Texas Football: Where Longhorns ranked among top 10 Big 12 players

Not many excuses exist for head coach Tom Herman and his Texas football program if they underachieve again this coming season.

This could be a special season for the Texas football program, depending on how the rest of this tumultuous offseason shakes out in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Texas is bringing back a very talented roster chocked full of experienced and proven former four and five-star recruits. But all this talent doesn’t mean that the Longhorns are ensured success.

A rash of players putting their names in the NCAA Transfer Portal this offseason once again is a hurdle that could continue to face Texas. They just lost rising junior defensive back Anthony Cook to the NCAA Transfer Portal earlier this week. The recent statements from junior wide receiver Brennan Eagles and junior linebacker Juwan Mitchell that might hinder their decision to play this fall are also ongoing developments to follow.

Nonetheless, this is a crucial year for Herman and the Longhorns. In the final year of eligibility that rising senior star quarterback Sam Ehlinger has in his college career, Texas needs to make the most of it. He’s not the only one that could be in their final year on the Forty Acres that can help propel this team to new heights too.

A recent piece from Brandon Marcello of 247Sports detailed some of those top Longhorns players among the rest out of the Big 12. Marcello outlined his opinion of the top 10 best players in the Big 12 for the looming 2020 season. And he included two Longhorns in the top 10. That included Ehlinger at No. 2 and rising junior offensive tackle Sam Cosmi at No. 5.

Here’s what this piece had to say on the placement of Cosmi.

"The player set to make perhaps the biggest leap in the Big 12 is not a skill player. That man is Texas left tackle Samuel Cosmi. The 6-foot-7, 310-pounder is nimble on his feet (just look at his 12-yard touchdown run, the first ever by a Texas offensive lineman, last season against West Virginia) and is a quick striker with his hands on the left side of the line.Cosmi picked up second-team All-Big 12 honors last season but should be a first-teamer in 2020. He might also be a first-rounder in the NFL Draft, which would give Texas its first, first-round representative from the offensive line since 2002.The junior leads an experienced offensive line and with former Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich now on the staff leading the play-calling, look for the Longhorns’ offense to be more explosive as well as continuing to dominate opponents in the trenches this season."

Cosmi should be one of the very best offensive linemen not just in the Big 12, but in the entire country this fall. He’s fairly widely considered a consensus projected first round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, if he declares early after this season.

And here’s more on why this piece from 247 included Ehlinger in the No. 2 spot.

"He threw into a “tight window at one of the 25 highest rates” in 2019, and managed to finish third in the country in that category, according to Pro Football Focus.What does that mean? Is Ehlinger simply causing himself more trouble than needed by taking off, running and throwing late in plays as defensive backs recover? Or is he extending the plays and bailing the Longhorns’ receivers out as they find room thanks to the extended time provided by Ehlinger’s feet?He threw for 3,553 yards, the second-most in the conference last season, and led the way with 32 touchdowns to go along with 10 interceptions."

The only player in the Big 12 that ranked ahead of Ehlinger on this list was rising redshirt junior superstar Oklahoma State Cowboys running back Chuba Hubbard. And Hubbard was the only returning player to the Big 12 this fall that was in the top 10 in the final Heisman voting last year.

To round out the top five, Oklahoma Sooners center Creed Humphrey placed at No. 3, and Iowa State Cyclones star quarterback Brock Purdy at No. 4. Texas will have a load to deal with on defense this season against the likes of Purdy and Hubbard, but they do have a lot of talent coming back to support them in that mission.