ITYT: Recruiting 2025 DT's and 2026 QB's, Nansen's influence, DB improvement

On Monday evening, the Inside Texas panel of Joe Cook, Ian Boyd, Paul Wadlington, and Eric Nahlin took to Inside Texas Football on YouTube to discuss myriad topics concerning your favorite college team.

[Subscribe to the Inside Texas YouTube channel!]

Topics included who could be the 2026 quarterback take, a few team and recruiting questions from Inside Texas readers, defensive tackle recruiting (of course), how to spot Johnny Nansen’s influence, and the passing of Cowboys legend Larry Allen.

2026 QB

It’s down to Florida’s Dia Bell and California’s Troy Huhn. Paul notes how athletic Bell’s father, Raja Bell, was as an NBA guard. Bell had numerous contested interactions defending Kobe Bryant during his years with the Phoenix Suns.

You can certainly see athleticism in Dia’s game that lends itself to play-making. Both Bell and Huhn, a talented pocket passer with a live arm, could announce their choices as soon as this month.

Restoring DBU

IT reader TaylorTRoom asked, “when Texas beat Alabama last year, the starting safeties were Catalon and Thompson. The starting corners were Watts and Brooks. All four are gone (three portals and one to the draft). Is this change what the program wanted? Do we believe our secondary is better?”

The short story is yes and yes. The more detailed reply from the panelists is worth a listen in the video. Numerous factors need to be accounted for when comparing the two units but the 2024 group is better in every way, including athleticism and overall football IQ.

Cohesion and marrying the secondary to the rest of the defense are the main questions going into the season, talent isn’t.

The panel agrees, we’ll know DBU has been restored when 2-3 guys are getting drafted every year.

Johnny Nansen‘s influence

A fiery Ian Boyd shines in this segment as he outlines what to look for to measure Nansen’s influence on the defense. Boyd wonders if we’ll see more Cover 3 or, most interestingly, if we’ll see more opponent specific game plans. Nansen has been known to run entirely different looks from one week to the next predicated on an offense’s vulnerabilities.

Paul Wadlington chimes in with a very simple way to spot Nansen’s influence. Will we see six defensive backs on the field at times instead of five? The lack of using Dime (six DB’s) has frustrated Wadlington during the Pete Kwiatkowski era. Being from San Francisco and now living in Colorado, ‘Dime’ is Paul’s favorite unit of measurement.

D-tackle recruiting

Eric Nahlin tells fans to buckle up for the next couple of months because D-tackle recruiting will be bumpy at times. Currently, the IT staff expects Brandon Brown to de-commit from Texas with LSU being the favorite. In addition, Texas has work to do to make up on one of the top targets in the class, Zion Williams, who will announce on July 4th. Fortunately Texas still has official visits scheduled with each.

Everyone knows this is the biggest need in the 2025 cycle for Texas. Still, Nahlin isn’t worried because this staff has proven over and over it has the ability to A) pull a rabbit out of its hat, or B) recruit players through the whistle and get them to flip.

Make sure to watch through the end to catch the shortest answer ever to a question about a rental car.

This video is brought to you by Gabe Winslow. Call 832-557-1095 or visit his website to start your ideal mortgage process (www.mortgagesbygabe.com)

Join Inside Texas for Market-Leading Texas Longhorns Football coverage!

InsideTexas.com provides just what passionate Texas fans expect: Market-leading coverage of Longhorns athletics and recruiting.

Join the best Texas fan community and receive all the benefits that come with it:

• Elite team and recruiting coverage of the program you love
• Immediate access to any Longhorns break news
• Exclusive insider practice reports and year-round team info as well as board Q&A’s with IT staff
• High level discourse with the most passionate and informed Longhorns fans across multiple board forums.
• Market leading team analysis for those who are looking to increase their understanding of Steve Sarkisian and Pete Kwiatkowski’s preferred concepts
• So much more!

SIGN UP and ensure no Longhorns information gets by you: Join Inside Texas community today!

Talk about this story and many more with fellow Longhorn diehards on the Members Only forum.