AUSTIN, Texas — For head coach Steve Sarkisian and the No. 7 Texas Longhorns, the attention of the coaching staff and players is locked in on Saturday’s Big 12 Championship game against the No. 20 Oklahoma State Cowboys at AT&T Stadium in Arlington ahead of Monday’s transfer window opening.
“First of all, our focus is on Saturday — I love the idea that I can compartmentalize some stuff, but this needs all of our undivided attention here going into the ballgame Saturday,” said Sarkisian on Monday.
For Director of Player Personnel Billy Glassclock and his support, focus is already turning to the NCAA transfer portal, which officially opens a transfer window on Dec. 4 for 30 days — a critical period as Texas looks to fill roster holes with impact players.
“We have a personnel department that will be monitoring the portal as guys enter,” said Sarkisian.
With 20 commits in a 2024 recruiting class that ranks No. 9 nationally and several targets still remaining on the board ahead of the early signing period next month, Texas will once again build its roster primarily through high school recruiting as Sarkisian prefers.
“We are going to continue to build our roster from the ground up — that’s why high school recruiting is so important to us, that’s why this event is so important to us. I think this year we took five transfers and 25 high school kids. Ultimately, yes, we’re going to take a few transfers, but high school recruiting is where it’s at for us and our style of what we like to do,” said Sarkisian at the THSCA convention last summer.
“I know this whole era of NIL and transfer portal, the reality of it is, if I can, I want to recruit another high school kid. Now, there may be times where we can’t. I have to have another corner or I have to have another defensive tackle, then you go into the portal and you make that work. But the reality of it is, for us, I would much prefer recruiting high school guys.”
However, there are needs to fill through the NCAA transfer portal every year with Sarkisian and his staff taking six transfers in 2021, seven transfers in 2022 and five transfers in 2023. And the Longhorns player personnel department is already aware of what those needs are set to look like this year.
“I think we have a pretty good idea of understanding of where we were going to potentially have some depth concerns at a couple positions that we’ll monitor and if a player goes in, then we’ll start the evaluation process,” said Sarkisian.
Texas looks at three key areas in that evaluation process — physical ability, scheme fit, and character fit to Sarkisian’s culture.
“You’ve always got to remember, whoever’s in the portal is in the portal for a reason and we’ve got to figure out why they’re in the portal, right? They’re not all good fits for the University of Texas, so we’ve got to make sure that they fit who we are schematically, that they fit physically in the physical stature at each position of what we’re looking for, and then probably most importantly, that they fit culturally, because the last thing I want to do is bring in anybody that that doesn’t fit what we do and how we do it and why we do it.”
Some of the most successful portal additions by Sarkisian have been players who wanted to return to the state of Texas. Cornerback Ryan Watts left Ohio State after two seasons because being so far from his family was having an impact on his mental health. Quarterback Quinn Ewers only made it one semester in Columbus before making a similar decision. And wide receiver AD Mitchell departed Georgia after winning two national championships so he could be closer to his young daughter, who lives with his parents in the Houston area.
But the staff hasn’t always gotten their evaluations right — Alabama transfer wide receiver Agiye Hall, who was recruited by Sarkisian, and Alabama transfer tight end Jahleel Billingsley, who played for Sarkisian and tight ends coach Jeff Banks, were both busts. Hall was suspended during preseason camp in 2022 for criminal mischief, entered the transfer portal for a second time after the season, and now appears to be out of football entirely. Billingsley was suspended for the first six games of last season and then left the program before the regular season ended.
So the hope is to find players more like Watts, Ewers, and Mitchell than Hall and Billingsley at the positions of need like wide receiver, defensive line, and linebacker.
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