Texas Football: 3 burning questions heading into training camp

2. How will players that are back from the portal going to mix in?

It looked like Texas was going to run out of luck when they were losing defensive backs left and right earlier in the offseason. They lost the likes of rising junior defensive back and former highly touted four-star recruit Anthony Cook and rising redshirt senior cornerback Donovan Duvernay to the transfer portal at different points of this offseason.

And Texas seemingly lost rising redshirt junior cornerback Kobe Boyce for good, as he retired from football entirely due to mental health and depression reasons.

Due to all of this, it made sense why Texas might’ve had to look to either the transfer portal or other areas of the current roster to make up for lost depth in the defensive backfield, just like the running back room. But that didn’t materialize in the end since the Longhorns at least got Cook back to the Forty Acres and they also landed a solid retroactive addition to the 2020 recruiting class with the former four-star Baylor Bears cornerback commit Jahdae Barron.

Cook was not the only player that said he was either entering the transfer portal, or saying that he would not participate in team activities, for the Longhorns that is back in the mix now. Rising junior linebacker Juwan Mitchell could be a key starter for the defense this fall, and he’s apparently back for summer workouts now. Last season, Mitchell registered 37 total tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, three sacks, and four pass deflections.

Rising junior wide receiver Brennan Eagles and junior linebacker/former converted safety DeMarvion Overshown also appear to be back at practice/workouts. This is big for the Longhorns, and these players are much needed for the team to elevate their play in the Big 12 this fall.