Texas Football needs to change OL to avoid disastrous 2025 season

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Oct 6, 2025 - 22:00
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Texas Football needs to change OL to avoid disastrous 2025 season

Coming out of the Florida game, it would be easier to list the good things about the Texas offense than the bad things. There are a million different things that could be focused on today, but I’d like to focus on the offensive line. Despite the frustrations elsewhere in the offense, they all stem from the poor play up front. The past weekend, it was one of the worst OL performances Longhorn fans have seen since Sarkisian's first season, when they travelled to Fayetteville. 

Florida has a talented DL, but they had not gotten to the QB much at all prior to Saturday, and just dominated Texas from start to finish. Now, what does Texas do up front to start to fix some of the issues? Changes in the starting five is somewhere they have to start, and they made a change in the middle of the game this weekend. Nick Brooks came in at LG for Connor Stroh, but struggled mightily in pass coverage all afternoon. 

So who does Texas go with? Frankly, it’s hard to say they have a group of five linemen that are going to be “great” or even “good” this year. That doesn’t mean you can’t make it work with what you have. One place to start, in my opinion, would be allowing Neto Umeozulu to see more of the field. There has been an ongoing conversation about whether he is “in the doghouse” but doghouse or not, stones need to start being overturned to find the best group. 

The other, and maybe more important, piece of this is the approach from the Texas offense. It’s fairly clear this group of OL cannot run the offense entirely the way Steve Sarkisian and company would like. That means you have to play “around” them in some ways. That means getting the ball out of Arch Manning’s hands fast, getting out of “jumbo” personnel and spreading out defenses. It’s going to be nearly impossible for this unit to be a true “strength” for Texas, but it doesn’t have to be a glaring hole. 

Everyone is going to have different theories on how to fix this group, and mine is no more valuable than anyone else's. The one that matters is Steve Sarkisian’s, and he better get it in a much better spot, whether with personnel or scheme, by Saturday or Texas is going to fall to .500 on the season. Inserting Umeozulu, sliding Hutson back to G, swapping OT options are all on the table. 

Looking forward, it’s hard to say the Texas OL will really turn it around this season. It’s hard to look at the group on Saturday and think they are going to just start pushing people around. It’s going to be a balancing act of finding the right guys and putting them in winning positions. If they can’t do that starting this weekend, this team could very well be heading towards a 7-win season. One way or another, it’s fair to say we will see a very different approach to the portal around this position this offseason.

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This article originally appeared on Longhorns Wire: Urgent changes mandatory for failing Texas Football offensive line

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