national championship and four consecutive finishes in the top five of the AP Poll. If not for Saxton's injury and a one-point loss to Arkansas in 1964, Royal might've ended the 1960s with four outright national titles to his name.
    Until the Wishbone revived Royal’s career and led the Longhorns to 30 consecutive victories, the program’s run of success beginning with Royal’s fifth season could count as arguably the most prosperous Austin has ever experienced.
    Texas is 61 days from kicking off Sarkisian’s fifth season, which has a chance to be another campaign in what’s shaping up to be the next historic run of Longhorn football.
    Jeff Howe
    Since Bob McKay wrapped up a Texas career (1968-69) worthy of induction into the College Football Hall of Fame three decades before Lyle Sendlein began his time with the Longhorns (2002-06), the 2005 national championship team’s starting center had an uphill climb to become the top player in program history to wear No. 62.
    Still, Sendlein started each of the 26 games on the schedule over his last two seasons on campus before starting 133 combined regular-season and playoff games over nine NFL seasons with the Arizona Cardinals. One of those starts Sendlein made came in Super Bowl XLIII, which pitted him against Texas and Pittsburgh Steelers legend Casey Hampton (the Steelers, with former Longhorns Tony Hills and Limas Sweed also on the roster, won, 27-23).
    Sendlein’s second career start in burnt orange saw him jump from the frying pan into the fire, in the second game of the 2005 season, playing one of the biggest roles on a star-studded offense when No. 2 Texas went into Ohio Stadium, at night. It upended No. 4 Ohio State, 25-22, kickstarting, in earnest, a run to the program's most recent national title.
    Sendlein’s redshirt junior season saw him replace departed starting center Jason Glynn, who was with the Longhorns for five seasons (2000-04) and started each of the last 38 games of his career. The Longhorn offensive line (left tackle Jonathan Scott, left guard Kasey Studdard, right guard Will Allen and right tackle Justin Blalock) had experience to share, combining for 89 career starts between the four returning starters from a squad that went 11-1 with a thrilling Rose Bowl win over Michigan in 2004.
    The 2005 Texas offensive line started the season as a group oozing potential and fulfilled it, ending an unforgettable 13-0 campaign as arguably the best unit in school history. Sendlein helped elevate the line, which paved the way for an offense quarterbacked by Vince Young to record the best single-season marks in school history for points (50.2) and total yards per game (512.1).
    When it comes to the similarities between the Longhorn offensive lines in 2005 and 2025, a new starting center is roughly where they end.
    Cole Hutson started 13 games as a true freshman right guard in 2022, so he’s not new to the starting lineup. Hutson also logged 389 snaps in a reserve role last season, including a season-high 52 in the team's College Football Playoff first-round win over Clemson and 35 in the loss to Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl.
    The return bout with the Buckeyes, on Aug. 30 in Columbus, will mark Hutson’s starting debut at center. He’s taking the baton from Jake Majors, who signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an undrafted free agent after starting a school-record 57 games in his career (2020-24).
    Unlike Sendlein’s situation, there isn’t a lot of starting experience around Hutson. Major is one of four departed starters, accounting for more than 35 percent of the 161 combined starts Texas lost from last season.
    DJ Campbell (30 career starts at right guard) and projected starting left tackle Trevor Goosby (two starts as a redshirt freshman last season) have 45 combined career starts between them. Those three account for all of the starting experience among Kyle Flood’s group.
    What the group lacks in starting experience, it makes up for in raw, high-upside talent. If Neto Umeozulu and Brandon Baker continue to trend in the right direction from where they ended spring practice, the group charged with protecting Arch Manning and creating running lanes for a deep backfield has a tremendous opportunity to grow together en route to a possible third consecutive berth in the CFP.
    While the 2005 offensive line merely added a new starting center to a mix of talented blockers coming together at the right time, the remaining members of a highly-touted 2022 signing class (Hutson, Campbell, Umeozulu and Connor Robertson are on the 2025 roster, Kelvin Banks and Cam Williams are in the NFL and Malik Agbo will suit up for West Virginia after entering the transfer portal during the spring window) and their 2025 linemates will get a good idea of where they stand and what's possible in Steve Sarkisian's fifth season leading the program after traveling to the Horseshoe in 62 days.
    Jeff Howe
    Whether one agrees with Pete Prisco’s NFL Top 100 players of 2025, published by CBS Sports on Wednesday, or not, doesn’t matter.
    Prisco did include one Texas product on the list: Bijan Robinson at No. 39. Prisco ranked Robinson, the 2022 unanimous All-American and the Doak Walker Award winner for the Longhorns, behind only Saquon Barkley (No. 3) of the Philadelphia Eagles, Derrick Henry (No. 14) of the Baltimore Ravens and Jahmyr Gibbs (No. 32) of the Detroit Lions among the league’s top running backs.
    Still, there’s a lot more to glean from the list than giving a tip of the cap to Robinson, the No. 8 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft by the Atlanta Falcons.
    Specifically, Prisco’s rankings reinforce the importance of the position groups Texas and Steve Sarkisian are prioritizing in high school recruiting.
    Based on Prisco’s list, 11 of the NFL's top 100 players in 2025 are quarterbacks.
    Sarkisian was on the Alabama staff in 2016, when Jalen Hurts (No. 52) led the Crimson Tide to the College Football Playoff title game (Sarkisian was Alabama’s play-caller on offense for a 35-31 loss to Clemson). Hurts is one of five quarterbacks on the list who suited up for a college program currently in the SEC, but Hurts and Dak Prescott (No. 90) are the only two who joined the conference as high school recruits, with Joe Burrow (No. 7) and Jayden Daniels (No. 33) transferring to LSU (Oklahoma was in the Big 12 when Baker Mayfield, No. 57 on the list, quarterbacked the Sooners).
    Other than Quinn Ewers, Sarkisian has identified his potential starting quarterbacks on the Forty Acres through the high school ranks. Arch Manning is first up in what, hopefully, becomes a line of homegrown Longhorn signal-callers to pass through the Texas program on their way to the NFL.
    Seven of the 11 quarterbacks on Prisco’s list were drafted from the same college program they signed with as high school recruits: Prescott from Mississippi State, Patrick Mahomes (No. 1) from Texas Tech, Josh Allen (No. 4) from Wyoming, Lamar Jackson (No. 6) from Louisville, Justin Herbert (No. 49) from Oregon, Jared Goff (No. 77) from Cal and Jordan Love (No. 92) from Utah State. That bodes well for the odds of the vision Sarkisian and AJ Milwee have — to evaluate, acquire and develop high school quarterbacks en route to producing top-tier NFL quarterbacks, without relying on mercenaries from the transfer portal — coming to fruition.
    Outside of the quarterback position, Sarkisian and the Longhorns have a premium on recruits who can adequately protect Manning and the other Texas quarterbacks, along with those who are most capable of disrupting the opponent’s quarterback.
    Prisco’s Top 100 includes 36 line-of-scrimmage players: seven interior defensive linemen, eight interior offensive linemen (including three centers), 10 offensive tackles and 11 edge rushers. One-third of those players (12) came from a current SEC program, further proving why the conference is college football’s ultimate line-of-scrimmage league.
    Excluding Robinson and Oklahoma’s six players on the list, the 30 players from the SEC considered by Prisco to be among the best of the best in the NFL reflect which schools have been atop the conference over the last decade.
    Alabama (10 players on the list), LSU (eight) and Georgia (four) have combined for six national championships in the CFP era (since 2014). Regarding the SEC championship, the last 11 conference titles have been split between the Crimson Tide (seven), Bulldogs (three) and Tigers (one).
    With Sarkisian’s tenure producing 28 picks over the last three drafts after only 24 Longhorns were selected in the 10 previous drafts combined (2013-22), Texas should be better represented on lists like this one in the future. While developing players who go on to be elite in the NFL isn’t the be-all and end-all for a championship-caliber football program, it would be a byproduct of the Longhorns continuing to trend in the right direction regarding player development.
    With Sarkisian’s tenure producing 28 draft picks over the last three drafts after only 24 Longhorns were selected in the 10 previous drafts combined (2013-22), Texas should be better represented on lists like this one in the future. While developing players who go on to be elite in the NFL isn’t the be-all and end-all for a championship-caliber football program, it would be a byproduct of the Longhorns continuing to trend in the right direction regarding player development.
    Jeff Howe
    Steve Sarkisian’s Texas organization is prioritizing three areas when recruiting high school prospects and devoting resources for talent acquisition: quarterbacks, top-notch linemen who can protect the quarterback and blue-chip defenders who can disrupt opposing quarterbacks.
    The approach was driven home on a weekend when Dia Bell (Plantation, Fla./American Heritage) was named MVP of the 2025 Elite 11 competition.
    The Longhorns added another body to what could evolve into a historic defensive line haul, reeling in Vodney Cleveland (Birmingham, Ala./Parker) while maintaining the lead in the race for Kendall Guervil (Fort Myers, Fla.).
    Richard Wesley’s (Chatsworth, Calif./Sierra Canyon) surprise commitment was arguably a bigger recruiting boon than if Texas had landed Dre Quinn (Atlanta, Ga./Buford) last Thursday. The Longhorns are one of three teams left standing for Trenton Henderson (Pensacola, Fla./Catholic) and remain in the running for Temple’s Jamarion Carlton.
    Texas also got the last in-person word with North Crowley offensive tackle John Turntine III ahead of his July 4 decision. Melissa’s Max Wright and Klein’s Nicholas Robertson were on campus with Turntine, who, along with Mansfield Lake Ridge’s Felix Ojo and Malakai Lee (Honolulu, Hawaii/Kamehameha), is one of three elite offensive tackles Kyle Flood is aggressively pursuing.
    It’s fun to listen to Sarkisian, Flood and other coaches on the staff tout the program’s desire to recruit “big humans.” The trope, however, is a way of life.
    Sarkisian, general manager Brandon Harris, director of player personnel JM Jones and the rest of the organization’s approach to roster building in college football has the staying power needed to keep Texas in the national championship hunt for the foreseeable future. While the Longhorns won’t win every battle for coveted players who line up closest to the football, they’re winning enough of them to keep accelerating the program’s growth from Sarkisian’s forgettable 5-7 debut to producing an FBS-leading 23 NFL draft picks from clubs that won a combined 25 games and reached the College Football Playoff semifinals over the last two seasons.
    Of those 23 draft choices, 10 of them manned one of the Sarkisian regime’s foundational positions: one quarterback (Quinn Ewers); one EDGE (Barryn Sorrell); four offensive linemen (Kelvin Banks Jr., Hayden Conner, Christian Jones and Cameron Williams); and four interior defensive linemen (Vernon Broughton, Alfred Collins, Byron Murphy II and T’Vondre Sweat).
    Bell is next in line behind Trey Owens and KJ Lacey to succeed Arch Manning. The offensive line has avoided heavy attrition under Flood and has benefited from evaluation wins with undervalued recruits, particularly what can be gleaned from Trevor Goosby's snaps last season and the early returns on guys like Nick Brooks and Nate Kibble.
    Now, it's time for Kenny Baker and LaAllen Clark to set up their respective rooms for bright futures. Texas is rightfully taking advantage of a 2026 cycle chock-full of difference-making defensive linemen, building the kind of roster that won't need five tackles from the portal to avoid massive gaps in the talent pipeline.
    Missing out on Carthage's KJ Edwards was a significant loss, especially considering how much Sarkisian values well-rounded running backs in his offense. The battles for Jalen Lott and Kaydon Finley could end with Texas losing to out-of-state competition (Oregon or USC for Lott and Notre Dame for Finley), which wouldn't be ideal scenarios for recruits with strong family ties to the Forty Acres.
    Still, since NIL resources aren’t limitless, the Longhorns would rather do what it takes to win line-of-scrimmage recruitments and, if necessary, snag as-needed skill talent from the transfer portal. It's more feasible to go into the portal and come out with Matthew Golden or Adonai Mitchell as opposed to using the significant capital it would take to secure a player capable of immediately impacting the trenches, assuming those types of players are available.
    There’s no wrong way to build a winning program. Nevertheless, it’s hard to argue against Sarkisian’s plan to keep Texas in the top tier of annual contenders to win the SEC and the CFP.
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