Texas football must restock receivers, defensive front to regain playoff spot | Bohls

With the season opener still almost seven months away, Steve Sarkisian wasn’t about to make any profound declarations Wednesday about his next football team.

Not in February.

Heck, the Texas Longhorns don’t even suit up in earnest for spring ball for nearly six more weeks.

But I’ll say it for him.

Texas won 12 of 14 games this past season and was in position to have won the other two with a key stop or catch in the final 15 seconds of each game. It won the Big 12 in its final year in the league. It punched its first ticket to the College Football Playoffs where it lost to Washington in the Sugar Bowl national semifinal.

And even with as many as 10 new starters missing from the Sugar Bowl depth chart, Texas should be just as good come September.

Honest to goodness.

Right, Sark?

“If we do it right, I think we’ll be a pretty good team,” Sarkisian said. “We’ve got the leadership and the skills to have a very good team.”

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He made this pronouncement on national signing day, a date otherwise known as a meaningless spot on the football calendar that's as outdated as fax machines. Texas didn’t sign a soul Wednesday.

The some-30 dynamic newcomers who have joined the team or will by June mostly signed in December or transferred in via the portal window. That window is now all but shut until late spring except for a slightly-open period when Ohio State and Texas can still lure as many Alabama players as they can because of a coaching change of some significance in Tuscaloosa.

Thirty is a lot. More than a third of the 85-man roster is a major makeover from a spectacular bunch of Xavier Worthys and Jaylan Fords. That cohesive, tightly bound group transformed Texas from a national punchline into a highly-regarded program with more than a puncher’s chance at winning it all. They were close before falling to Washington 37-31 when Quinn Ewers’ pass sailed beyond Adonai Mitchell’s reach.

That they didn’t win it all only fuels more motivation to get back to that level.

“I understood the disappointment,” Sarkisian said. “We were all disappointed. Nobody likes to lose. And nobody likes to lose when it’s the last play. We didn’t play our best game. It wasn’t good enough.”

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The journey continues when spring practice opens March 19 with a ton of new faces and different priorities.

Texas has a lot of strengths to build on

Asked to define the points of emphasis, Sarkisian wasn’t bashful about where improvement has to come, knowing Ewers with 22 starts, a virtually intact offensive line and two stud running backs represent a strong foundation.

“My job is to identify our strengths and play to those strengths and define what are our areas of weakness that we can turn into strengths,” Sarkisian said. “We need to build rapport with Quinn and Arch (Manning) with our skill positions. Finding rapport with the receivers will be very big. Finding the right combination in the back end (of the secondary) and being more sticky in coverage, especially at safety to defend these high-flying offenses, especially in the playoffs.”

And replacing Outland Trophy winner T’Vondre Sweat and Big 12 defensive lineman of the year Byron Murphy II up front will be really crucial.

However, Sarkisian approaches his fourth Longhorns spring training with a lot of self-assurance and confidence because darn near everything else is in place.

In fact, because of experience or an uptick in talent, Texas should be stronger in 2024 at quarterback, offensive line, defensive end, safety, cornerback and kicker. And maybe as strong at running back.

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That leaves just four position groups. And those have to be the areas of concern for Sarkisian and a coaching staff that returns in its entirety, save for interior defensive line coach Bo Davis. In fact, Sarkisian mentioned Wednesday that about everyone on his staff was “legitimately” offered a job elsewhere.

It’s good to be wanted.

Starting next season, this team should be weaker relatively — don’t misconstrue that as weak, however — at wide receiver, tight end, defensive tackle and punter.

Sark’s got his quarterback back. An incredibly poised, two-year starter, at that, who is 16-6. And a football messiah of sorts, if you will, backing him up. Doesn’t get much better than that.

The offensive line in front of Ewers is back virtually intact, save for a right tackle. Gunnar Helm is solid at tight end, but Alabama’s Amari Niblack didn’t transfer to sit.

Neither did Isaiah Bond, Matthew Golden or Silas Bolden — the latter is graduating from Oregon State and will arrive in June — who will all fight for balls the same as returnee Johntay Cook II, the only receiver back with a reception (eight in all).

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Who knows who'll line up in the defensive interior against Colorado State on Aug. 31.

But new line coach Kenny Baker off the Miami Dolphins staff will have lots to choose from among returners and newcomers Alfred Collins, Vernon Broughton, Aaron Bryant, Arizona transfer Tiaoalii Savea, Alex January … and the list goes on.

Stanford ex Ryan Sanborn was quietly money in the bank at punter, but incoming freshman Michael Kern is expected to replace him.

The 22-member recruiting class that was ranked No. 6 nationally by 247Sports's composite ratings and includes four five-star players and eight transfers filled out a roster that had crying needs at wide receiver and defense. None should be more impactful than those three receivers who came from Alabama, Houston and Oregon State because that’s the biggest void Texas had to fill.

With the Longhorns' top four targets leaving for the NFL, replacing Worthy, Mitchell, Jordan Whittington and Ja’Tavion Sanders was essential.

“After the Sugar Bowl, we had three wide receivers on our roster,” Sarkisian said. “So we got three commitments from high school and signed Aaron Butler (out of Calabasas, Calif.) to get us to seven. Then we got three transfers to get us to 10, and that’s a more ideal number for our roster.”

Simply put, the Longhorns look loaded

As high as the class is rated overall, that doesn’t automatically stamp Texas as another playoff team that wins a dozen games or more. Before last season, the Longhorns hadn’t won as many as 12 games in a season in 14 years.

They haven’t authored double-digit wins in back-to-back years since a nine-year run of them ended after a spectacular 25-2 streak in 2008-09 when Mack Brown came within a whisker of his second national championship and before that was loop-holed out of a chance at a title appearance by dubious tiebreaker rules.

Now they have an opportunity to start a similar string of success because they have the right head coach, a stable staff with the same offensive, defensive and special-teams coordinators for the fourth consecutive year and a roster overflowing with talent.

We all know predictions don’t come with any guarantees. Two-time defending national champion Georgia didn’t even make the four-team postseason. Who in the heck saw that coming?

But Sark remains on a mission.

“I didn’t come here just to be a head coach,” he said. “I came here to win national championships. I’m borderline obsessed with it.”

Forget the qualification, Sark. Embrace it.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas football ain't going away if it restocks receivers, d-linemen