What if's from 2024 that Texas needs to answer in 2025

Every college football season—or game, for that matter—is put under millions of lenses of scrutiny, often making discourse surrounding final results varied and pugnacious.

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Every individual team’s season is marked with thousands of what-ifs. For some, it’s as simple as what if we didn’t make the wrong hire? Oklahoma might be kicking itself for that one. For someone like Alabama, fans know that two downs between the Vanderbilt and Tennessee games separated them from a top-eight seed in the playoff and missing it altogether. Texas has luckily dodged the majority of these problems.

This Texas team didn’t have too much to complain about in the 2025 season. Jahdae Barron ascended from a projected day two pick to a Thorpe winner. Matthew Golden made an even larger jump, and Texas lost just three games to two total teams. You can nitpick the play calls on the goal line against Ohio State or Bert Auburn against Georgia, but that’s not what this exercise is about.

Still, many questions—whether from before the season or the NFL Draft—have become important topics of conversation heading into 2025.

What if Texas had a healthy running back room?

This question can be extended to the season prior with Jonathon Brooks’ torn ACL 1100 yards into the year. Texas entered the season with confidence in its room thanks to rising sophomore CJ Baxter, the No. 1 RB in his class and with the potential to be one of the three best backs in the SEC.

Instead, Texas lost both Baxter and freshman Christian Clark to injury before the season. Rather than entering 2025 with a loaded room of a fully-healthy Baxter, Quintrevion Wisner, and year two versions Clark and Jerrick Gibson, Texas has a group where arguably both of its most talented runners are recovering from season-ending injuries. There have been a lot of positive reports regarding Baxter’s efforts during summer workouts, but those won’t answer every question about his ability to make an impact on the field in 2025.

What if the wide receiver corps played up to expectations?

Yes, Golden was fantastic, but the returns from five of the other six players in the rotation ranged from decent to a complete disappointment. Ryan Wingo performed well as a freshman, and DeAndre Moore Jr. was an adequate slot receiver, but transfers Isaiah Bond and Silas Bolden combined for barely north of 900 all-purpose yards. Bolden mostly turned into a role player, and between injury problems and poor chemistry with Quinn Ewers, Bond was a complete disappointment. That doesn’t even account for Johntay Cook, a former five-star sophomore who was off the team after six games.

Instead of having a core built around a returning Golden (though you have to be happy for his first-round success), Cook, Moore, and Wingo, Texas had to look to the portal and potentially rely on more inexperienced pieces like Parker Livingstone or a freshman. This current corps has a ton of upside, and Emmett Mosely‘s addition did help to alleviate some of the fears, but problems from last year are leaking into questions for 2025.

What if Cam Williams didn’t declare for the draft?

Whether it was preseason hype or poor agent advice that got to him, Cam Williams should’ve never entered the NFL Draft. His projections settled around being a fourth-round pick after his junior season ended. By draft day, he wasn’t even taken until the sixth round.

Williams should’ve stayed for at least his redshirt junior season and grown under offensive line coach Kyle Flood, giving Texas far more stability and depth on the offensive line. While he was far from a star on the right side, Texas would be in a better spot with Williams and Trevor Goosby, with Brandon Baker as OT3, than they are with Goosby and Baker starting and a question mark behind him. It’s good that Williams was able to make his NFL dreams come true, but leaving development opportunity on the table might negatively affect him and his old team.

What if the 2022 class had more hits?

This spans beyond 2024, but it’s important to note given that the 2022 class were juniors last year, with some still entering their senior seasons in Austin. Texas had some hits: Williams, Kelvin Banks, and Jaydon Blue are already in the NFL, but that group of fourth-year players has had a lot of attrition.

Thirteen of the twenty four-stars have already transferred out, and just five total players are expected to start this season from that class. Neto Umeozulu has had to wait until year four despite being a top-five player at his position in that class, and there are still question marks surrounding him. Imagine how this team looks if Terrance Brooks had remained engaged at Texas, or if the Longhorns had properly evaluated the pass catchers or defensive line positions, where Ethan Burke is the only semblance of a success story with the Longhorns.

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No team will ever have perfect luck with injuries or success rates on recruitment and transfers, and overall, Texas has been fairly lucky. The Longhorns kept many potential draftees this cycle and have had generally decent luck with injuries and a great track record with transfers. But if even one of these results had ended up a different way, how much better could an already national title contender be?