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    Jeff Howe
    Two message board topics — one on P.J. Tucker’s recent retirement and a discussion about Longhorn football players who could fly — got me thinking about an unlikely long-tenured pro athlete from the Forty Acres who could scoot.
    The 2016 NFL Draft cycle wasn’t one to write home about for the Texas program. Hassan Ridgeway was the only Longhorn invited to the NFL Scouting Combine and the only lone draft pick Texas produced. Ridgeway was a fourth-round pick by the Indianapolis Colts, one of four teams Marcus Johnson played for during a six-season NFL career.
    A late addition to the 2012 recruiting class, Johnson, who was committed to Texas Tech and Texas A&M before flipping to the Longhorns shortly after Texas went to College Station and left Kyle Field with a 27-25 win over the Aggies in 2011, didn’t record a catch as a true freshman. Johnson’s time with the Longhorns was plagued by inconsistent quarterback play, which contributed to his 42-game career (18 starts) concluding with 61 receptions for 473 yards and four touchdowns.
    Still, Johnson had enough flashes in a Texas uniform (12 catches for 187 yards and two touchdowns while helping the Longhorns to two improbable wins over Oklahoma in three Red River Shootouts) and performed well enough at his pro day (ran a 4.37 40-yard dash with a 37-inch vertical jump, an 11-3 broad jump and 22 reps on the bench press) while checking in at 6 feet 1 inches and 204 pounds for the Philadelphia Eagles to take a chance on him as an undrafted free agent. Johnson won a Super Bowl as a member of the Eagles, ending his NFL career in 2022 with the New York Giants with numbers as good or better than his production at Texas (60 receptions for 938 yards and three touchdowns while starting 19 of 55 career games for the Eagles, Colts, Giants and the Tennessee Titans).
    Thankfully, Steve Sarkisian has guided the Longhorn offense into a much more prosperous era of the forward pass. Under Sarkisian, four Texas wide receivers have been drafted, with Xavier Worthy and Matthew Golden going in the first round in 2024 and 2025, respectively. That’s the same number of Longhorn wideouts drafted over the course of 11 drafts (2010-20), none of whom went higher than Marquise Goodwin, the No. 78 overall pick (third round) by the Buffalo Bills in 2013.
    Cam Coleman should make it three first-round wide receivers produced by Sarkisian in four drafts. To put that into perspective (and not including Eric Metcalf, who was selected in the first round of the 1989 draft as an ahead-of-his-time all-purpose back), Johnny “Lam” Jones (1980) and Roy Williams (2004) were the only first-round wideouts to come out of Texas since the first draft after the AFL/NFL merger in 1967 before the Kansas City Chiefs made Worthy the 28th overall pick in the 2024 draft.
    With that said, during a largely forgettable period of offensive football for the program, Marcus Johnson was a bright spot who arguably had a more notable NFL career than what he accomplished at Texas.
    ***
    Jake Langi, a former member of the Texas recruiting staff under Sarkisian and Tom Herman who’s now a senior personnel analyst for Rhett Lashlee at SMU, had a social media post on Monday that should reinforce Kyle Flood’s ability to develop offensive line talent.
    Langi said he was once on a staff that signed five offensive linemen in a recruiting cycle. Only one of the five, who had “zero offers” and was “unranked” when Langi found him, played professional football.
    Langi didn’t mention the recruit or the college program. But the Longhorns did sign five offensive linemen in 2018, which was Herman’s first full cycle on the job.
    Junior Angilau was a multiple-year starter whose career was derailed by an injury. Reese Moore and Rafiti Ghirmai transferred out of the program after making little to no impact. Junior college signee Mikey Grandy never played a snap for Texas after concussion-related issues forced him to retire.
    The fifth signee in that class was Christian Jones, a soccer player who found football late and was committed to the Mustangs before the Longhorns flipped him ahead of National Signing Day.
    A reserve for his first two seasons at Texas before emerging as the team’s starting right tackle in 2020, Jones had a rough transition to left tackle under Flood in 2021. Nevertheless, the arrival of Kelvin Banks Jr. allowed Jones to move back to right tackle, where he flourished, evolving from a player who struggled mightily and noticeably in 2021 to a two-time All-Big 12 selection and a fifth-round pick of the Arizona Cardinals in the 2024 draft.
    From the previous staff, Flood inherited Jones and Hayden Conner. The two Herman signees departed the Forty Acres as NFL draft picks (the Cardinals took Conner in the sixth round of the 2025 draft) who played key roles in the program's long-overdue return to the national championship discussion.
    After neglecting the offensive line in the transfer portal ahead of the 2025 season, the Longhorns added a likely future NFL offensive tackle (Melvin Siani), a probable starter at left guard (Laurence Seymore) and two developmental pieces (Jonte Newman and Dylan Sikorski) who showed varying degrees of promise during spring practice. Still, if Texas can develop more homegrown talent in the trenches like Jones and Conner and not be overly reliant on the transfer portal (which has its drawbacks because top-tier linemen aren’t cheap, especially if there’s a need for an NFL-caliber tackle), the Longhorns can allocate their roster-building resources to fill other needs.
    ***
    Texas salvaged a baseball road series loss in Knoxville over the weekend, taking a 12-6 decision over Tennessee on Sunday. Losing two of three games to the Volunteers aside, a lingering issue facing Jim Schlossnagle’s club is what the Longhorns can expect the rest of the way from starting pitchers Luke Harrison and Ruger Riojas.
    Harrison’s struggles against SEC competition have primarily come on the road. After going 5.2 innings in wins over Auburn (7-6 on March 21) and South Carolina (5-3 on April 3), Harrison lasted a combined 4.1 innings in losses to Texas A&M (0.2 innings in an 11-4 loss on April 11) and Tennessee (3.2 innings in Saturday’s 14-9 loss), which matched the length of his outing in a 4-3 win over Vanderbilt on April 26.
    Five of the six hits Harrison allowed in the loss to the Volunteers were for extra bases, including four home runs. Harrison has given up 27 hits and 20 earned runs in his last five starts, only one of which he’s gone more than 5.0 innings (seven innings in a 2-1 loss to Alabama at home on April 19).
    Riojas, whose start was moved from Saturday to Sunday due to what Schlossnagle said was a combination of soreness and his continued bullpen work with Max Weiner, hasn’t had an outing exceed 5.0 innings since his seven-inning gem in a 14-0 run-rule win over Oklahoma on March 26. His pitch count has exceeded 74 in just two of those six starts (83 in a 9-8 road loss to the Aggies on April 10 and 99 in a 3-1 loss to the Crimson Tide on April 18).
    Riojas has allowed at least four earned runs in four of his last six starts, including four via a grand slam on Sunday at Lindsey Nelson Stadium. He’s allowed 25 hits over his last 30 innings, 20 of which have been of the extra-base variety (11 doubles, five triples and four home runs).
    The life of an SEC pitcher is dealing with one top-notch offense after another. Still, a welcome sight for Longhorn baseball observers would be Harrison and Riojas entering the postseason off of strong outings when they pitch for No. 6 Texas (36-12, 16-10 SEC) in the last series of the regular season against Missouri, which starts on Thursday at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.
    Jeff Howe
    Behind a complete game in the circle from Teagan Kavan, No. 6 Texas thumped No. 3 Alabama, 7-1, to win the championship game of the SEC Tournament at John Cropp Stadium in Lexington, Ky., on Saturday.
    The Longhorns, who entered the tournament as the No. 4 seed, defeated Ole Miss and No. 12 Georgia to reach the title game. Mike White’s club avenged a road series loss to the Crimson Tide in early April thanks in large part to Kavan, who scattered three hits, walked one and struck out 12 en route to the program’s first SEC Tournament crown.
    Texas (42-10) was led offensively by Katie Stewart. The SEC Player of the Year went 3-for-5 with two RBI, two runs scored and a solo home run, which capped the scoring in the top of the sixth.
    Alabama (49-7) took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first on an Alexis Pupillo solo home run. Kavan, however, buckled down and allowed only two hits the rest of the way, while the Longhorns scored seven consecutive runs, including a three-run fourth inning.
    Texas, which stayed at McCombs Field in the first two rounds of the postseason in 2025 on its way to winning the national championship. White’s Longhorns will learn their national seed and path back to Oklahoma City for what would be a third consecutive trip to the Women’s College World Series on Sunday, when the NCAA Tournament field is revealed.
    Jeff Howe
    Beyond suffering a 5-1 road loss to Tennessee in Friday’s series opener at Lindsay Nelson Stadium in Knoxville, No. 4 Texas faces an immediate future with Ethan Mendoza’s status up in the air.
    The junior second baseman left the game after an awkward landing while diving for a ball hit in his direction off the bat of Volunteers second baseman Blake Grimmer. Mendoza tried to shake off what Jim Schlossnagle confirmed after the game is a shoulder injury, but he left the field and was replaced in the lineup by Callum Early.
    Schlossnagle didn’t have anything else concrete on Mendoza’s injury, telling Roger Wallace during his postgame radio interview that the injury is to Mendoza’s throwing shoulder (a team source told On Texas Football late Friday that there was no definitive word on the extent of the injury).
    “He’s in a fair amount of discomfort. We’ll just have to take it day by day and see if he’s able to — I can’t imagine he’ll be able to throw anytime soon. Maybe, he’ll be able to hit.”
    While Early stayed in the game for the second and third innings, he was lifted in the top of the fourth for Josh Livingston. Livingston stayed in the game after beating Tennessee’s shift with a bunt single down the third-base side of the infield, occupying first base, with Casey Borba moving to third base and Temo Becerra sliding over to second. It’s a similar configuration to the one Texas (36-11, 15-9 SEC) utilized when Adrian Rodriguez was sidelined after getting the staple in his surgically-repaired hand removed.
    That’s likely the mix the Longhorns will go with as long as Mendoza is out of the lineup. Mendoza, who struck out swinging in his only at-bat of the game, entered the series hitting .278 (50-for-180) with 12 doubles, eight home runs, one triple, 40 RBI and an .844 OPS.
    Texas and Tennessee will continue their three-game series in Knoxville on Saturday at 5 p.m. (SEC Network+).
    Jeff Howe
    It’s debatable where Texas should be slotted in the host of post-spring practice rankings being published, with CBS Sports, ESPN and USA Today placing the Longhorns among college football’s top five clubs in 2026.
    What can’t be disputed is that Steve Sarkisian’s squad is facing a difficult schedule in his sixth season. ESPN’s Bill Connelly and CBS Sports believe the 12-game slate is the toughest in the country, with Texas set to face eight teams included in CBS Sports’ post-spring rankings, six post-spring ranked opponents from USA Today’s too-early Top 25 and eight of the 20 highest-rated teams in Connelly’s most recent SP+ rankings.
    The 2025 schedule had a case to be the toughest road slate ever navigated by a Longhorn team. Not including the annual neutral-site tussle with Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl, the Longhorns faced Ohio State, Florida and Georgia on the road. Two top-10 opponents (Vanderbilt and Texas A&M) also made their way to Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium last season.
    Regardless of where the Buckeyes, Gators and Bulldogs rank, visiting Columbus, Gainesville and Athens in the same season is a daunting task, something the Longhorns found out the hard way. Still, becoming the first FBS team since LSU in 2019 to record three regular-season wins over top-10 opponents, with victories over the Sooners, Commodores and Aggies, was the strongest argument Texas had for why it deserved to be included in the College Football Playoff.
    This season’s schedule is similarly taxing. The Longhorns will battle Tennessee (Sept. 26), LSU (Nov. 14) and Texas A&M (Nov. 27) on the road, with Ohio State (Sept. 12) and Ole Miss (Oct. 24) coming to the Forty Acres. Throw in the Red River Shootout and Texas has four CFP qualifiers from last season on the schedule, along with two other bowl teams (Texas State and UTSA) in non-conference play and the rest of the nine-game SEC schedule.
    As the season unfolds, the schedule's degree of difficulty will be judged by where the Longhorns’ opponents sit in the polls. If Texas manages to see at least seven ranked opponents, the 2026 schedule will set a new program standard for strength of schedule.
    In the 2014 regular season, the Longhorns had six foes ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 at the time of the game, the most AP Top 25 clubs on a Texas regular-season schedule since the AP Poll expanded to 25 teams in 1989. Charlie Strong’s debut included losses to No. 12 UCLA in Arlington, No. 7 Baylor and No. 5 TCU at home, No. 11 Kansas State on the road and No. 11 Oklahoma in Dallas, with the lone ranked win of the season coming at home over No. 24 West Virginia.
    There have been eight seasons since the start of the AP Top 25 era in which the Longhorns have played five ranked opponents in the regular season, including 2025:
    — 2024 (at No. 10 Michigan, No. 18 Oklahoma, No. 5 Georgia, at No. 25 Vanderbilt and at No. 20 Texas A&M
    — 2018 (No. 22 USC, No. 17 TCU, No. 7 Oklahoma, No. 13 West Virginia and No. 16 Iowa State)
    — 2015 (at No. 11 Notre Dame, No. 24 Oklahoma State, at No. 4 TCU, No. 10 Oklahoma and at No. 12 Baylor)
    — 2010 (No. 8 Oklahoma, at No. 5 Nebraska, No. 25 Baylor, No. 12 Oklahoma State and No. 17 Texas A&M)
    — 1995 (at No. 21 Notre Dame, No. 13 Oklahoma, No. 14 Virginia, No. 23 Texas Tech and at No. 16 Texas A&M)
    — 1993 (at No. 11 Colorado, No. 6 Syracuse, at No. 24 Louisville, No. 10 Oklahoma and at No. 8 Texas A&M)
    — 1989 (at No. 14 Colorado, No. 15 Oklahoma, at No. 7 Arkansas, at No. 15 Houston and at No. 16 Texas A&M)
    The additional challenge for Texas in 2026, along with the SEC going to a nine-game schedule, is the elimination of multiple bye weeks. Whereas the Longhorns had two last season, the bye week between the Tennessee game and the Oct. 10 showdown with Oklahoma is the only time they’ll be able to put their feet up and catch their breath.
    Eight straight conference games to conclude the regular season could make the 2026 schedule the toughest non-stop grind since the 2008 season, when Texas took on the top-ranked Sooners, No. 11 Missouri, No. 7 Oklahoma State and No. 6 Tech in consecutive weeks. The Longhorns successfully refilled the cup against the Tigers and Cowboys, but didn’t have quite enough in the tank to dispatch the Red Raiders, suffering a loss that cost Mack Brown’s team a chance to play for the national championship.
    While a 12-team playoff gives Sarkisian’s bunch more margin for error, it won’t lessen the impact that the totality of a historically difficult schedule could have on the Longhorns’ chances of getting back to the CFP and making a run toward the title game.
    Jeff Howe
    AUSTIN, Texas — As much as No. 4 Texas would’ve loved to have left College Station with a win over No. 7 Texas A&M three weeks ago, a washed-out series finale with the Aggies might’ve been a blessing in disguise.
    It will be as long as Dylan Volantis continues to deal as he did in Friday’s 3-1 win over No. 10 Mississippi State. On a cold, windy night at UFCU Disch-Falk Field, Volantis won his third series-opening start in as many tries, putting the Bulldogs in a blender with 12 strikeouts and no walks allowed while scattering three hits in a six-inning, 107-pitch gem.
    The Longhorns haven’t lost any of the 11 starts Volantis has made in 2026. Volantis was good in his role as the team’s Sunday starter, but he admitted after his seventh win of the season that getting the ball on Friday night in the SEC carries more weight when he takes the mound.
    “It’s just got a different vibe to it,” Volantis said, who felt his curveball, cutter and sinker were working well throughout his outing. “I’m just trying to help the team out in any way to win a ballgame.”
    Jim Schlossnagle moved Volantis to the front of the weekend rotation after the canceled game at Blue Bell Park caused the sophomore southpaw to miss what would’ve been his first start since the team’s 4-1 road win over South Carolina April 4. Not wanting Volantis to go 15 days between starts, Schlossnagle gave Volantis the ball for the team’s April 17 series opener against No. 24 Alabama, a 10-2 win for Texas (34-9, 14-7 SEC) en route to series victory over the Crimson Tide.
    After striking out 11 while allowing six hits and one earned run in last Friday’s 11-4 road win over Vanderbilt, Volantis befuddled a potent Mississippi State (35-11, 13-9) lineup over six shutout frames. Volantis tied his career high for single-game strikeouts, marking his third consecutive start with at least 11 batters fanned, one of which came when he retired second baseman Gehrig Frei with runners in scoring position and two outs in the fifth inning.
    “I thought that Dylan was outstanding,” Schlossnagle said. “What more can you say about him? Had three pitches going — I thought he ran his fastball enough when he needed to and the times where they, I think, we're trying to sit [on his] breaking ball and compete a little bit against him, he snuck the fastball in there, especially against Frei.
    “On a 3-2 count, [runners on] second and third, up 1-0 — that was the biggest pitch of the game.”
    With Volantis making the transition from a record-setting reliever (an SEC-record 11 saves in conference play in 2025) to a starter, and Ruger Riojas’ tendency to work deep into games, moving Volantis up in the rotation helps Schlossnagle and Max Weiner get a better feel for how to utilize the bullpen. Haiden Leffew, who’s capable of giving the Longhorns multiple innings, hard-throwing righty Thomas Burns and freshman fireballer Sam Cozart finished what Volantis started, tying a season high and a school record for a nine-inning game with 19 strikeouts as a staff.
    Texas will send Riojas to the mound on Saturday with a fresh Brett Crossland in the bullpen. Burns (eight pitches) and Cozart (12 pitches) weren’t overworked, which could come in handy if the Longhorns need a late-inning lift with a series victory within their grasp.
    The buttons Schlossnagle and Weiner can push to maximize the pitching staff as the postseason draws closer are available to them because of Volantis’ dominance in setting the tone for the weekend. While it’s not a given that Texas will win every time Volantis toes the rubber, it’s clear that the Longhorns walk taller when the 6-foot-6-inch phenom has the ball.
    “We definitely trust DV,” said Anthony Pack Jr., who went 1-for-2 with two walks and an RBI single in Friday’s win. “I think, personally, he's the best pitcher in the nation.”
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