Can Texas hit on its top-100 transfers for a third straight year?

Last year, the Texas Longhorns brought in Isaiah Bond, Andrew Mukuba, Trey Moore, Amari Niblack, and Matthew Golden via the transfer portal. There were more additions like Bill Norton, Jermayne Lole, and others, but only the first five were ranked within the top 100 of the On3 Industry Ranking’s transfer portal rankings.

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Mukuba and Golden proved incredibly successful, with Golden parlaying his one year at Texas into a first round selection and Mukuba heading to the second round. Bond started out of the gate hot but an ankle injury limited his effectiveness as the year went on. Niblack was tight end No. 3 and eventually transferred to Texas A&M. Moore is the only one of the group still in the Longhorn football program and is primed to be a key piece of the Texas defense yet again.

For the five Texas players in the top 100 of the rankings, three in Moore, Golden, and Mukuba can be considered tremendous successes. Bond may not have lived up to being the No. 7 overall prospect in the portal, but it’s hard to look at a 638 total yard season with six touchdowns and think it fits in the category of failure. Success, but not tremendous success, may be the best descriptor.

Niblack simply did not hit and it’ll be Texas A&M’s job to figure out how to get the most from him after stints at two different programs.

So for those keeping score, Texas had five transfers ranked within the top 100 from the 2024 cycle. One was a first round pick, one was a second round pick, one will be a leader on the 2025 Texas defense after a strong 2024 campaign, one went undrafted due primarily to off-field issues, and one transferred to Texas A&M.

For players where the recruitment process may last a weekend at the longest, that’s a pretty decent hit rate for finding players that fit the culture and succeeded on the field, especially when extrapolated out to include other members of Texas’ 2024 portal class.

That wasn’t a one-hit wonder, either. Ahead of the 2023 season, Texas signed top-100 portal prospects in Adonai Mitchell, Jalen Catalon, and Gavin Holmes. Mitchell, the No. 3 portal prospect behind top-ranked Travis Hunter and No. 2 Fentrell Cypress, remained a clutch player in burnt orange and became the No. 52 overall pick in the 2024 draft. Catalon had spurts of good play but injury once again hampered his ability to live up to his potential. He left Texas for UNLV, posted a solid year with the Rebels, and will look to make the most out of year seven in college football at Missouri. The third top-100 portal prospect was Holmes, who provided reliable play for two seasons before signing an eventual undrafted free agent deal with Detroit.

One tremendous success, one success, and another washout.

The Longhorns only have two portal prospects, tight end Jack Endries and defensive tackle Maraad Watson, in the top 100 of the current portal rankings which includes prospects from both the winter and spring windows. Because of the roles they’re primed to step into on the 2025 Longhorns, they stand good chances of joining the company of Golden, Mitchell, Mukuba, Bond, Holmes, and Moore this season.

Endries arrives as the No. 58 overall prospect in the On3 Industry Ranking. A productive tight end at Cal with 1030 yards and 91 catches split across two seasons, Endries steps right into an opportunity to be the Longhorns’ tight end starter. If Ja’Tavion Sanders and Gunnar Helm are anything to go by, the chance for Endries to be instant impact and live up to his top-100 rankings is there.

For Watson, he joins as the highest ranked defensive tackle from a five-man DT class. Watson was ranked as the No. 94 overall prospect and the No. 5 defensive lineman out of the portal. A freshman All-American who played up and down Syracuse’s line in 2024, Watson is a likely starter alongside fellow transfers like Cole Brevard or Travis Shaw or even second year player Hero Kanu.

Texas only having two transfer portal prospects in the top 100 shouldn’t be seen as an indication of a poor portal class. After all, the Longhorns have stacked several top five high school classes on top of each other and aside from pre-portal defensive tackle and tight end, the depth is in good to great shape at every position. The need to dive into the portal for bulk is not one Texas has across its roster.

It also took a couple of years for Texas to make this the trend for its transfer portal players. In 2022, Texas added Quinn Ewers, Isaiah Neyor, Jahleel Billingsley, and Agiye Hall from the top 100. Ewers is the only tremendous success from that group.

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But now that the trend is in existence, it’s up to Watson and Endries to keep it going. Based off their fit, the odds aren’t bad for the two additions from the ACC.