The Texas Longhorns’ championship window remains wide open in 2025 and beyond

I wrote an article last year assessing Texas’ three-year championship window. Year one is in the books, with Texas narrowly missing the title game after losing to Ohio State—the deserved national champions—in the semifinals.

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First, I expect Texas to be in national title contention as long as Steve Sarkisian is the head coach and Texas has a committed and intelligent NIL plan. The window could very well still be three years—especially after Sark just landed the No. 1 recruiting class—it’s just impossible to project the future after Arch Manning, Anthony Hill, Colin Simmons, and so many other early-round NFL talents cycle through the program.

Currently, we’re able to work with much fuller information. That information, which includes how open the title chase is this season, remains favorable for Texas.

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Two Years of Arch

The No. 1 reason Texas has a three-year championship window is because Sark had Manning following Quinn Ewers. Not many programs can assert that much clarity. Under Ewers’ guidance, the program took some major steps but fell just short. Manning simply needs to pick up where Ewers left off.

Texas is fortunate that it’s much more likely Manning will play two full college seasons rather than one.

My personal position is Manning is everything he’s hyped up to be—and then some. He may be good enough to make up for Texas not being national championship caliber in another aspect of the game.

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The Defense Is Loaded

Pete Kwiatkowski had been building up to last year’s success since he inherited a below-average talent base upon his arrival in Austin. Due to not insignificant issues like money-down defense and cohesion in pass coverage, it flew under the radar just how much Texas’ defense was improving year over year. The 2022 defense was pretty good—it almost never gave up a big play. The 2023 defense gave up too many big plays through the air but was otherwise good, or downright great (run defense). It all came together in 2024, and judging by talent accumulation, it’s going to stay that way.

There will always be star players to replace. Hill and Malik Muhammad will depart after this year. Simmons will only play three years. That doesn’t matter—at the current rate, they’ll be replaced by very good players.

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Overall Talent

This two-year window is comprised of players signed in the 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and, for one season, the 2026 cycle. That equates to the No. 5, No. 2, No. 6, and No. 1 classes. We don’t know how 2026 will finish, but top 3 is the most likely outcome.

Due to the overall depth of these classes, the talent level of the roster goes far beyond the current big names. The combination of thorough evaluation and very strong development is nearly empirical at this time. Let’s use the NFL Draft as a measurement. After the draft later this month, Texas will have had more players drafted in the last two drafts than any other school.

That is not going to change within this window.

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Portal and Roster Cycles

No matter how well you recruit the high school ranks, any school with championship aspirations must augment its roster with players from the portal—or, as they’re known on IT, imPorts. For all the talk about deficits and surpluses these days, Texas has operated on a massive, massive trade surplus. Texas has probably done better than any other program at consistently using the portal to enhance its roster. Other schools tend to move in boom-or-bust cycles.

Texas is already in strong contention to win it all this upcoming season, but the next couple of weeks of portal madness should only improve its chances of winning it all.

Texas’ sustained commitment to the portal is why there was a championship window in 2024 to begin with.

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Closing

The case for the championship window is as strong as ever, thanks to having a top QB1, excellent recruiting, and a smart and aggressive plan when it comes to the portal. These are aspects that are likely to sustain beyond the window—even having a top QB1—but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.