Urban Meyer: 'It's hard to say Texas doesn't have the best roster in college football right now'

Urban Meyer is buying stock in Texas ahead of the 2023 college football season. The former Ohio State and Florida coach believes Longhorns roster is loaded with talent and warned fans not to “sleep” on them in a recent episode of Urban’s Take with Tim May.

Not only that, but Meyer put Texas in a league of its own heading into this season.

“I think Texas, you didn’t mention them, but, you know, don’t sleep on Texas this year,” he said. “Man for man, roster against roster, it’s hard to say Texas doesn’t have the best roster in college football right now.”

Expectations are typically high for Texas in the preseason, though the Longhorns have often failed to deliver over the past decade-plus. They have suffered five losing seasons and reached 10 wins only once since appearing in the BCS national championship in 2009. In two years under coach Steve Sarkisian, Texas finished 5-7 and 8-5, respectively.

Now entering his third season, Sarkisian will hope the returning talent along with new faces can enable the Longhorns to take another step forward toward officially being “back.”

Texas loses running backs Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson to the NFL but also brings in five-star freshman CJ Baxter Jr. He joins quarterback Arch Manning, the nation’s No. 1 recruit, as one of four five-stars in the class along with linebacker Anthony Hill and receiver Johntay Cook II. The Longhorns 2023 class ranked third in the country according to the On3 Industry Team Ratings.

It’s typically hard for freshmen to see the field no matter their talent, however, and if Texas does find success it will likely be because of what it brings back. There’s no name bigger among those than last year’s starting quarterback Quinn Ewers.

The No. 1-ranked quarterback in the 2021 class, Ewers transferred to Austin last season following a one-year stint as a backup at Ohio State. He won the starting job over Hudson Card and finished with 2,177 yards passing, 15 touchdowns and six interceptions in 10 games.

Ewers has a talented group of returning pass catchers to throw to that includes his top three targets from last season: Xavier Worthy, Jordan Whittington and tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders. All three players finished with at least 600 yards receiving as Worthy led the way with 60 catches for 760 yards and nine touchdowns.

Texas also added former Georgia receiver AD Mitchell through the transfer portal. He appeared in just six games this past season with the Bulldogs but had 29 catches for 426 yards and four TDs as a true freshman in 2021.

All that in mind, it’s not hard to see why Urban Meyer believes Texas to have the best roster in college football. The Longhorns were already one of the Big 12’s top scoring offenses last season with 34.5 points per game and could potentially be even more explosive in the passing game in Ewers’ second year as starter.

Not only that, but with the talented crop of incoming freshmen, the future is bright as well.