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Texas holds its second scrimmage of spring ball tomorrow. The Horns are through 11 practices now and still have not endured what I would term a “long term” injury to a starter or even an immediate backup. Kaliq Lockett is the only such player and he’s expected back by June. We need that to continue. If Texas wants to win it all, the facts are they have to stay healthy. ** Will Muschamp’s t-shirt yesterday at the press availability drew some attention. NT=NP. Muschamp explain “no thud” in practice means “no play” on Saturdays. If there has been an issue adapting to Muschamp’s coaching style by a few Texas players, it’s been those expecta…

I read yesterday’s Jeff Howe article on the 2021 recruiting class and its importance to the Texas program and Steve Sarkisian’s success with a lot of interest. There are a couple of reasons why: 1. The positive difference I see in the 2021 class compared to many previous ones is the “development” of the class itself. Guys like Gunnar Helm, Hayden Conner and Barryn Sorrell were not projected draft picks when enrolling at Texas. They had the right attitude, were put into a good system and they developed naturally. That development piece had been seemingly missing for far too long in Austin. Whether we give credit to the players themselves or to Torr…

News broke yesterday that Texas declined an invitation to play Ohio State on Sunday Aug. 31 instead of Saturday Aug. 30. Texas did so for many reasons: - No guarantee of a Sunday night game next year given that it’ll be on ESPN or ABC rather than Fox. - Fox has done themselves no favors with Texas brass. Remember, Fox leveraged Texas just a couple of years ago, requiring the Horns to switch the Michigan game to Ann Arbor in 2024 as a piece of the Big 12 departure. - Short turnaround for the next week, especially early in the season. Texas already moved one game on their schedule this year - A&M will now be played on a Friday. - Travel for fans…

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said the quiet part out loud yesterday afternoon. The SEC and the general quality of its teams, thereby the strengths of its schedules, are different than every other conference. He even provided media a 7-page document explaining exactly why. Only two of the conferences 16 schools have averaged being outside of the top 50 teams in college football over the past 10 years. Meanwhile, every other conference has at least twice as many, if not three times as many. What’s the net of all of it? While the Big 10 is trying to force the SEC into a 9-game conference schedule, I just don’t think it’s in the cards. The coaches simply don’t …

Winner takes all. Tonight at 7pm. Texas vs Texas Tech for the national championship. Tech tied the series at one game apiece last night with a 4-3 victory over Longhorns. Texas made a number of miscues and mental errors and the bats didn’t wake up until it was perhaps too late. Texas did not start ace Teagan Kavan last night, opting to rest her for game three tonight. NiJaree Canady went the distance for Tech and was downright dominating until the later innings. ** Some of you who aren’t quite so old finally got a taste of what being older feels like. That’s when former Texas All-American Brian Orakpo showed up at the Texas elite camp yesterd…

Texas sits at 13 commitments. It’s not an overwhelming class as yet. But there are 15+ visitors coming to town this weekend and the Horns have the no. 1 quarterback in the country committed. ** Dia Bell, the Texas quarterback pledge from South Florida, won the Elite 11 QB competition this week over a host of other elite, nationally-ranked quarterbacks. Bell is the first Longhorn to win the award. ** If you haven’t read CJ Vogel’s team update from yesterday, it’s worth your time. One of the notes that CJ Vogel slipped into his responses and not the original article is something he has heard about new receiver Emmett Mosley, the Stanford t…

Texas lost out on Ezavier Crowell last night; the Alabama native decided to stay home and play for the Crimson Tide. But life goes on. My dog still wanted to play tug of war after he ate this morning. The sun still rose in the East. And sure enough, my wife still asked me if I took out the trash and recycle last night. The same will happen multiple times over the next two weeks. Texas will likely lose more than they win. But as we’ve talked about, that’s the nature of this style of recruiting. At the end of the day, recruiting at this level is more about who you add, not about who you lose. ** I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Texas and i…

Given that much of the discussion yesterday on the site centered around revenue share/cap, I thought it would be informative to see how NFL teams spend their cash for rosters. Here’s the average percentage spent by position of an NFL team: QB - 8-12% RB - 3-5% WR - 8-12% TE - 2-5% OL - 15-20% DL (includes DT/Edge) - 15-20% LB - 8-12% DB - 12-18% ST - 1-2% ** Like every football team subject to a rev share/cap (be it NFL or college), Texas has soft-circled amounts for each of its positions. In other words, every time the Horns add a new recruit at a particular position, that number is essentially added to the position group overall.…

Yesterday, Florida State and Georgia announced they were canceling a home and home series and instead looking into a single game at a neutral field. Why would they do that? Well, there’s the fact that neither team wants to subject themselves to difficult non-conference match-ups in multiple years as opposed to just one. Score one for the current 12-team format I guess. Perhaps if the number were already at 24 teams, the two programs would be less inclined to be worried about an extra early season loss. But I think the real reason is much, much different. And much more sad. I think it’s because a neutral site game potentially allows for the players to b…

Yesterday, the NCAA Rules Oversight Committee voted to endorse a new transfer portal timeline, one that starts Jan. 2 of 2026 and lasts 10 days. The new timeline would restrict transfers to a single window of time instead of having two different ones as is the case currently (one window after the regular season in December and then another after spring ball in April/May). That endorsement of the Oversight Committee carries a lot of weight, but it is not final. The Rules Administration Committee must act before Oct. 1 of this year for it to become the transfer portal rule in January of 2026. While some may be concerned with the players of the four teams rema…

Steve Sarkisian said he didn’t think any of the players that will miss tomorrow’s game will have long stays on the injured list. But it’s still quite the list, especially at the skill positions on offense. Tre Wisner and DeAndre Moore are expected out. Portal transfer Emmett Mosley V, who we’ve yet to see, remains sidelined, too. That’s your no. 1 running back and two of your top four receivers. No wonder Sark spent a lot of yesterday talking up true freshman Daylan McCutcheon. Here at OTF, we’ve talked about one of the categories of improvement we want to see in this Texas offense is its explosiveness. Well, it’s hard to be explosive when all of your …

Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer was upgraded to “probable” last night. That decreases the chances of a Longhorn victory IMO. But it simultaneously increases the odds that the Longhorns are going to be pushed to fight as hard as they can on every play. That they’ll play with an unbridled passion and focus. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen a level of consistent focus and passion this year. Maybe this game, maybe Mateer, shakes the cobwebs loose. ** I hope folks realize the indictment of what I wrote above really is. Right now, this team is not playing well on a number of levels. The offensive line looks lost against pressure. The interior defens…

My Wi-Fi went out in the middle of Coffee & Football this morning, but I still had a few things left to say. First, universities need to spare us of the idea that they are strapped for cash. It’s a complete charade. When Indiana fully guarantees a coach $11.6mm per year or when Penn State, Florida or Texas A&M agree to fire coaches with $50m+ guaranteed left on their contracts, the schools have the revenue and the money. They just need to share more of it with the players. The entire Indiana football team is allegedly getting $15m of the school’s revenue share allotment in 2025. So a coach at Indiana is supposedly worth as much as almost his en…

With Cole Hutson upgraded to probable, Texas should be healthy across the O-line for the Vandy game tomorrow. The only question is, will Hutson’s return push out Connor Robertson who has started the past couple of games at center, or does Texas move Hutson to a spot at left guard and that in turn move out either Connor Stroh or Nick Brooks? While Stroh and Brooks have given it their best shot, it seems like both have had their issues at guard to date. Perhaps it’d be smarter to get three seniors by class (Hutson, Robertson and DJ Campbell) on the interior. It might minimize some of the assignment busts we’ve seen this year. ** Both Arch Manning and Mic…

In the wake of Marshawn Kneeland of the Cowboys and his death yesterday, Rod Babers, Bob Shipley and Marcus Myers talked candidly about it on the livestream last night. The segment starts at about the 53-minute mark. If you have the opportunity and only read or listen to one other thing today, I really think it’s worth your time. It’s as good and honest of a segment as we’ve ever had on On Texas Football IMO. Thanks to Coach, Rod and Marcus for letting us hear their candid conversation. https://www.youtube.com/live/JHfNsRTJNyQ?si=glEY_Q3dqseldjAV ** When it comes to the SEC race, there are four relatively heavy favorites this weekend. …

If you went to bed early on Thursday night, you missed some recruiting fireworks. Coming out of staff recruiting meetings held on Thursday, the Longhorns decided to offer three new high school recruits: TE Charlie Jilek of Portage, Mich. (previously committed to Minnesota) RB Jett Walker of Georgetown (committed to Minnesota) OL Kaden Scherer (committed to Stanford) Jilek committed to Texas last night. He, along with Walker and Scherer, are slated to visit the Longhorns on the weekend of the Arkansas game. While the offers may look sudden, they actually are not. The Texas personnel staff has been evaluating players across the country for mont…

Which Texas team are we going to get tomorrow? While the offense has not exactly bathed itself in glory this season, it at least seems to be moving in the right direction of late. The defense, however, is a different story. In the first five games of the year, Texas was giving up 260 yards a game. In the last five, that figure is up to 375 yards a game. in other words, Texas has an improving offense with a defense headed in the opposite direction. And that’s exactly why people are somewhat confounded by this Texas team. ** I hope we see a consistent offense tomorrow combined with a defense that can get off the field on third and long. …

Approximately 24 seniors will walk later today in DKR, their final home game as Longhorns. While all of them have been party to the resurgence of the Texas football program in their careers, a few of them have played major roles and deserve to be singled out further. OL DJ Campbell - a three-year starter. Picked Texas and Steve Sarkisian over Oklahoma signaling a change in DFW recruiting four years ago. OL Cole Hutson - a two-year starter and key back-up his other two seasons, Hutson has been a reliable mainstay of the OL his entire career. DE Ethan Burke - a multi-year starter with multiple memorable plays, including one a year ago this week. If he ha…

I’m starting to do my overall breakdown of the 2026 recruiting class. I’ll be releasing three each morning and each afternoon until I’m finished. Here are the first three players. QB Dia Bell Known: athletic, accurate, intelligent, manuevers well in in the pocket, good size and requisite arm strength. Seems to have an unhurried feel for the rush. Extends a lot of plays while keeping eyes downfield. Looks to pass before run. Competitive. Strong performance bloodlines at an elite level. Unknown: He has all the physical skills except maybe plus size. The only real question is, does he have the “it” factor of an elite QB at the college level? It’s the…

The 2026 Texas football schedule was released yesterday evening. Here it is: 2026 Texas Football Schedule Sept. 5: vs. Texas State Sept. 12: vs. Ohio State Sept. 19 vs. UTSA Sept. 26: @ Tennessee Oct. 3: IDLE Oct. 10: vs. Oklahoma (in Dallas) Oct. 17: vs. Florida Oct. 24: vs. Ole Miss Oct. 31: vs. Miss State (Halloween) Nov. 7: at Missouri Nov. 14: at LSU Nov. 21: vs. Arkansas Nov. 27: at Texas A&M ** Some thoughts: - Texas plays only one true road game all the way into November. But then the Horns finish with three of four on the road. - Tennessee is that early road game…

Cornerback Samari Matthews out of Cornelius, N.C., will announce his college decision today at 6pm CT. Matthews, ranked the no. 57 overall prospect in the country by the 247Sports composite, is deciding between Texas, South Carolina, Clemson, Miami and Florida State. Twelve hours before his pick, Texas is thought to be the leader over South Carolina. Yet as we have seen time and time again during this recruiting cycle, things can and do change. We’ll have live coverage of the event later today. ** Matthews is an interesting case study in what winning on a national stage can do for a program and who it recruits. Before Texas had even reached o…

The president of the United States issued an executive order yesterday regarding the future of college sports. The main tenets included eliminating pay-for-play schemes, the future of student employment, Title IX guidance, saving non-revenue sports, and reducing long-term liability of the institutions. I’ll briefly hit on each of these topics below. But before I do, I want to say this: Executive orders are largely performative. What I mean by that is, the orders attempt to set direction for others, from the attorney general, to other members of the president’s cabinet. But they are not the rule of law. In other words, the president can’t unilatera…

Texas will practice again this evening and then tomorrow as well before taking a well deserved day off on Sunday. ** I’m told that dehydration has hit a couple of players pretty hard. It’s summer camp and it happens to a few just about every year. ** Ethan Burke was effusive in his praise for Travis Shaw yesterday in the post-practice interview session. I was a bit surprised by that because Shaw did not stand out much during the media viewing session. But I asked Burke specifically which interior defensive lineman that he’s lined up next to has impressed him and he singled out Shaw. Shaw, a former five star out of North Carolina, has str…

It’s encouraging that wide receiver Parker Livingstone appears to be taking another step forward during training camp, but, at the same time, we’ve heard very little about Stanford transfer Emmett Mosley V outside of the first few days. Why? According to CJ Vogel, Mosley has not been fully participating in Texas’ practice for a while. We knew he was held out of the first scrimmage but this injury has gone far beyond that. We believe it’s a re-aggravation of a lower leg injury he sustained this summer that also sidelined him for several summer workouts. We’ll do some more digging. But Mosley has not been full go much at all this training camp. And that …

What is the Texas football team up to today and tomorrow? Texas coaches are taking the team through an entire mock game weekend experience. The team will board a bus and head to a hotel today, they'll have team dinners, and team meetings tonight, just as if the Horns were in Columbus a week from now. The players will even room with the same guys who they will be rooming with next weekend. Then they'll wake up, get breakfast, have more meetings at the hotel and head to DKR to get ready for a mock game situation. With so many new faces this year, the coaches do these sorts of things to give everyone familiarity with what to expect. ** Trevor Goosby …