AUSTIN – After over a dozen years asleep at the wheel, an experienced team in burnt orange is prepared to bring the boogie back to Texas. 

The Longhorns suffered through youth and inexperience in head coach Steve Sarkisian’s first two seasons on the Forty Acres. They blew halftime lead after halftime lead in Year 1, and 69 of the 109 roster players on the eight-win 2022 roster were underclassmen. Texas is 13-12 under Sarkisian. 

“The spring is always an exciting part of the year, especially with 15 new faces on the field and a few new faces on the coaching staff,” Sarkisian said after the first spring practice of the year early on Monday morning. “The intent was good by the guys today. There was good energy. I like the leadership on this team.” 

Those scars figure to make the Longhorns battle ready in 2023. They rank 19th in returning production by ESPN, including a third-best 85 percent of returning production on offense. The Texas offensive line returns five starters from last year who’ve notched 101 combined starts in their careers. That’s an average of 20.2 starts each. Right tackle Christian Jones (35) and center Jake Majors (27) lead the way. Left tackle Kelvin Banks and right guard Cole Hutson each started all 13 games as true freshman in 2022. Left guard Hayden Conner started in 13 of the 21 games he's participated in entering Year 3 in Austin. 

The 11 expected offensive starters combine for 191 starts when Georgia transfer A.D. Mitchell’s 15 in Athens are added to the mix. Xavier Worthy returns 26 starts. Jordan Whittington has 17. JT Sanders started 13 games in 2022. Quinn Ewers started and played in 10 games last season. 

The only player without at least 10 collegiate starts in the expected starting 11 for the Longhorns offense is running back Jonathon Brooks, and even he is entering his third season on campus with 11 games under his belt. The loss of Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson can’t be understated as those are two future high-round NFL draft picks. But Brooks is a former Mr. Texas Football who showed flashes in spot duty last year. His backups figure to be four-star Jaydon Blue and incoming five-star true freshman Cedric Baxter. 

“In Year 3, a lot of these guys have had a model of what (leadership) looks like,” Sark said. “When we first got here, they were still trying to learn what leadership looked like to us. That was a challenge for guys like Roschon and DeMarvion. The expectation has been set.” 

The holes are bigger on the defensive side, figuratively and literally. The defensive line must replace Keondre Coburn and Moro Ojomo. The linebacker core must replace DeMarvion Overshown. The secondary lost D’Shawn Jamsison and Anthony Cook.

Still, experience isn’t truly a concern. The defensive tackles pegged to replace Coburn and Ojomo – T’Vondre Sweat and Byron Murphy – played plenty over the past few seasons. Sweat possesses 48 games of experience entering his fifth season at Texas. Murphy, who could be the breakout player of the defense, played in 25 games since arriving in 2021. Texas brought in Arkansas transfer Jalen Catalon and his 16 collegiate starts to help in the secondary. Same with former Wake Forest cornerback Gavin Holmes. 

“I like our depth on this team,” Sarkisian said. “We’ve done a good job at managing the roster. We’d like to be a little bit older at some positions. One of the unique things we’re wrapping our heads around as coaches is that there is another transfer portal opening to come. That can impact us negatively and/or positively. We have to be mindful of that. I can’t say the roster is set in stone because we don’t know what will happen.” 

The 13-best returning defenders at Texas combined to play in 305 games at the college level. That’s nearly 23.5 per player. The group has combined for 109 starts. Most are entering their third year on a college campus. Defensive end Justice Finkley and cornerback Terrance Brooks are the exceptions outside of true freshman linebacker Anthony Hill, who was a five-star prospect out of Denton Ryan. 

Picking the Longhorns to win the Big 12 championship is a running joke since Mack Brown exited stage left. Sure, they’re always talented enough to challenge in the Big 12, but they haven’t been mentally mature or tough enough in nearly 15 years to play consistent enough to pull off the trick. Baylor went 2-7 in 2020 before riding a senior-laden squad to 12 wins and a Big 12 title in 2021. Kansas State was 8-5 in 2021 before a group of upperclassmen pulled the Wildcats to a Big 12 crown in 2022. There is a blueprint for Texas to follow. 

The magic trick coaches at Texas try to pull is to program a fleet of Rolls Royce’s with the work ethic of a pickup truck. Charlie Strong and his staff failed to do it. Tom Herman and his crew did, as well, albeit for different reasons. Sarkisian now holds the hat and the wand with a looming move to the SEC on the horizon. 

The Longhorns claimed the final Southwest Conference title in 1995. They won the first Big 12 crown a year later in 1996. There’s nothing more the folks in burnt orange want to do more than to ride into the greener pastures of the SEC with a Big 12 championship tucked deep into the luggage. And there’s nothing the other members of the conference want to stop more than Texas or Oklahoma leaving with the belt. 

The bad news for the rest of the conference is that Texas is poised for a big year, and not for the normal reasons. The talent level is impressive, but not as important as the skins on the wall. An experienced, and dare I say tough, team in Austin is ready to bury the past by wearing the scars proudly.