WR Silas Bolden, LB Kendrick Blackshire join Texas football in latest transfer additions
The Texas football team continued to tweak its 2024 roster Tuesday by adding Oregon State receiver Silas Bolden and Alabama linebacker Kendrick Blackshire and releasing 2024 defensive lineman D’antre Robinson from his national letter of intent that he signed in December.
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Robinson, a 6-foot-3, 315-pound four-star defensive tackle from Orlando, cited the departure of Texas defensive line coach Bo Davis as his reason for asking for a NLI release. Davis, who was Robinson’s primary recruiter, left Texas to join the LSU staff earlier his month.
Robinson’s departure may hurt Texas down the road, but the latest additions should add an immediate boost to next season’s squad. Both Bolden and Blackshire have the bona fides to step in as immediate starters for Texas, which went 12-2 and reached the College Football Playoff but lost 10 full-time starters to the NFL draft or the portal.
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What does Silas Bolden bring to Texas?
The third receiver to transfer to Texas this offseason, Bolden provides even more depth to a unit that lost its top three receivers — Xavier Worthy, Adonai Mitchell and Jordan Whittington — to the draft. Matthew Golden announced his decision to leave Houston and join Texas in December while Isaiah Bond left Alabama for Texas after the recent retirement of Crimson Tide coaching legend Nick Saban.
Bolden, who will be a fourth-year player with three years of eligibility, shares both blazing speed and versatility with Golden and Bond. The smallest of the new receivers at 5-feet-8 and 155 pounds, he's a versatile offensive weapon who’s particularly effective in the slot. Bolden also showed the ability to make plays on the ground at Oregon State, which utilized him on a variety of jet sweeps and tosses as well as in the return game. This past season, Bolden led the Beavers with 54 receptions for 746 yards and five touchdowns.
A prep track star in Southern California, Bolden once clocked a time of 10.61 seconds in the 100-meter dash, and he could help form one of the fastest set of receivers in school history. Johnny “Lam” Jones, Eric Metcalf and Devin Duvernay are among the former Longhorns that could lay claim to being the fastest receiver in school history, but the quartet of Boldin, Golden, Banks and current freshman Johntay Cook II all have clocked a 40-yard dash time around 4.4.
Texas also welcomes back freshman DeAndre Moore Jr., who saw action this past season. A deep 2024 recruiting class includes four receivers headlined by five-star Ryan Wingo, a 6-foot-1, 215-pounder from St. Louis that could add some needed size and physicality to the receiving corps.
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Will Kendrick Blackshire start at linebacker?
He just might, especially since Texas has lost Jaylan Ford to the NFL draft as well as underrated Jett Bush. Like those two, the 6-foot-2, 235-pound Blackshire is a natural inside linebacker who starred on special teams and rotated in at linebacker in his three seasons at Alabama. He was a four-star recruit from the Crimson Tide's 2021 signing class that ranked No. 1 in the country on 247Sports' composite ratings.
Blackshire amassed 25 tackles in his career, including a pair of tackles for a loss, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. He’s a native of North Texas who played high school football at Mesquite Horn and Duncanville, which means he’ll see plenty of familiar faces in the Texas locker room.
Blackshire will join a linebacking unit that welcomes back starters David Gbenda and Anthony Hill Jr., who recently earned freshman All-America honors from the Football Writers Association of America.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: WR Silas Bolden, LB Kendrick Blackshire join Texas Longhorns football
