Which players will be the hardest to replace from the 2024 Texas Longhorns?

Nearly two weeks after Texas’ unfortunate College Football Playoff semifinal loss to eventual champions Ohio State, Steve Sarkisian and his staff know exactly where their current roster stands ahead of the Spring transfer portal and offseason workouts.

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The Longhorns had many players that fans knew were leaving for the draft because of a lack of future eligibility, but few teams had as many early declarations as the Longhorns. This can be expected when elite teams bring in elite talent, but that doesn’t mean it will be any easier for Texas to replace these key pieces.

The Longhorns have over 20 players eligible for the NFL Draft, but in this case, we’ll only be looking at the starters that will be most difficult to replace. This doesn’t include players like Jermayne Lole, Jaydon Blue or David Gbenda, who will be hard to replace in their own right, but depth pieces are often ones that are churned throughout the college football cycle.

Texas had 23 players play over 500 snaps in 2024, with 13 expecting to be drafted in the 2025 NFL Draft. While this level of retainment isn’t ideal, it’s much better than programs like Ohio State or even Oregon which relied on many upperclassmen to carry them on deep playoff runs.

So, of these 13 players Texas is losing to the draft, which will be on the harder side to replace?

The two easier tiers are found here.

Tier 3: Tears Are Starting to be Shed

C Jake Majors: No single player embodies the Longhorn brand better than Majors. Now the all-time leader in starts for the university, the gritty leader has been the team’s starting center for four years now, making it a position that Sarkisian has never had to worry about. Majors is the No. 5 C on the ESPN big board and a lot of questions surrounding how good Cole Hutson will be as the center in 2025. It will feel weird seeing another player snapping the ball in 2025, and every NFL team could benefit from adding a human being and leader like Majors.

S Andrew Mukuba: Where do Texas fans rank Mukuba among Texas best players in 2024? One could argue that he was as high as the Longhorns third-best player over the course of his only season in Austin, making him an objectively difficult player to replace. Similar to Sorrell, however, Texas’ young safety room is ready to allow more players to step into bigger roles. Michael Taaffe is returning, Derek Williams will be healthier, and Jelani McDonald is already a stud. That doesn’t even include Xavier Filsaime, Jonah Williams and Jordon Johnson-Rubell. The safety position will be fine, but none of these guys play the way, and at the level, that Mukuba did.

Look for potential weaknesses in 2025 and the ir

Tier 4: Potential Weaknesses in 2025

TE Gunnar Helm: Helm was one of the steadiest pieces of the 2024 Longhorn team, registering 786 yards and seven touchdowns in a breakout year. Texas is losing one of the top five TEs in college football, a guy who likely will be a day two draft pick, and is looking at a much shallower depth chart at the position. Juan Davis is gone and Amari Niblack transferred, which means the Longhorns will need a lot from four-star sophomore Jordan Washington and three-star redshirt sophomore three-star Spencer Shannon. This could be a position that struggles in the SEC in 2025.

WR Matthew Golden: There’s not a single Longhorn who upped his draft stock more over the course of the year than Golden did. Originally seen as a two-year transfer, Golden declared early after posting 570 yards in his final six games and could go as high as the first round in late April. Golden is three tiers above Bond for a few reasons. First, he was just the better receiver. Secondly, the hope was for him to return, so there is a lack of depth behind him. Third, Texas has not yet added a WR in the portal. The Z wide receiver position in 2025 will either be filled by a late transfer, a true freshman, or a redshirt freshman four-star like Aaron Butler or Parker Livingstone, both of which haven’t caught a pass for the Longhorns.

DTs Alfred Collins and Vernon Broughton: It would feel wrong not to group these two together. Both key recruiting wins in the 2020 recruiting class, Collins and Broughton turned into an elite defensive tackle duo in 2024 in late breakout years for both. They were the SEC’s best defensive tackle duo, and arguably the best duo in the nation outside of Michigan’s two first-round picks. Replacing that is never going to be easy, but Kenny Baker and the Texas staff have done well to add defensive tackle depth for 2025. Texas has added two transfers in Cole Brevard and Travis Shaw, and the 2025 recruiting class features Justus Terry, the No. 2 DT in the class, and two other high-level recruits. The Longhorns are looking for more in the portal, too. While Collins was the better of the duo, it may actually be Broughton’s pass rushing that is hardest to replace. Brevard and Shaw are large and can clog the middle, but Broughton’s neutral pass rush ability was extremely impactful for Texas. Alex January will need to step up.

Tier 5: Irreplaceable Stars

CB Jahdae Barron: Words can’t describe what Barron has done for Texas’ defense. The 2024 Thorpe Award winner has played three different positions in his five years in Austin, blossoming into one of the nation’s best DBs and one of the team’s most vocal leaders. Replacing the nation’s best cornerback, and a potential first-round pick, is almost impossible one-for-one, but at least the Longhorns have some help on the boundary. Malik Muhammad returned and could be an early round draft pick in 2026, and Kobe Black is the exact type of talent you hope to be able to step into the starting role. Still, it’s hard to argue any position is taking a bigger talent hit than that field side cornerback spot.

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LT Kelvin Banks: Banks is one of Sarkisian’s biggest success stories and a perfect blueprint for OL coach Kyle Flood‘s recruiting pitch. Banks was a day one starter at one of the hardest positions in the sport, and yet he never seemed frazzled or that the moments were too big for him. From locking down Will Anderson in the second start of his career to giving up just one sack in 2024, Banks is the best player that Sarkisian has ever recruited. He’s going to be a top-15 pick in the NFL Draft and is a nearly irreplaceable talent. Thankfully for Texas, Trevor Goosby looked fantastic in relief at both left and right tackle in 2024, but expecting Goosby to be even 80% of what Banks was at Texas would be rash. For both left tackle and cornerback Texas won’t be bad in 2025, but there will be a Barron and Banks shaped hole that hasn’t been there for three years.