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Trey Owens, KJ Lacey step into new roles in Texas' quarterback room in 2025

Joe Cookby:Joe Cook•04/09/25•

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Trey Owens
Trey Owens (Will Gallagher/Inside Texas)

While Arch Manning justifiably is the subject of a lot of press surrounding the Texas Longhorns quarterback position, his ascension to the starting role means there are new faces at the second- and third-string spots.

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The other two scholarship quarterbacks on roster for the 2025 Texas Longhorns are redshirt freshman Trey Owens and true freshman early enrollee K.J. Lacey. Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian was asked about both on Tuesday.

Starting with Owens, Sarkisian said: “Trey feels like year two. It makes a little more sense and it’s a little more smooth. We’re fighting for consistency with him, which is pretty much across the board as a team. Trying to stack plays, stack periods of practice, ultimately stack practices on top of one another.”

Owens, listed at 6-foot-5, 225 pounds out of Houston (Texas) Cy-Fair, played in three games last year. He appeared as the third-stringer behind Quinn Ewers and Manning in contests versus UTSA and ULM. Owens’ Texas roster page also lists an appearance versus Georgia in the SEC Championship game. He was 2-for-4 for 19 yards and also rushed once for three yards.

Owens biggest public splash was in the 2024 Orange-White game. He was 14-for-21 for 228 yards with three touchdowns, helping his Orange team eek out a 35-34 victory over Manning’s White squad.

Listed at 6-foot-0 and 182 pounds, Lacey earned Mr. Football honors in Alabama in 2024. He won one state championship at Saraland in Alabama’s highest classification in 2022 and finished as state runner-up in 2023 and 2024 for the Spartans. In his prep career, he was 624 for 951 with 9883 yards and 123 touchdowns to 20 interceptions. He also rushed for 11 career touchdowns.

Lacey, who enrolled in January, was ranked as the No. 235 overall prospect, the No. 18 quarterback, and the No. 13 player in Alabama in the 2025 On3 Industry Ranking. On3 ranked Lacey as the No. 39 quarterback and the No. 16 player in Alabama.

“KJ, natural ability,” Sarkisian said about Lacey. “You see it all. When he knows what to do, it’s a very pretty thing. When he doesn’t know what to do, he looks like a guy in his seventh practice of college football.”

Texas has used or needed multiple quarterbacks in a significant portion of their seasons since Mack Brown took over for John Mackovic. Two-signal callers played in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. The back-up is always one play away from entering, and that one play has happened often in Austin in the past 30 years. Owens and Lacey have to be ready to play if their number is called, just as Manning was in 2024.

That said, Texas is in no rush to determine roles for Owens and Lacey. Sarkisian spoke Wednesday about how important development was for not just the young players on the roster, but for everyone. That includes the quarterback position.

Quarterback is the position Sarkisian calls the most important in sports, so development there in AJ Milwee‘s room might take a little bit of priority for the Texas offensive brain trust. Through half of Texas’ allotted spring practices, Sarkisian thinks it’s so far, so good at the quarterback spot behind Manning.

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“I’ll say for both those guys, I think they’re taking the coaching,” Sarkisian said. “As you guys know, we coach that position very hard. But they’re responding to that, which is good.”

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