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Texas will have to go through the postseason without right-handed relief pitcher Max Grubbs, who will miss the remainder of the 2026 season after undergoing arm surgery, the school announced Saturday. Wednesday’s availability report released by the SEC office ruled Grubbs out of action for the Longhorns’ regular-season-ending series with Missouri. Jim Schlossnagle said during his Wednesday media availability on the eve of the series opener that Grubbs has been dealing with arm soreness. A veteran bullpen hand with 67 career appearances and starting experience under his belt (15 starts over the last three seasons, including 12 in 2024), Grubbs has a 2-0 record with a 5.52 ERA in 18 appearances (two starts) as a senior. For his career, Grubbs is 15-6 with a 4.00 ERA in 168.2 innings, with 146 career strikeouts. Grubbs was outstanding on the mound in Schlossnagle’s first season, helping Texas capture the SEC regular-season championship with a 6-2 record, setting career highs for single-season appearances (22), ERA (2.84), saves (five) and strikeouts (61). Opponents hit just .238 against Grubbs in 2025, which was also the best single-season mark of his career. What does this mean for the Longhorns? A healthy Grubbs could've been Max Weiner’s Swiss Army knife in the postseason. Grubbs would’ve been capable of starting a conference tournament game if Schlossnagle and Weiner wanted to rest one of the regular weekend starters, or he could be used as a fourth starter, which would’ve been massive if Texas found itself in the loser’s bracket of the regional. If available, Grubbs would've been the team’s best right-handed long-relief option. How does this change things for the postseason? The goal late in games is to get the ball to Sam Cozart (6-0, 1.59 ERA), who has been a force out of the bullpen as a freshman. The 6-foot-6-inch, 260-pound hard-throwing righty has recorded a team-high eight saves this season, while firing 66 strikeouts, posting a 0.64 WHIP and holding opponents to a .112 batting average. Schlossnagle and Weiner trust Brett Crossland (1-2, 3.22 ERA) and Haiden Leffew (4-1, 3.60 ERA) in their respective roles. Leffew will enter the postseason as the Longhorns’ only left-handed reliever capable of throwing multiple innings in an outing; Ethan Walker's (1-0, 3.00 ERA) role is that of the team's situational lefty, likely entering the game to get the team out of a jam with traffic on the bases against a left-handed hitter. It felt like Thomas Burns (0-0, 6.87 ERA) was turning a corner in recent weeks after a rough stretch. Unfortunately, Burns failed to record an out during a six-run seventh inning by the Tigers in Friday’s 11-6 series-clinching win, walking one and allowing a hit while getting charged with two earned runs. Brody Walls(2-0, 5.54 ERA), who is next in line to see his workload increase in Grubbs’ absence, struck out three Missouri batters in 1.1 scoreless innings on Friday. Schlossnagle has talked about using next week’s SEC Tournament to audition other Longhorn pitchers for postseason roles. Schlossnagle has previously mentioned veteran right-hander Cody Howard (0-0, 6.00 ERA) and southpaw Kade Bing (1-1, 6.00 ERA) as potential pitching options in Hoover, Ala., with the team’s first game coming in the conference quarterfinals next Friday. Texas (39-12, 18-10 SEC) clinched a double bye in the SEC Tournament with its win on Friday and Alabama’s loss to Ole Miss in Tuscaloosa. The Longhorns conclude the regular season against Missouri at UFCU Disch-Falk Field on Saturday (2 p.m., SEC Network+), with a series locking them into the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament and likely securing a Top 8 national seed for the NCAA Tournament. View full news story

The commitment of Brock Williams to Texas on Friday gives Steve Sarkisian the most complete tight end prospect he’s recruited during his time on the Forty Acres. If that sounds out of pocket, consider that Sarkisian inherited Gunnar Helm and Ja’Tavion Sanders from the previous staff, as both signed with the Longhorns a few weeks before Sarkisian was hired. Jeff Banks deserves credit for developing them into productive players who went on to become NFL draft picks, but Helm and Sanders needed time to develop and weren’t ready to contribute the way the staff needed them to from the jump. That shouldn't be the case with the 6-foot-5-inch, 230-pound Williams. Whereas Helm joined the Longhorns as a raw prospect and Sanders had to learn to play with his hand on the ground, Williams will arrive at Texas as an accomplished receiver who won’t have to learn a new position. Since Michael Masunas entered the program with one season of eligibility remaining, the Longhorns needed to land a tight end with instant impact potential in the 2027 cycle. Williams could join a room in which Spencer Shannon, Nick Townsend (a tremendous athlete with a ton of potential if he can put it all together) and Emaree Winston make it tough for him to break into the rotation, or he could be in the position Jermaine Bishop and Derrek Cooper found themselves in this spring, as true freshmen who seized opportunities to start working toward a solidified role. Townsend is as physically gifted as any player at any position in the program. Still, Townsend wasn’t as polished as a tight end coming out of Spring Dekaney as Williams will be after his time at Libertyville (Ill.) is finished and he makes his way to Austin, which means a lot to the Texas offense in 2027 and beyond. Sarkisian, who has said time and again that the tight end position is the most important part of his offense other than the quarterback, and Banks have done what injuries prevented Mack Brown from doing, and what Charlie Strong and Tom Herman couldn’t quite figure out. The current regime has developed tight ends physically and inserted them into an offensive scheme that highlights the position when the right guy is on the field, which accurately describes how Helm and Sanders were used. Williams, however, is special because he's not a position conversion or an athletic project. Those types of tight end prospects have had varying levels of success on the Forty Acres for nearly two decades, all while multiple staffs tried to find a five-tool answer from the prep ranks. Jared Wiley was a high school quarterback who Herman converted to tight end. After transferring to TCU and enjoying a successful two years with the Horned Frogs, the Temple product was picked in the fourth round of the 2024 draft by the Kansas City Chiefs. Cade Brewer was solid for parts of five seasons with the Longhorns after making the transition from high school wide receiver to college tight end. Andrew Beck was a converted linebacker who developed into an ideal H-back at the college level, with skills that translated nicely to a career as an NFL fullback. A junior college gem and ferocious in-line blocker turned NFL draft pick, Geoff Swaim (a seventh-round selection by the Dallas Cowboys in 2015) was unearthed by Bryan Harsin. Devonaire Clarington was likely never making it to campus after signing as a part of Strong’s 2015 class. Texas couldn’t hang onto future Notre Dame and NFL tight end Durham Smythe when it had the Belton product’s commitment in the 2013 cycle. Considering those situations, along with sifting through the sea of for naught efforts to turn oversized wide receivers into the next Jermichael Finley, it can be argued that Williams is the best pure tight end prospect out of high school to suit up for the Longhorns since Blaine Irby, who appeared destined for stardom before wrecking his knee early in the 2008 season. Regardless, after swinging and missing on multiple blue-chip, out-of-state tight ends in recent cycles, Sarkisian and Banks have landed a prospect in Williams who has the potential to be everything they’ve been looking for and appears capable of making an impact sooner rather than later. View full news story

Montre Jackson Down to 3 *** 2027 Garland Lakeview Centennial (TX) CB Montre Jackson is down to three schools — Texas, SMU and Ole Miss. Jackson confirmed with OTF those are the three he would decide from after a tweet containing a Hook Em and Mustang emoji made rounds earlier in the week. While a Rebels emoji wasn’t included, Jackson did include them in that final grouping. The four-star corner was in Oxford on April 30th and has an official visit with Ole Miss set for June 19th. Keep in mind, Texas was unable to see Jackson on the field this spring. A nagging soft tissue injury hampered a lot of his spring track and football activity. Additionally, SMU has been very competitive in this one and are expected to remain tightly in this race. I would say the Mustangs are the toughest competition at the moment.

The Longhorns will go for the series win over the Tigers after last night's 6-3 win. The game will be streamed live on SEC Network Plus. Texas enters the game alone in second place in the SEC standings with a clear path to one of the four double byes in the SEC Tournament. Three critical games — Texas A&M hosting Mississippi State, Alabama hosting Ole Miss and Auburn hosting Georgia — will be in progress when the Longhorns start. The Mississippi State, Alabama and Georgia won their respective season openers last night and are going for series wins.

After reading CJ Vogel’s examination of time of possession as a statistic that must change for Texas to reach its ceiling in 2026, my focus shifted to play differential. It’s not that one statistic is better than the other. I prefer to lean on a team’s play differential (the positive or negative difference between the number of plays a team runs on offense and the number of plays their defense faces) because it’s a more precise measurement of game control. If an opponent leans on an up-tempo offense and runs a lot of plays with a premium on getting more possessions, or if an opponent wants to take the air out of the football and make the game shorter, play differential can paint a more accurate picture than time of possession. No matter how you slice it, when it comes to what the Longhorns did last season, play differential (like time of possession) must improve to maximize the team’s potential. Texas finished the 2025 season with a minus-47 overall play differential (minus-3.6 per game), which ranked 15th in the SEC. Against SEC competition, the Longhorns had the worst total play differential (minus-79) in the conference and ranked last in the SEC in per-game play differential (minus-9.9). In short, Texas’ conference opponents ran roughly 10 more plays per game than the Longhorns. That might not sound like much, but when considering that SEC foes averaged 1.5 scoring drives of 10 or more plays per game against Texas (12 double-digit play scoring drives by SEC opponents in eight conference games), it's a problem that must be fixed. The highest priority to get the issue resolved is the Longhorns running the football better than they did last season, especially in conference play. Only Alabama’s 89.9 rushing yards per game against SEC opponents kept Texas from being the worst rushing offense in the conference, with an average of 93.1 yards per game on the ground in eight conference games. Texas also must do a better job of getting off the field on third and fourth down, which includes being a better defense on first and second down. Pete Kwiatkowski's defense faced an average of 14.7 third downs per game against SEC opponents in 2025, a mark topped only by Oklahoma’s 14.9 for the most in the conference. Even when the Longhorns got third-down stops (a 39.8-percent conversion rate by SEC opponents ranked 10th in the conference, which was well above the defense’s season average of 33.5 percent), only Ole Miss defended more fourth-down conversion attempts (34 in 15 games) than the 31 times the Texas defense was on the field on fourth down. The Longhorns finished fourth in the conference and tied for 30th nationally in fourth-down defense (45.2-percent conversion rate allowed), but only Alabama and Auburn (15 each) allowed more teams to convert on fourth down than the 14 times it happened to the Longhorns. Texas allowed opponents to convert eight of the combined 16 fourth-down attempts it faced against SEC opponents. Without question, coming off a year in which the Longhorns were one of five SEC offenses that failed to run at least 500 plays against conference opponents (499, which tied with Florida for the third fewest in the league), the running game must improve. At the same time, Steve Sarkisian brought Will Muschamp back to the Forty Acres to call the defense so that his aggressive style can create more negative plays to get opponents behind the chains and promote more turnover-forcing opportunities, which must happen for Texas to shrink the wide gap in play differential from last season. View full news story

The Longhorns begin a three-game home series with the Tigers on the last weekend of the regular season. The game will be streamed live on SEC Network Plus. On the health/injury front: — Ethan Mendoza (shoulder) will be the designated hitter role only this weekend. — Dariyan Pendergrass isn't listed on the SEC availability report. Schloss said on Wednesday that Pendergrass could play this weekend, but as of yesterday, he wasn't sure. UPDATE: Pendergrass is in the lineup in center field. — Max Grubbs is out for this series. It sounds like he's been dealing with some arm soreness, so he'll get the weekend off.

Anybody hit any good cards lately?

I spoke with five-star WR Monshun Sales' mom this afternoon for a little bit. First off, awesome lady. Looking forward to meeting her in person when they come down in June. Here's some nuggets gathered: -- She was not on the April visit to Austin, so when they OV campus next month that will be her first time at Texas -- "I'm excited. I'm actually excited. I'm a southern girl. Either way, coming back south, to me, is everything anyway. He told me I would love it. He knows his momma. I'm trusting the process, and I'm actually excited to come see you all." -- The family moved to Indiana from Alabama in 2020. Obviously his mom is a big Bama fan coming from Birmingham, but Sales is going to make his own decision. -- Sales' mom isn't too familiar with Texas yet but she says she's going to study up on the program before traveling to Austin. -- She reiterated how highly Sales has talked about Texas. "He did tell me (Texas) had a great program. He said I want to go to Texas. I want to go down there and give them a shot and see what they've got to say." -- Sales' mom noted that they're may be some OV schedule shuffling. She mentioned possibly the Alabama date, currently set for May 29-31, being moved. Texas is likely to switch to June 19-21 (originally set for June 5-7) as we've been saying is possible with Miami fading in his recruitment. Stay tuned for some more finality to OV plans. -- I asked her about the Indiana projection today. She laughed. She says she has to keep herself from commenting on every single development. But Indiana is absolutely a threat here, as we've noted.

Texas forward Dailyn Swain is keeping his name in the 2026 NBA Draft, officially forgoing the rest of his collegiate eligibility. “Two feet in” is how Swain is characterizing his draft status, according to ESPN's Jeff Borzello, who reported on Wednesday that Swain has “closed the door” on returning to the Longhorns. On Texas Football has reported since Swain declared for the draft on April 7 that Sean Miller and the Texas staff were building the 2026-27 roster with the idea that Swain wouldn’t return to the Forty Acres. Swain didn't enter his name into the NCAA transfer portal, which meant the Longhorns would've been his only option if he'd decided to return to college. Swain, who participated in the NBA Draft Combine over the weekend, where he measured 6-feet, 6 ½ inches in bare feet and weighed 211 pounds with a 6-foot, 10-inch wingspan and standing reach of 8-feet, 8 ½ inches, is projected to go in the first round of the draft on June 23. Sources have told OTF that the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder are among the franchises to express the most interest in Swain as he’s gone through the draft process (the Thunder have the 12th and 17th overall picks, while the Heat have the No. 13 overall selection in what’s considered to be a historically deep draft). If Swain is selected in the first round, it will mark the second consecutive draft for the Longhorns to produce a first-round pick. Tre Johnson, the 2024-25 SEC Freshman of the Year, was the sixth overall pick in last year’s draft by the Washington Wizards. It will be the first time Texas has produced back-to-back first-round picks since Jarrett Allen (2017), Mo Bamba (2018) and Jaxson Hayes (2019) went in the first round in three consecutive drafts. Swain would be the 21st Longhorn to go in the first round of the draft. Texas has produced 16 of its 20 first-round picks since 2000, when Chris Mihm went No. 7 overall to the Chicago Bulls (his draft rights were later traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers). Swain’s lone season with the Longhorns was a memorable one, helping Texas reach the Sweet 16, where the team came within a last-second bucket in a 79-77 loss to Purdue from reaching the Elite Eight. A finalist for the Julius Erving Award, which recognizes the top small forward in college basketball, Swain was named SEC Newcomer of the Year by the league’s coaches, who made him a second-team All-SEC selection. A starter in each of the team’s 36 games during the 2025-26 season, Swain led Texas in scoring (17.3 points per game), rebounding (7.5 per game), assists (129 total and 3.6 per game) and steals (59 total and 1.6 per game) while averaging a team-high 32.8 minutes per game. Swain shot a career-high 54.2 percent (214-for-395) from the field, 81.5-percent (163-for-200) from the foul line and a career-best 34.4 percent from 3-point range (32-for-93). Swain reached double figures in scoring in 33 of 36 games, recording 12 20-point games and two 30-point performances, including a career-high 34 points against Mississippi State on Jan. 3. Grabbing a career-high 14 rebounds against the Bulldogs marked one of Swain’s eight double-doubles on the season. Swain played a significant role in the Longhorns finishing Miller's first season with a 21-15 record, including a 9-9 mark in the SEC. Swain, who was recruited by Miller out of high school and transferred to Texas after two seasons at Xavier after Miller was hired by the Longhorns on March 24, 2025, helped Texas earn a No. 22 ranking in the season-ending Associated Press Top 25. View full news story

Any time Texas’ potential to win the national championship in 2026 is discussed, penalties will almost certainly be cited as a legitimate lingering issue that could derail the Longhorns’ efforts to return to the College Football Playoff. After Steve Sarkisian’s first season, when Texas averaged 5.8 penalties (No. 55 in FBS) and 48.3 penalty yards per game (No. 48 in FBS), both per-game averages continued to steadily rise. The 2023 squad ranked 95th in the country in penalties per game (6.6) and finished a 14-game season tied for 70th nationally in penalty yards per game (52.2). The Longhorns appeared to be at least leveling off in 2024, averaging 6.4 penalties and 51.8 penalty yards per game en route to 13 wins and a second consecutive trip to the CFP semifinals. Unfortunately, things took an unexpected turn in 2025, resulting in the penalty issues under Sarkisian coming to a head. Texas ranked 134th nationally in penalties per game (8.3) last season, making the Longhorns the most penalized Power Four team in the country and the third-most penalized team in FBS. An average of 69.7 penalty yards per game was the second worst in the Power Four (SMU averaged 70.8 penalty yards per game) and the fifth worst in FBS. Sarkisian’s 2026 club doesn’t need to be as disciplined as Indiana was in 2025 (3.8 penalties per game tied for the fifth fewest in the country and 27.6 penalty yards per game was the second best average in FBS) to be the last team standing when the dust settles on the 12-team CFP. Nevertheless, Texas can’t be as undisciplined as it was last season (108 total penalties were a school record and only nine Longhorn teams averaged more penalty yards per game than the 2025 team) and expect to reach the summit unscathed. Each of the last five national champions (Indiana, Ohio State in 2024, Michigan in 2023 and Georgia in 2022 and 2021) finished inside the top 30 nationally in penalties per game and inside the top 40 in the country in penalty yards per game. Furthermore, the last three champions finished tied for first (Michigan), tied for 11th (Ohio State) and tied for fifth (Indiana) nationally in penalties per game, while ranking third (Michigan), 16th (Ohio State) and second (Indiana) in FBS in penalty yards per game, respectively. College football's talent is disbursed more equitably, thanks to dynamics like NIL, revenue sharing and the transfer portal. It’s arguably more important than ever to play disciplined football because the talent gap at the top of the sport isn’t as wide as it was a few years ago. Still, of the 12 national champions in the CFP era, LSU in 2019 and Clemson in 2016 are the only two that finished ranked outside of the top 60 nationally in penalties and penalty yards per game. It took Joe Burrow leading one of the most prolific offenses in college football history, along with a defense chock-full of future NFL players, for Ed Orgeron’s team to overcome a No. 107 ranking in penalty yards per game (62.4), which the worst among any national champion in the CFP era. Quarterbacked by Deshaun Watson, who was one of five future first-round draft picks suiting up for the Tigers in 2016, the first title-winning squad coached by Dabo Swinney averaged 6.3 penalties per game, making them the most penalized national champion in the CFP since the CFP replaced the Bowl Championship Series in 2014. The Longhorns are talented, perhaps historically so, entering Sarkisian’s sixth season. Are they talented enough to absorb an absurd number of self-inflicted wounds and hit their ceiling? Regardless, the Texas faithful can view the program’s potential improvement in a glass-half-full light because Sarkisian has shown he can right the ship. After Tom Herman’s 2020 team was one of the most penalized in the country, averaging 8.1 penalties and 77 penalty yards per game, Sarkisian oversaw those marks improving by 2.3 penalties and 28.7 penalty yards per game in his first season on the Forty Acres. Such an improvement would put the 2026 Longhorns on track for an average of six penalties and 41 penalty yards per game, which would’ve tied for 65th and 26th in FBS last season, respectively. Six penalties per game would match the number committed by Alabama in 2020, when Sarkisian was the offensive coordinator for Nick Saban’s record-breaking seventh national title as a head coach; 41 penalty yards per game would be on par with Ryan Day’s Buckeyes in 2024 (40.8 penalty yards per game) among recent national champions. Whether Texas makes those specific strides or gets within the ballpark of doing so, the numbers show how much more disciplined the Longhorns must be year over year to reach their desired destination. View full news story

I was perusing through the state rankings of Arizona this morning and came across one of the wilder recruiting anomalies you will ever see. When it comes to recruiting, a lot of conversation stems from the talent in your backyard. Can you keep top talent home is something that Texas has even struggled with when it comes to elite wide receivers out of the Austin area, or prospects from Dallas or Houston leaving the state. But this is something that I have never seen before. Arizona State signed 5 of the top 10 prospects in the state from the 2017 class. But since then... Arizona State has signed ONE top-10 in-state HS prospect. I couldn't believe it. The following schools have signed multiple top 10 prospects from the state of Arizona. Arizona BYU Cal Colorado Iowa State Kansas Kansas State Michigan State Minnesota Nebraska Notre Dame Ohio State Oklahoma Oregon Texas Texas A&M UCLA USC Utah Washington Wisconsin There have been top ten prospects sign with Alabama, Baylor, Boise State, Clemson Duke, Florida State, Georgia, Purdue, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Stanford, Syracuse, Vanderbilt, Washington State and West Virginia during this time period. Yet just one with Arizona State. That prospect was DB Zeth Thues, a 5-foot-11-inch safety who was ranked the No. 10 prospect in the class of 2026. Now is Arizona a juggernaut of a state when it comes to recruiting? Maybe not. But it certainly has talent. There have been 27 NFL Draft picks who played high school ball in the state of Arizona. Arizona State produced just two of those Draft picks. *** By my count, even expanding the search to the top 20 players in the state of Arizona, the Sun Devils signed just 7 prospects since 2018. Just a ridiculously low level.

2028 LB Nehemiah McCary Maplesville (Ala.) Considered the No. 1 LB in the country by both Rivals and 247Sports Film: http://www.hudl.com/video/3/18581406/69aaeff9ef44acafe7ede5f1

Came across this idea on the r/CFB thread earlier today and wanted to share it: How many for sure College Football Hall of Famers would you consider to be waiting for their induction from the Texas Longhorns over the last ten years? You could even condense it to just the Sark era – probably what it come down to most likely anyways. The requirements to make the CFB HOF as a former player: Must be a First-Team All-American (NCAA recognized), 10+ seasons removed from college, played within the last 50 years (with Veteran Committee exceptions), and not currently in the pros. *** 1. Bijan Robinson 2. Kelvin Banks 3. T'Vondre Sweat 4. Jahdae Barron 5. Michael Taaffe 6. Colin Simmons ... eventually 7. Xavier Worthy (?) Let me know what you think.

AUSTIN, Texas — Ahead of No. 6 Texas welcoming Missouri to UFCU-Disch Falk for the final three-game series of the regular season, Jim Schlossnagle and the Longhorns will meet with the media. Wednesday’s availability is on the eve of Texas (36-12, 16-10 SEC) hosting the Tigers in Thursday’s series opener (6:30 p.m., SEC Network+). The Longhorns are tied with No. 10 Texas A&M in the conference standings and remain in contention for a Top 8 national seed in the NCAA Tournament. D1Baseball.com’s latest field of 64 projections have Texas clinging to a Top 8 seed, with the Longhorns slotted as the No. 6 overall seed in the tournament (Texas is one of four SEC clubs currently projected to be a national seed, which means one of the eight roads to Omaha would go through the Forty Acres). On Texas Football is at Disch-Falk Field, providing updates as the Longhorns prepare for Missouri (23-27, 6-21) before next week’s SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala. View full news story

As I typically do around this time of the year, I found an interesting stat that I believe must change for Texas to reach the heights they want to in 2026. A look at the time of possession from teams that won 10+ games a year ago. *** 2. James Madison (34:12.71) 3. Georgia (33:52.43) 5. Ohio State (33:07.00) 7. Miami (33:04.44) 9. BYU (32:43.21) 10. Indiana (32:37.94) 11. Navy (32:36.92) 14. Texas A&M (32:30.31) 16. Houston (32:18.08) 18. Virginia (32:16.14) 27. Alabama (31:32.33) 36. Vanderbilt (31:00.69) 40. Tulane (30:51.64) 41. Oregon (30:48.73) 42. Utah (30:47.77) 74. Oklahoma (29:44.31) 76. Texas Tech (29:39.86) 87. Notre Dame (29:17.92) 106. Ole Miss (28:43.87) 109. Texas (28:29.92) 112. North Texas (28:23.07) *** Only three teams with 10+ wins a year ago had a time of possession ranking outside of the top 100, with the Longhorns having the second worst among the group. Only six of the 21 teams lost the time of possession battle. Ole Miss was an extreme outlier given how successful their run in the CFP was. Texas Tech did not score a point in the CFP and Oklahoma blew a 17-point lead at home in their meeting with Alabama. Notre Dame, North Texas and Texas all missed the CFP.

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. View full news story

After winning the SEC Tournament on Saturday evening, Texas softball (42-10, 16-8 SEC) has earned a No. 1 seed (No. 2 overall) in the 2026 NCAA Tournament. The Longhorns will host the Austin Regional from May 15-17, which will feature Wagner, Baylor, and Wisconsin coming to Red & Charline McCombs Field. Texas is the defending national champion and looks to be hitting its stride heading into postseason play after an impressive run in Lexington, Ky. "Obviously, I'd like to thank Kentucky for putting on a first-class tournament," UT head coach Mike White said on Saturday night. "The weather turned out great. The temperatures felt awesome after being in Austin where it could be a lot hotter. Of course,e congratulations to Alabama. The season they are having right now. They were picked ninth in the SEC and they've really showed everybody what kind of team they are. They are a great force, and they are going to have probably a great postseason as well. To my team, the resilience and the fight that they showed coming back against some teams that we've played before, never easy. And played some really good softball throughout the week. We had some hiccups here and there, but we bounced back and made the plays when he had to and of course had great pitching from Teagan Kavan." The Longhorns leaned on their ace pitcher last postseason, and will do so once again in the coming weeks. "I won't lie. For little girls that might be watching this out there. I think last night I kind of told myself, 'I'm kind of tired, I've kind of thrown a lot', and then I thought that's the fear of failure that's talking in my head," Kavan said after Saturday night's win. "I have to not listen to that. If I fear failure and I can't reach success, so just telling that voice to be quiet. I trust myself, no matter what it was going to be I was just going to compete. I just wanted to compete today for my team no matter if it was pretty or it was ugly." This story will be updated.