Steve Sarkisian encouraged by depth at wide receiver for Texas

The Texas Longhorns are going to need to find a way to replace plenty of talent in the wide receiver room that’s moved onto the NFL. Luckily, at this point, head coach Steve Sarkisian has been encouraged by the team’s depth at wide receiver.

Following the Spring Game, Sarkisian praised the wide receivers for how they performed and explained that with a young group it was good that the production came from multiple players.

“Silas Bolden will get here after Memorial Day,” Steve Sarkisian said. “I saw a lot of different guys make plays today, which I think was encouraging. You never know how a rotation and what it could look like in April what it’s gonna look like come September. But the positive thing is a lot of guys made plays from the frontline guys to some of the true freshmen who showed up. Quite frankly, walk-ons made some big time catches today.”

Steve Sarkisian and Texas are looking to replace several key wide receivers. That includes Xavier Worthy and Adonai Mitchell, who combined for 130 receptions for 1,859 yards, and 16 touchdowns in the passing game last season. Between those two players, that was 35 percent of the team’s total receptions, 46 percent of receiving yards, and 64 percent of receiving touchdowns from 2023.

“So, I think that’s a sign of confidence in a room that they’re growing and they believe in Coach [Chris] Jackson and what we’re doing. But it gives me a sense of we’re gonna have more than just a couple guys that we can rely on that are going to be comfortable making plays because that’s what a Spring Game does for me. This game, probably more importantly for that receiver room, there weren’t many guys who had caught passes in DKR in front of fans on our team,” Sarkisian said.

“So, how were they gonna respond? How were they gonna play? So, for those guys to make some catches, make some plays, and some big plays especially at critical moments, there were a lot of third down catches in there. I think that’s something that we can build upon.”

This offseason, Steve Sarkisian has hit the Transfer Portal, adding Matthew Bolden, Silas Bolden and Isaiah Bond from the portal as key wide receiver additions. With that, the Longhorns have options at wide receiver, with 17 players currently listed at the position on the team’s current roster.

Steve Sarkisian shares his message for Ryan Wingo entering summer

Ryan Wingo, a Class of 2024 wide receiver, could be a key piece of the puzzle this season for Texas and Steve Sarkisian recently shared his message to Wingo.

“He’s had one spring in our offense. How he can just keep trying to elevate his comfort level systematically so that he can play as fast as he can play — You can never catch enough footballs. It’s the prerequisite for the position. So just continuing work and catching the ball and then finding his rhythm but the thing about Ryan — I say it a lot about a lot of kids — but he’s an awesome kid,” Sarkisian said.

“He’s got great work ethic. He’s humble and he just shows up every day trying to get better and it showed this spring. He really has come on, and for him to have the way that he played [during the spring game] as his coach, that’s exciting. I wish every guy could have come out and played like that, who continues to work that hard. But just his approach to every day, I think has paid off for him.”