NFL Departures Create Leadership Opportunity for Young Longhorn Stars

Texas has almost 20 players from its 2024 team hoping to pick up their phones and hear the voice of an NFL front office member on the other end this weekend during the NFL draft. For the past two years, most of those players were bona fide leaders on teams that reached back-to-back College Football Playoff semifinals.

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Departures like Jahdae Barron, Kelvin Banks, Quinn Ewers, Jake Majors, Gunnar Helm, and Barryn Sorrell entail that the Longhorns are losing some of the most prominent voices on the team. And with some of the other former Texas stars joining them foregoing their last year of eligibility, it means Texas has to look to younger players to step up and take on meaningful on- and off-field positions in 2025.

That’s been part of the game since Princeton played Rutgers almost over 150 years ago. Juniors and seniors leave, sophomores and freshmen step in. But Texas has a striking number of first- or second-year players that will be asked to play prominent roles for a program with its sights set on a national championship. Forty-eight of the 84 scholarship players currently on the roster are entering their first or second year at Texas. Yet there are players like Ryan Wingo, Alex January, Colin Simmons, TyAnthony Smith, Kobe Black, Christian Clark, Jordan Washington, and Parker Livingstone who will be tasked with significant playing time alongside players like Arch Manning, Trevor Goosby, Quintrevion Wisner, Anthony Hill, Jelani McDonald, DJ Campbell, Trey Moore, and Michael Taaffe as Texas looks to win the fifth national championship in program history.

That type of responsibility can be daunting for younger players, but it can also bring forward an energy in the program. Players like Simmons, Wingo, and Smith who saw significant playing time last year are champing at the bit for more. They’re trying to show others the way. Fifteen-plus departures could be a scary thing, but for Texas it might bring a boost of excitement that spurs something special in 2025.

“With this being the youngest team that we’ve had, that leadership standpoint and that leadership role it’s going to be big,” Simmons recently said on the Pivot.

Simmons was featured alongside Hill during that episode of the Pivot. There’s no question Hill will be one of the upperclassman leaders in 2025. He’ll be joined by Taaffe, who knows he has newfound leadership responsibilities of his own following an All-American season.

No longer are Taaffe’s longtime friends Barron and Andrew Mukuba patrolling the back end with him. Taaffe will have to be a more singular voice this year, but even he recognized last week the positives of youthful exuberance.

“If you have a young team, yes, it’s going to be really difficult to get the playbook down early in spring; to get the culture set early in spring; to get the little minute details early in the spring,” Taaffe said. “The one thing you can’t lose is that everybody’s got juice. Everybody’s hyped. Everybody’s so excited to be at the University of Texas playing the game that they love.”

Hill and Simmons both mentioned that their best advice is for a young player to latch on to one who’s been on the 40 Acres. But there are more players this year without extensive game-action who will be part of critical plans for the upcoming season. They’re excited to step in for players like Helm, Matthew Golden, Isaiah Bond, or Jake Majors and give it their shot. And that excitement is something that even Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian took notice of when speaking this week.

“I love the hunger of this team,” Sarkisian said. “We’re probably a little younger team, but I think that’s a sign of a healthy program too. That means we’ve got players that are moving on for success. The best way to lead is to do right. It’s not what you say, it’s what you do. I think that’s the first thing what we implore upon our younger players. The best way to lead early on in your career is to do right. That’s off the field and that’s on the field.”

For Simmons, that was Freshman All-America honors during a season where he tallied 48 tackles, 14 tackles for loss, 9.0 sacks, one interception, three passes defended, and three forced fumbles. For Wingo, it was 34 touches for 572 yards and two scores. For January, it was meaningful playing time against Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl.

Those are players who will step into larger roles, including bringing others with them. Hill watched Jaylan Ford to see how it was done, then he himself had to do it last year with players like Smith and Liona Lefau. It’s something Simmons will be tasked to do with young stars like Lance Jackson and Smith Orogbo waiting behind him after watching Ethan Burke and Barryn Sorrell shine.

“Naturally, some guys have a different voice than others, but we’ve got some vets that really know how to lead, and they serve as really good models for these younger players of what it looks like,” Sarkisian said.

Hill, Simmons, and a number of the younger players on the 2025 Longhorns have spent their entire high-level football careers in the NIL era dating back to their early years of high school. Even when they weren’t attending classes on the senior high campus, they had an idea of what opportunities were ahead of them.

At a school like Texas with a robust and healthy NIL system in place, that’s admittedly been something beneficial in the process of becoming leaders. Not to say they’ve become mercenary, but it’s another motivation for a college athlete.

“Back in the day, going to workouts was probably harder because it’s like what am I even doing this for?” Hill said. “When you wake up and you know that you’re blessed and you’re in this situation, I’m jumping out of bed going to workouts. I’m ready to run. I don’t have problems doing any of this stuff.”

There will be a mix, of course. Third-, fourth-, and fifth- year standouts like Taaffe, Hill, Manning, Jaylon Guilbeau, DJ Campbell, DeAndre Moore, and others are going to make an impact on this team.

But the youth is ready to shine. Sarkisian regularly gives them their opportunities to do just that during early season games like the ones Texas has after Ohio State with UTEP, San Jose State, and Sam Houston.

Texas is hoping past leadership figure fulfills their dreams of playing in the NFL this weekend, never to suit up in the burnt orange again. Those who still have the opportunity to play in Austin at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium may be a few years behind them, but they have opportunities to do things just as special and earlier in their careers to boot.

Even that has the older players excited.

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“Collect all that stuff that’s really positive that young guys bring, add the veterans that you have, put it together and you’ve got a juiced-up squad,” Taaffe said.