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Who will Texas honor at senior day? We'll find out later in the week

Joe Cookby: Joe Cook12 hours agojosephcook89

Senior members of the Texas Longhorns football team will be honored ahead of the final home game of the 2025 season versus Texas A&M on Friday. But according to the Texas game notes, we don’t know exactly who will be honored during pregame festivities.

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Texas’ Monday game notes read: “On (Friday), Texas will celebrate Senior Day to honor this year’s senior class. A list of those being honored will be provided closer to game day.”

The eligibility relief provided by the NCAA in light of the COVID-19 pandemic has just about phased out of the sport, making senior day a little more cut and dried. However, Texas has allowed players with years of eligibility remaining to go through senior day festivities. In 2023, Alfred Collins, Jake Majors, and Jahdae Barron were among the players honored but all three returned for 2024 using the COVID year. So was Kitan Crawford, who used his COVID season at Nevada last year.

Texas also honored true junior Byron Murphy in 2023. He could have come back for the 2024 season but entered the draft early on his way to a first-round selection by the Seattle Seahawks.

So who do we know is out of eligibility barring any other unforeseen NCAA legal losses? Of scholarship players…

What about Hero Kanu? He is listed by Texas as a senior, but he does have a year of eligibility remaining. A member of Ohio State’s 2022 signing class, Kanu redshirted in 2022, played 11 games during his redshirt freshman season in 2023 then appeared in 15 games in 2024 with the national champion Buckeyes. Despite the senior listing, Kanu could come back. He should probably be listed as a junior. Will he go through senior day honors?

“I haven’t decided that yet,” Kanu said Monday. “I’m going have to talk Coach Sark and everybody this week. We’ll find out on Friday.”

What about draft eligible juniors? Though it’s not as common, some players who know they will be entering the draft after the season, like Murphy in 2023, get their literal flowers ahead of the final home game of the regular season.

The list of draft eligible juniors are…

Talented programs like Texas will have early-entrant players, and the Longhorns have a few candidates for the 2026 NFL Draft like Hill, Muhammad, and McDonald. Some of these players could also know their time on the 40 Acres is ending will relish their last home games as Longhorns before finding another place to play for their senior year, though that number is likely small from the list above.

Any draft eligible sophomores?

There’s little out there to indicate any of those players are going to take their talents to the next level after this year. Plus, it would be unlike Texas to honor a redshirt sophomore on senior day. A junior who isn’t sure of next year’s plans? Sure, they’ll highlight those players. Anyone younger is typically excluded.

Of course, there is more to the program than just scholarship players. The senior walk-on corps, players who have been with Texas and Sarkisian since the beginning of the program’s rise to the upper level of college football, will hear the cheers from DKR on Friday, too. They are…

Texas’ list could change plenty. There have been a decent amount of late adds to the list of honorees just to ensure players who have contributed to Texas but with uncertain futures are not left unrecognized.

Thirteen are sure to celebrate their final home game this Friday. Who joins them will be worth watching.

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