2023 Ultimate College Football Preview-Texas

Welcome to the Ultimate College Football Preview for 2023. Every team in FBS Football will be covered in this daily blog release. All of your favorite teams from the ACC, AAC, Big 12, Big 10, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West, PAC 12, SEC, Sun Belt & even every Independent. Think of these daily college football previews as a cheat sheet going into next year.

2022 Recap:

What to say in this college football preview about the 2022 Texas football season. Hmmm. Texas is BACK? No not yet. Another season were expectations and reality for the Longhorns fell short. They looked like they could have been back, but circumstances and injuries got in the way. Ewers and the Longhorns had Alabama right where they wanted them in the first of their game. The defense was playing lights out and Ewers was gutting the Bama defense. Then he got hurt and Texas lost what could have been the Texas is Back game. They finished the year with 3 more regular season losses and a bowl loss to Washington. All of Texas’ losses were by one score which is why I say almost back. Last year they teased and edged all of college football. The record of 8-4 is not who the Longhorns were, they were much better than that. They just need to finish!

Head Coach:

Coach Steve Sarkisian has been at Texas for 2 years, 2023 being his third. He has to win this year and win big. He is 13-12 overall in Austin and with their crazy fans and boosters that is no where near enough. Sark did prove that his offense was good enough to compete with anyone in the country. I also think he has the right guy in Defensive Coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski to have the Longhorns on top in college football. He held most of the high powered Big 12 offenses under 28 points which in that league is great. Sark has the recruiting knowledge to get his guys like he did with Arch Manning this past year. If the boosters let him go 2 or 3 more years there is a national championship coming from Sarkisian.

Key Players:

Texas has to replace stud running back and first round pick Bijan Robison this year. Last year Robinson had 1,894 yards from scrimmage and 20 total touchdowns. Not only that his backup Roschon Johnson is also in the NFL, he had 682 scrimmage yards and 6 touchdowns from the backfield. The starting job in. the backfield will go to Sophomore Johnathan Brooks who did average 6.6 ypc and had a touchdown in very little time last year. Quinn Ewers is back at QB1 for the Longhorns even with the big recruit in Manning coming in. Last year in 10 games Ewers had a 58.1% completion percentage and threw for 2,177 yards, 15 touchdowns and 6 interceptions. Quinn is a playmaker and has an incredible arm, if he stays healthy and become slightly more accurate he will be in the running for a Heisman this year. Xavier Worthy will be a big part of Ewers being in Heisman contention. The Junior WR is back after having 60 catchers for 760 yards and 9 touchdowns. IF you haven’t seen Worthy take note, he will be balling on Sunday’s soon. He will have a fantastic running mate back in Senior Jordan Whittington . Jordan had 50 catches for 652 yards a touchdown. There are young playmakers all over the depth chart on offense that will help Ewers this year. On defense leading sack man, OLB/DE Barryn Sorrell is back after having 5.5 sacks and 9 TFL’s last season. Leading tackler Senior Jaylan Ford and his 119 tackles, 10 TFL’s, 2 sacks, 4 interceptions, 3 FF and 2 FR is back. This kid is everywhere on film, all he does is make the right play, every play. They have a lot coming back on defense and could be in the top 10 in the country this year.

2023 Prediction:

Looking at Longhorn’s schedule they have 2 easy non-conference wins vs. Rice and Wyoming. Then they have an incredibly tough game @ Tuscaloosa, they will be at worst 2-1 in non-conference this year. Their road conference games are Baylor, Houston, TCU, and Iowa State. The Baylor game will be a great game but they should role the other 3 teams. They just are not on the level of Texas, at worst 3-1 in road games and more than likely 4-0. The home conference games are Kansas State, Texas Tech, Kansas, BYU. Again the Kansas State game will be tough and don’t sleep on Kansas but the shouldn’t lose more than one game at home if any. Then they have the Red River Shootout vs. Oklahoma. That game is usually always a toss up. Texas did blow them out last year, and to be honest I think they win again this year. Taking everything into consideration I like Texas at 11-1 or 10-2 and I think we will finally say they are back. I also don’t think undefeated is off the table. Maybe a top 5 college football preview of 2023.