Jeff Howe

In the CFP era (since 2014): 10 of the 12 champions were ranked in the preseason top five. In fact, one of the two that wasn’t was LSU in 2019, when the Tigers placed sixth before assembling arguably the greatest team ever.

Casey Hampton is in the College Football Hall of Fame. He had a 100-tackle season as a nose tackle while getting double- and triple-teamed on just about every snap. He led the team in tackles — as a nose — two years in a row. When the Pittsburgh Steelers' all-time defensive line is basically the Steel Curtain and you, you're in rarified air. I love me some Kasey Studdard. But it's Casey Hampton, all day, every day for me.

Don't forget Keith Cash.

Yep. Parker Braun transferred to Texas in 2019. A solid player for the Longhorns.

Awesome guy, too, BTW.

If Laurence Seymore has a Calvin Anderson-like season for Texas, he'll have done the kind of job needed for the offensive line to hit its ceiling.

There was some good discussion about Anderson on Coffee & Football this morning and in the 66 days thread. Still, I wanted to single him out for his contributions to Texas because he played a pivotal role in getting the program back on track at one of the most important positions on the field.

Calvin Anderson doesn’t get enough credit for what he did during his lone season in a Texas uniform. A transfer from Rice who started each of the Longhorns’ 14 games during a 10-win season in 2018, Anderson brought stability to a Texas offensive line that, at the time, was in desperate need of a consistent, stabilizing force. When Connor Williams went down with a knee injury in the third game of the 2017 season, the Longhorns couldn’t find an adequate replacement. Denzel Okafor (four starts) and Tristan Nickelson (two starts) started the six full games Williams missed, and Elijah Rodriguez started the Texas Bowl win over Missouri after Williams (who returned to the field for a win over West Virginia and a loss to Texas Tech) opted out of the postseason. Texas utilized nine different starting offensive line combinations in Tom Herman’s first season. That changed in 2018, with Samuel Cosmi replacing Derek Kerstetter at right tackle after a season-opening loss to Maryland and Rodriguez starting four games in place of an injured Zack Shackelford, accounting for the only lineup changes Herman, Tim Beck and Herb Hand had to make that season. An honorable mention All-Big 12 selection, Anderson not only provided steady blind-side protection during Sam Ehlinger’s first full season as QB1 (26 pressures allowed in 14 games after the program’s left tackles allowed 41 pressures in 13 games in 2017, according to Pro Football Focus), but his arrival also afforded the staff the luxury of letting Cosmi develop. Cosmi didn’t have to bear the weight of expectations that would’ve come with taking over for Williams (an All-American in 2016 and a 2018 second-round draft choice of the Dallas Cowboys). Instead, Cosmi continued to move along the developmental track he established while redshirting in 2017. After a USA Today Freshman All-American season in 2018, Cosmi became a two-time All-Big 12 selection, starting 34 games before Washington took him in the second round of the 2021 draft (he’s entering the third year of a four-year, $74 million extension he signed with the team in 2024). Texas went a decade without producing an NFL draft pick at left tackle, with Williams becoming the first since Tony Hills was picked in the fourth round of the 2008 draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Anderson wasn’t drafted, but he was the bridge between Williams and Cosmi, who has started a run of Longhorn left tackles becoming NFL draft picks, with Trevor Goosby expected to follow Kelvin Banks Jr. as a first-round pick in 2027 (Christian Jones, who was the team’s left tackle in 2021, developed into an NFL draft pick after moving to right tackle when Banks got to campus in 2022). Anderson persevered after going undrafted in 2019, including continuing his career after overcoming malaria in 2023. Anderson played 59 games over parts of seven seasons with four different franchises, logging 14 starts along the way. Although he wasn’t on the Forty Acres for an extended stay, Anderson played a pivotal role in reversing the unsavory offensive line trend the program was mired in before he showed up. *** Could Laurence Seymore be to the 2026 offensive line what Anderson was to the 2018 unit? Like Anderson, Seymore is transferring to Texas from a member of Conference USA (Western Kentucky), a level at which he played well enough to be named a second-team All-American by the Football Writers Association of America in 2025. And, like Anderson, Seymore will only be at Texas for one season. Seymore doesn’t need to be the 1996 version of Dan Neil to be an asset to the Longhorns. If he can follow Anderson’s lead and be a steady, reliable performer, he’ll go a long way toward solidifying a position at left guard that took entirely too long to get settled. View full news story

Jaxson Hayes went to Texas. That’s why I made the post.

Alexis Ohanian, Serena Williams' husband and the founder of Reddit, was part of a group that just bought Onit. It'll be interesting to see what they do with college sports cards, especially because they want to promote Olympic sports in markets where they're popular.

There are a couple of sets with Texas nameplates, but they're low numbered and rarely pop up for sale. Brian Orakpo has one and Limas Sweed has one.

They'll likely look to make one of Walls, Winter or Crossland into the third starter.

His stats were impacted by a not-so-good showing in the Super Regional.

Probably Faizon Brandon, but the battle wasn’t settled between he and George MacIntyre coming out of the spring.

It gives him negotiating leverage with the team that drafts him.

FWIW, I mistakenly omitted 2019 from the list. Texas faced five future draft picks in the regular season: Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts, Max Duggan, Skylar Thompson and Brock Purdy.

Rod and I also got into this discussion on Football Theory, with the conversation centered around Muschamp's defense getting off to a good start:

I don't know how high the ceiling is for the quarterbacks on Texas' schedule, but it feels like the floor is pretty high. Muschamp's defense doesn't get any breaks before SEC play in that regard.

I was inspired to look into this after our OTF Sideline Debate over the weekend. @Bobby Burton and @Rod Babers mentioned the 2008 range for the last time Texas faced quarterbacks like the ones on the 2026 schedule. Here's that discussion in video form: