A few special teams tidbits for Texas as Mason Shipley takes on more responsibilities

With Will Stone electing to redshirt to maintain eligibility for the 2026 season, a year that will almost certainly not take place at Texas, Steve Sarkisian said Wednesday that Mason Shipley will add kickoff to his responsibilities for Jeff Banks‘ special teams.

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Texas, who kicks from the right hash, has 36 kickoffs for 2232 yards and 12 touchbacks this season. Stone had 20 kickoffs for 1239 yards and eight touchbacks with one kick out of bounds. Shipley, who stood in for Stone against UTEP and Sam Houston, has 16 kickoffs for 993 yards with four touchbacks and one kick out of bounds.

Texas kicks from the right hash whether the kicker is left-footed like Stone or right-footed like Shipley. There probably won’t be any major adjustment to what the Horns do on kickoffs.

Longhorn opponents have only returned five kicks this season, averaging 10.4 yards per return. There are some games where Texas just kicks it out of the back of the end zone. There are other games where the kicker is asked to shade the kick between the numbers and the sideline in order to condense the area opposing return teams have to work with. Those opponents usually don’t take the bait and instead just take the ball at the 25.

Sarkisian and Banks will have to monitor Shipley’s practice workload, but it shouldn’t be much of an issue considering Shipley was Texas State’s place-kicker and kickoff specialist in 2022 and 2023. He’s not pulling triple duty like Cameron Dicker was in 2021.

Speaking of special teams, how have the Longhorns fared this season?

• Net punting – No. 102 – 38.17 yards
• Punt returns – No. 3 – 21.6 yards per return
• Punt return defense – No. 57 – 6.00 yards per return
• Kickoff returns – No. 106 – 17.25 yards per return
• Kickoff return defense – No. 4 – 10.4 yards per return

A little bit of everything, plus the blocked punt at Florida. A similar mixed bag can be seen in how a couple of the advanced stats view the Longhorn special teams.

The Longhorns are No. 8 in special teams FEI behind No. 1 Iowa, No. 2 Louisville, No. 3 Nebraska, No. 4 Indiana, No. 5 Illinois, No. 6 Georgia, and No. 7 Kentucky. Special teams FEI is “opponent-adjusted possession efficiency data representing the scoring advantage per non-garbage possession a team’s non-offensive and non-defensive units would expect to have on a neutral field against an average opponent.”

That No. 8 ranking is a long way away from where another advanced stat has Texas.

Bill Connelly’s SP+ rates Texas as the No. 10 overall team and also says the Longhorns have the No. 1 defense. But Texas is No. 104 in special teams SP+ around teams like Kennesaw State, Wyoming, Washington, Western Michigan, Rutgers, and Wake Forest.

Ryan Niblett‘s stellar returns exist at the same time as the instances where he lets a ball bounce for extra yardage. Jack Bouwmeester‘s booming punts happened, but so did the blocked punt at Florida.

Texas has been volatile on special teams, but the Longhorns could argue for a spot in the upper half of college football. Being bottom quartile doesn’t fit what’s played out on the field, nor does being top 10.

With all that in mind, Texas’ special teams are just another area within Sarkisian’s program continuing to coalesce and develop. This week, they’ll be asked to continue that path without one of the mainstays in Texas’ third phase for most of the past four years.

One tidbit: Texas has never given up a kickoff return for a touchdown under Sarkisian. The last kick return for a touchdown against the Longhorns was in 2019 by Kansas State’s Alex Ross