Four Longhorns listed as top-50 prospects for the upcoming NFL Draft

That’s right folks, it’s about to be NFL Draft season.

[BOOKMARK: Check Inside Texas daily for FREE Texas Longhorns content]

While the final two spots of the 2025 NFL Draft are decided two Sundays from now when either the devil or maybe something even worse, the Philadelphia Eagles, will become NFL champions, most other fans are looking forward to the most important stage of the NFL offseason: the draft.

With the CFB season over, there’s little more to learn about these prospects outside of reanalyzing the tape and looking at measurements in places like the combine or the Senior Bowl, but even those showcases seem less and less important in this era of advanced analytics and player tracking.

That’s why when the industries most tapped in analysts release mock drafts and big board’s, you better be listening. Daniel Jeremiah is one of the analysts that’s at the top of the game when it comes to the draft. While many of IT’s readers hated on Mel Kiper when his big board dropped for his lackluster track record, Jeremiah is on the opposite side of the spectrum. He’s a former quarterback, scouted in the NFL for nearly a decade, and has been the NFL’s lead voice around draft season for 12 years. Few people have as much contact with actual NFL war rooms, executives and scouts.

Given all this information, Texas fans are going to be stoked with how his big board that dropped on Tuesday looked.

The Texas Longhorns feature four of the top 50 players on Jeremiah’s big board, including three in the top 25. The only schools that did better in either aspect of this draft were the two hallmarks of the Big 10 and the past two national champions, Michigan and Ohio State. So where do the Longhorns rank?

The first shocker of Jeremiah’s mocks likely came from ranking two tight ends in the top seven, but the second one was seeing Jahdae Barron‘s name at the No. 9 spot. The Thorpe winner came back to school after a great 2023 season to raise his draft stock and win a national championship. While he felt short on the latter, we are already seeing the results of an unbelievable season in Austin in 2024. Here’s what Jeremiah had to say.

Barron is a talented Swiss Army Knife. He aligned outside, in the slot and in the box as a dime linebacker for the Longhorns. He made impact plays in every game I studied. He’s a quicker-than-fast athlete with outstanding eyes and conviction. He’s at his best when he can play off and see through receivers to the quarterback. He reads the QB’s drop and anticipates to beat pass catchers to the ball. He doesn’t waste steps and has outstanding hands. He lacks elite top speed, but he’s always in position and he is excellent at locating/playing the football downfield. He has good timing and feel as a blitzer. He can adjust from pass to run defense to collect tackles. His batting average as a tackler in space is very high. Overall, Barron excels at taking the ball away and reminds me of Brian Branch when he was coming out of Alabama.  

With Jeremiah ranking Travis Hunter as a wide receiver, Barron is his CB1 in the class. Michigan’s Will Johnson is a player that many expect to rank over Barron, but Jeremiah has many question marks surrounding him. Johnson has poor deep speed and struggles to tackle. This paired with a season riddled with injury has really hurt his stock, and may make Barron a top cornerback in the draft.

The next highly ranked Longhorn isn’t a surprise, its offensive tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. Banks is ranked 19th, one of the lowest places you’ll see him, but from his critique of Banks it more seems that Jeremiah is higher on others, not lower on Banks.

“When he struggles, it’s because he sets up too deep or his feet settle too early,” Jeremiah said.

Banks is still Jeremiah’s second-highest-ranked tackle, but he would be his third-best interior offensive lineman if he ends up working at guard at the higher level.

Rounding out the three top-25 players is Matthew Golden, the big play wide receiver who has worked his way from a bottom-half Big 12 kick returner to a potential first rounder in just one season in Austin. Golden was the Longhorns best weapon in 2024, and Golden’s spot as the No. 24 player in the class makes him the WR3 behind Hunter and Tetairoa McMillan. That’s above preseason first-round locks like Emeka Egbuka and Luther Burden. Golden’s tape jumps off the screen, especially late in the season, and a sub 4.4 40 yard dash would make him a dream for teams like the Steelers, Broncos, Chargers or even Commanders.

Lastly, defensive tackle Alfred Collins is the final player on Jeremiah’s list. He is one of seven defensive tackles in Jeremiah’s top 50, similar to how seven DTs (two of which were Longhorns) were top-50 picks last season. Jeremiah calls Collins a dominant run defender with great size, but his ceiling may be as a two-down player.

Texas’ has yet another great crop of draft picks for 2024, similar to 2023’s class with Byron Murphy, Xavier Worthy, T’Vondre Sweat, Jonathon Brooks, Adonai Mitchell and others who were outside of the top 52. What’s possibly the most impressive part about this class is that while Texas has four top-50 pick players, there’s potential for players like Cam Williams and Gunnar Helm, or even preseason stars Quinn Ewers and Isaiah Bond, to be picked in the first two rounds. It’s not likely, but there’s a world where 10 Longhorns could be drafted in the first two days of the draft.

[Join Inside Texas TODAY and get 7 days for just ONE DOLLAR!]

What a difference from 2021.