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    Jeff Howe
    OTF four-star+EDGE Dre Quinn (Buford, Ga.) is expected to make the call on Thursday in a recruitment that’s come down to a battle between Texas and Clemson.
    Quinn’s decision is the first of many scheduled to be made in the coming weeks by Longhorn targets. The group of blue-chip recruits planning to pull the trigger includes defensive lineman Vodney Cleveland (Birmingham, Ala./Parker) on Saturday, running back Ezavier Crowell (Jackson, Ala.) next Thursday, offensive tackle Malakai Lee (Honolulu, Hawaii/Kamehameha) next Friday, linebacker Xavier Griffin (Gainesville, Ga.) next Saturday and Frisco Panther Creek wide receiver Jalen Lott on July 8.
    Texas has some margin for error within most position groups ahead of the remaining summer decisions. The staff can withstand a loss or two, and the conditions could still be ripe to secure elite, difference-making positional hauls.
    Not all recruiting losses are created equal. Some will hurt more than others.
    There’s no way, for instance, to cushion the blow the Longhorns were dealt on Tuesday, when Carthage running back KJ Edwards committed to Texas A&M. If Crowell picks Alabama, Auburn or Georgia over the Longhorns, Chad Scott's running back board would reset heading into the fall.
    An uncertain running back outlook aside, CJ Vogel recently hit the nail on the head regarding the current state of recruiting on the Forty Acres.
    “You’re fighting for the right guys,” he said during last Wednesday’s “Longhorn Livestream” during a discussion regarding the possibility of the Longhorns’ 2026 recruiting class being the program’s third in a row to finish ranked among the top three in the country.
    I’ve been employed in the Texas market covering recruiting since 2008. Never has the hunt for talent been more widespread, with the Longhorns battling against perennial SEC and College Football Playoff contenders for prospects.
    The staff’s efforts in the Northeast have Texas in the mix for offensive tackle Grayson McKeogh (Wyndmoor, Pa./La Salle College), defensive lineman Damari Simeon (Richland, N.J./St. Augustine Prep) and EDGE Luke Wafle (Princeton, N.J./The Hun School). The Longhorns are scheduled to welcome two California visitors to campus this weekend, tight end Keawe Brown (Corona, Calif./Centennial) and EDGE Richard Wesley (Chatsworth, Calif./Sierra Canyon).
    The Longhorns haven’t been shy about mixing it up for recruits within the SEC footprint, either. They’ve made their presence felt from Louisiana, through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and into Florida. Two of the biggest prospects left on the board are defensive lineman Kendall Guervil (Fort Myers, Fla.) and EDGE Trenton Henderson (Pensacola, Fla./Catholic), who will begin their official visits to Texas on Friday.
    Steve Sarkisian’s organization didn’t suddenly decide to ramp up its recruiting efforts throughout the Southeast. It’s a benefit to joining the SEC that Sarkisian and the Longhorns have tried to maximize, particularly with consecutive trips to the CFP semifinals, allowing Texas to conduct business from a position of strength.
    “I think the move into the SEC has probably been more beneficial for us,” Sarkisian said at a Touchdown Club of Houston luncheon in May. "A lot of people are changing conferences right now, but this one really resonated with us.”
    He mentioned how the program’s ability to recruit from within the Lone Star State and head eastbound along the Interstate 10 and Interstate 20 corridors changed the staff’s approach.
    “It's easy for those kids, it's natural for those kids to want to come to Texas,” he said. “There's a ton of players, so as much as we value recruiting the state of Texas, which is critical for our success, this made sense for us to work directly east, as opposed to the Big 12.”
    The Longhorns won’t win every cutthroat recruiting battle for the top talent from a part of the country that’s buoyed almost every national championship-winning roster over the last 25 years. Still, Texas has won enough to claim a place at the top of college football’s talent acquisition food chain.
    And with a stomach strong enough to withstand the ebbs and flows, Sarkisian has everything he needs to keep the Longhorns there for the foreseeable future.
    “I love the competitiveness of the SEC, but also love the recruiting aspect of the SEC,” he said. “We're able to go into Georgia and sign three or four players a year. We're able to go into Louisiana, we're able to go into Florida — very talent-rich areas to go along with what we have here in the state of Texas.
    “It’s been a win-win for us on those two things.”
    Jeff Howe
    Through four innings of Saturday’s 9-7 loss to UTSA in the Austin Regional, Texas looked the part of the No. 2 overall national seed.
    A two-out, two-run single through the right side of the Roadrunner infield by Jonah Williams and Casey Borba’s RBI double to left field highlighted a five-run, four-hit third inning for the SEC regular-season champions. Leading 6-1 with reliable lefty Luke Harrison toeing the rubber, the Longhorns seemed well on their way to a winner’s bracket victory when they took the field for the top of the fifth.
    Unfortunately, Texas (43-13) suffered a catastrophic blowout, derailing what had been a relatively smooth ride. Jim Schlossnagle’s club suddenly looked like the one that had lost seven of its previous 11 games before going down at the hands of UTSA (46-13) for the second time in as many meetings.
    A fielding error charged to Adrian Rodriguez (one of two on the night for the Longhorns, who couldn’t overcome a tidal wave of defensive mishaps) and Harrison issuing free passes loaded the bases to open the frame. Jalin Flores didn’t quite catch up to a ground ball up the middle off the bat of second baseman Nathan Hodge.
    Hodge scored with one out after his two-run single kickstarted a four-run inning for the Roadrunners, pulling off a double steal while occupying third base with one out. Right fielder James Taussig made it a one-run game by ripping a double to right-center.
    "It was just a back-and-forth game from that point on," Schlossnagle said.
    Texas failed to get a run back in the home half, which ended on a Max Belyeu strikeout with the bases loaded. Max Grubbs opened the fifth by recording two outs on two pitches, but Flores misread Hodge’s blooper, one of three consecutive singles for the Roadrunners, who grabbed a 7-6 advantage.
    UTSA didn't trail the rest of the way. The defensive issues, combined with the Longhorns stranding 13 runners on a woeful 3-for-18 night at the plate with runners in scoring position, and ace right-hander Braylon Owens ending each of his four relief innings for the Roadrunners with one of the seven strikeouts he fired put Texas in a situation where it has to win twice on Sunday to force a winner-take-all regional championship on Monday.
    "We lit the fire and they stoked it and ran with it," Schlossnagle said of coach Pat Hallmark's team, which has notched the first two NCAA Tournament wins in program history with two wins in as many days at UFCU Disch-Falk Field. "The message to the team is we can't be thinking about playing anything other than just one pitch at a time. I know it sounds coachy, but that's the fact. If we start thinking about the overall scheme of things, it won't ever happen that way.
    What the Longhorns will attempt isn’t unprecedented.
    As a regional host in 2005, Texas dropped a winner’s bracket game to Arkansas before beating Miami (Ohio) and dispatching the Razorbacks twice en route to the school’s sixth national championship. The Longhorns made a similar trek to Omaha in 2011, eliminating Texas State and notching two wins over Kent State to survive the regional.
    Nevertheless, Schlossnagle’s club must overcome Rodriguez, Williams and Ethan Mendoza continuing to battle injuries and a depleted pitching staff (Ruger Riojas will get the ball in the elimination game, but all bets are off thereafter) to advance to a second elimination game Sunday night.
    UTSA has every reason to be confident it will join the 81 percent of regional champions who started 2-0 since the NCAA adopted the Super Regional format in 1999.
    "This isn't some jackleg team that's gotten hot," Schlossnagle said of the Roadrunners. "They're really good."
    Texas, on the other hand, knows extending the season to Monday is a tall order.
    "The goal moving forward is just to win one pitch at a time and not try to look ahead or think about winning two games or trying to win three games," said catcher Rylan Galvan, who did his part in the late innings, crushing his team-leading 15th home run of the season to left field in the bottom of the seventh. "Just win one pitch at a time. If we can do that, we'll put ourselves in the position."
    The Longhorns are facing an uphill battle, 27 outs away from the curtain coming down on Schlossnagle’s memorable debut.
    The only option Texas has is to start the climb. Whether it has enough gas in the tank to make it to the summit is another story.
    "We may have lost this battle, but we didn't lose the war yet," Galvan said. "There's still a lot of baseball to be played."
    Jeff Howe
    How Friday’s 7-1 win over Houston Christian in the opening game of the Austin Regional unfolded went a lot like the 2025 season has played out for Texas.
    The Longhorns didn’t win with style points en route to capturing the SEC regular-season championship and the No. 2 overall national seed in the NCAA Tournament. The way Texas (43-12) grounded out wins, surpassing the most optimistic expectations for Jim Schlossnagle’s first season on the Forty Acres, was how it advanced into the winner’s bracket for a Saturday tilt with either UTSA or Kansas State.
    Offensively, the Longhorns righted the ship with only four strikeouts after fanning 10 more times in seven of their last 10 games, a stretch in which the Texas bats racked up 128 strikeouts. At the same time, the lone extra-base the Longhorns recorded against the Southland Conference Tournament champion Huskies was Will Gasparino’s fifth-inning RBI double to left field, which capped a five-run, six-hit frame.
    Texas didn’t mash the ball all over UFCU Disch-Falk Field. Instead, it took advantage of three Houston Christian (32-24) errors and manufactured more than enough runs to put itself one step closer to the program hosting a Super Regional for the first time since 2021.
    "You've got to give Parker Edwards credit," Schlossnagle said of the Huskies' starting pitcher. Edwards did his job, holding the Longhorns to one hit before Texas finally created separation in the fifth.
    "Any time you look on the roster, and you see a guy is a No. 1 starter for a team that's in a regional, and he's a senior, that just tells you he's been around the block," Schlossnagle said. "He's not going to be spooked. He's running it up there 95 [mph]. He had a good cutter going today.
    "Sometimes," he added, "it's OK for the other team to be good."
    Gasparino drew a four-pitch walk to lead off the third inning, stole second base, advanced to third on an infield chopper freshman phenom Jonah Williams turned into a single and scored when Ethan Mendoza was retired on a 6-3 groundout. Second baseman Jeremy Rader, who left the game with an undisclosed upper body injury after a violent fifth-inning collision with Williams, couldn’t handle a ground ball off Max Belyeu’s bat, bringing Williams home and putting the Longhorns in front for good.
    "Somebody needed to come up with a big hit," said Kimble Schuessler, whose two-run single highlighted the productive Texas fifth. "We were able to get some guys on base, and then were able to come up with that big hit."
    Schuessler’s decisive blow brought Williams home and allowed Mendoza to score, even though a play at the plate had to be reviewed before the second run could be officially tallied. After a bullet from right fielder Tevis Payne nailed Mendoza at the plate in the first inning, a second issue sliding into home nearly brought another Texas inning to an abrupt end.
    Schlossnagle was visibly upset with Adrian Rodriguez, who contributed to the chaos as the lone man in a home uniform in Mendoza’s line of vision as he tried to cross the plate in both situations.
    "If the ball is coming from right field, you've got to tell him to not just slide, but to get to the back side of home plate," Schlossnagle said. "The same thing when the ball is coming from left field.
    "That was a pretty inexpensive experience," he added. "It can be expensive real quick this time of year, so we have to be better."
    Rodriguez made up for it, though, bringing Schuessler home from second with an RBI single up the middle. Jalin Flores and Casey Borba made it three consecutive Texas singles, the latter bringing Rodriguez home before Gasparino ended the scoring.
    Friday’s win felt like a typical midweek game. Thankfully, the Longhorns got a similar result to their 12-2 seven-inning run-rule win over Houston Christian on April 8 by playing an error-free game in the field behind three pitchers — lefty Ethan Walker, Grayson Saunier and hard-throwing righty Hudson Hamilton — who scattered eight hits over nine innings, struck out six and issued only two free passes (a hit batter charged to Saunier and a walk charged to Hamilton).
    As for the offense, an unspectacularly solid performance is one Schlossnagle wants the Longhorns to build on as they continue a road they hope takes them to Omaha for an NCAA-record 39th time.
    "We got on them pretty good the last five or six days," Schlossnagle said. "We challenged the offense. It wasn't meant to build pressure. It was meant to hold it to a little bit of a higher standard. If you're going to be gritty about anything, have it be the preparation. Then, when the game gets here, you need to do the opposite: you have fun. I think, early on, everybody feels it. You haven't played in a week, and you want to score nine runs, and your coaches have been onto you about being a better offensive team. We put together some good swings, and how we end up with a north wind and Austin, Texas, on May 30, I'll never know.
    "I think if we had those balls carry out of the ballpark or something like that, we maybe feel a little bit better," he added. "But, 7-1? We'll take it and keep moving on."
    Jeff Howe
    The next step for the historic group of Longhorns who accounted for a school-record 12 picks in the 2024 NFL Draft is coming to terms on their rookie contracts.
    Six of the 12 rookies were signed, sealed and delivered to their respective franchises as of Sunday. Gunnar Helm was the most recent Texas draftee to sign, agreeing to terms with the Tennessee Titans, although the terms of the fourth-round pick’s (No. 120 overall) deal have yet to be made public.
    With that said, the following are the reported terms for which the other five former Longhorns have signed.
    Kelvin Banks Jr., New Orleans Saints (Round 1, No. 9 overall pick): Banks, Jahdae Barron and Matthew Golden stand to make more money than the reported figures if their fifth-year options are picked up. Banks signed a four-year deal with a signing bonus of more than $6.93 million, but the total value of his contract ($27.7 million) is fully guaranteed.
    Barryn Sorrell, Green Bay Packers (Round 4, No. 124 overall pick): Sorrell’s four-year, $5.14 million deal includes a signing bonus of $941,852. The signing bonus is the only portion of Sorrell’s contract guaranteed to be paid out.
    Jaydon Blue, Dallas Cowboys (Round 5, No. 149 overall pick): Blue’s deal is for four years with a total value of $4.63 million. His signing bonus ($427,068) is the only guaranteed portion of the contract.
    Hayden Conner, Arizona Cardinals (Round 6, No. 211 overall pick): Conner’s signing bonus ($174,280) is the only guaranteed money headed his way on the four-year, $4.37 million deal he signed.
    Quinn Ewers, Miami Dolphins (Round 7, No. 231 overall pick): Ewers signed a four-year deal worth $4.33 million. The only guaranteed money Ewers has coming to him is his signing bonus ($131,576).
    The five Texas products have signed NFL rookie contracts worth $46,206,022. Of that money, $27,406,022 is fully guaranteed, with $8,607,588 in signing bonuses.
    The projected contract values based on the rookie wage scale, which changes every year based on the salary cap increasing or decreasing, aren’t far off from the money for which the remaining draftees will sign. The biggest issues preventing rookie contracts from getting done include language (some teams will look to put various classes in the contract that protect them from shelling out money they don’t believe they should be on the hook for) and when certain portions of the guaranteed money will be paid out.
    According to Spotrac, the following dollar figures are the total value of the contracts that the seven (including Helm) remaining Longhorns are projected to earn:
    Jahdae Barron, Denver Broncos (Round 1, No. 20 overall pick): $18,048,198
    Matthew Golden, Green Bay Packers (Round 1, No. 23 overall pick): $17,551,274
    Alfred Collins, San Francisco 49ers (Round 2, No. 43 overall pick): $10,296,326
    Andrew Mukuba Philadelphia Eagles (Round 2, No. 64 overall pick): $7,155,826
    Vernon Broughton, New Orleans Saints (Round 3, No. 71 overall pick): $6,634,052
    Gunnar Helm, Tennessee Titans (Round 4, No. 120 overall pick): $5,171,100
    Cameron Williams, Philadelphia Eagles (Round 6, No. 207 overall pick): $4,401,198
    When the remaining unsigned contracts are official, the Texas draft class will be worth an estimated $115,463,996.
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