How does Texas Football's returning skill production compare against other national title contenders?

A week ago I wrote a story inspired by our very own Eric Nahlin’s takes on the 2025 Texas offensive line, using stats to dive into how Texas’ front five compares to the nation’s top teams.

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In this exercise, Texas was pitted against the other four teams with CFB championship aspirations backed by the betting websites, Ohio State, Georgia, Oregon and Penn State. Each team’s five starting offensive linemen were rated on a scale from 3-15, with 15 points being a perfect college football player. Three categories determined these numbers: experience, talent and on-field production.

The point system looked like this.

The perfect CFB player would be someone entering the year with 2,000 career snaps, a 96+ recruiting rating, and a PFF grade north of 80, or their elite tier. You’re probably never going to find someone with that many snaps at that level of talent returning to college football for another season, so it’s nearly impossible to find that 15 rated player.

Some of our readers asked for another edition of this post, so we’re wrapping up the offense by grouping the quarterback and skill positions to see where Texas stands heading into the spring window which is now just over a month away.

Each team’s lineup will be characterized by seven players: a quarterback, a running back, a tight end, two wide receivers and two flexes. For a team like Texas, those flexes would’ve been players like Ryan Wingo, DeAndre Moore Jr. and Jaydon Blue. But for Georgia, it would’ve been tight ends Lawson Luckie and Ben Yurosek, alongside wide receiver Dominic Lovett. These flex spots are indicative of the system these teams run, and who the talented players that demand playing time will be.

Here’s how Texas lines up:

There are a few things to talk about with how I decided the Texas lineup. I counted CJ Baxter and Quintrevion Wisner as returning starters, as Baxter entered 2024 as the assumed starter, but Wisner was the actual starter for Texas. In Wingo’s case, Isaiah Bond was the starter when healthy, so I didn’t mark him as a returning starter, but wouldn’t mind him being seen as one.

The TE and second flex positions are very up in the air. Jordan Washington could be Spencer Shannon, and Parker Livingstone could be Kaliq Lockett. In fact, I believe Lockett would’ve graded higher in this exercise given his higher recruiting rating, but Eric sees Livingstone as the current starter, so we’re going with that.

As you can see, Arch Manning as well as Wingo, Moore, Baxter and Wisner are seen as very high-level players entering the year, but there is a steep drop after the fifth starter. Here’s how that looks compared to the other teams.

Many of our readers pointed out that years in the program is an important stat to add to this study, but I couldn’t find an easy way to quantify it in the formula. Instead, it is an addition to the total score. A player that transfers in this offseason has the same number of program years as a true freshman: 0.

So what are some takeaways?

Firstly, Penn State’s returners once again show out in this exercise, but in this case, it makes them far and away the highest rated team in this group. They are the only team returning a starting QB, return two All-American level RBs, and Troy transfer WR Devonte Ross is probably the best player out wide the Nittany Lions have had since Jahan Dotson.

I already know what the comments will say about Drew Allar‘s rating. I could say Allar wouldn’t start for Angelo State University and our readers would still say I’m being too kind to him. Here’s the thing: even with his bad showing in the playoff Allar was an 82 rated QB for PFF. He’s a high five-star entering his fourth season in college. The only Big 10 QBs rated higher than him last season were from the 2019 and 2020 recruiting classes. He is going to be one of the better game-manager QBs in CFB, and the rest of his supporting cast will greatly help him out.

Remember how much hate was targeted toward Ryan Day‘s decision to hand the keys to Will Howard for a title run? Allar enters 2025 with more total snaps played, a better PFF grade from a harder conference and has far better downfield throwing traits than Howard. If he’s willing to play more of the power QB role he can 100% lead a championship team.

Even if Allar was rated below Manning, which many people would clamor for, PSU would have the highest rating and the most experience of any team. Their skill position floor is extremely high.

Looking at the rest of this group, you can see the uncertainty of the QB position for Oregon, Ohio State and Georgia. These are all supplemented in different ways. OSU returns by far the best WR duo in the nation in Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate, Oregon added the portal’s best RB, and Georgia has no stars, but a ton of floor raisers with experience in the team.

Once again, however, Texas’ group ends at the bottom. By these calculations, Texas’ 12-man offensive group is the worst of the top five contenders, with Penn State’s experience helping them run away with the title. This does coincide with some of my personal beliefs about this 2025 Texas roster, at least on the offensive side of the ball. Half of the starting Longhorns have never been key contributors, only two returning players eclipse a 69 PFF grade and they haven’t yet added anyone in the portal on offense.

But there is some context that needs to be added to this.

While I don’t expect any of the other four teams to be carried by their quarterback play in 2025, I can see Manning becoming a Heisman trophy winner, a true ceiling raiser. I’m not sure Allar is that, and I definitely don’t think any of Dante Moore, Julian Sayin, or Gunner Stockton are. Manning is starting this season below Allar, but he could easily be the better QB by the end of the year.

Adding to that, Texas is likely the only one of these teams that will be active buyers in the spring portal window. Teams like Oregon and Penn State have some low-rated flexes, but those are from players that were already taken in the portal or are 100 percent assumed to be starters. Texas, on the other hand, has every reason to want to not only bring in competition at WR and TE, but bring in starters.

I mentioned Boise State’s Cameron Camper as someone Texas might want to look at on X when he first entered the portal. He’s an experienced Boise State transfer who had a 75 PFF grade last season. Camper would likely have a score of 10 or 11 out of 15, five points higher than Livingstone. Immediately Texas would leapfrog Oregon and Georgia, and that’s before adding a TE. I personally believe the Longhorns need to be active in the spring window, as the current offensive setup is very volatile.

At the end of the day, these ratings are less about predicting how teams are at the end of the season and more about predicting their early-season floor. Texas plays OSU in week one, and offensively I think Ohio State’s skill positions give them a much higher floor than Texas. In general, their current starting lineup has a combined 3,000 more career snaps than Texas’. But who is to say that Manning can’t roll into The ‘Shoe and dominate a patchworked OSU defense, leaning on the talent of Wingo and Baxter instead of hoping for the floor of Livingstone and Washington not to implode?

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These rankings will be revisited at the end of the year, and I’d predict Texas will look a lot better, given that seven of the Longhorn starters enter the season as underclassmen. Still, the concerns that I have about this team are pretty well outlined by these ratings, but the Longhorns are a spring portal class away from being right there with PSU offensively. And, of course, Texas is rolling out Manning next year, not Allar. That’s already a lot to be excited about.