Texas Football: 3 best transfer landing spots for LB Byron Vaughns

2) Transfer destinations for Texas football LB Byron Vaughns: Arizona

An off the cuff potential landing spot for Vaughns out of the transfer portal, if he wants to take his talents to a completely new spot around the college football landscape lies in the PAC-12. Former Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin and the Arizona Wildcats have seen plenty of drama take place via the transfer portal in the last couple of years.

Arizona already lost the likes of the Schooler brothers (wide receiver Brenden, and linebacker Colin) to the likes of Texas and the Texas Tech Red Raiders, respectively. They also lost a role player that had a future at defensive end in former three-star recruit Kylan Wilborn this year. A good way that Arizona could replace that depth is with a linebacker that has three years of eligibility remaining like Vaughns.

There’s not a whole lot of talented depth coming the way of the Wildcats in the near future either. Arizona has yet to lock in a single blue chip recruit in their 2021 recruiting class. And their highest rated linebacker commit in the 2021 class is ironically a Texas native in three-star Red Oak outside linebacker Jackson Bailey. But Bailey doesn’t even rank inside the top 1,200 2021 high school prospects in the nation.

While Arizona wasn’t one of the 14 schools that sent Vaughns a scholarship offer coming out of high school, they could be wise to pursue him now in the portal. We’ll see how this year plays out for Arizona once the PAC-12 season begins in around 10 days. But they will likely need help at linebacker next season no matter which way you break it down.

The vital connection that could really help Vaughns land in Tucson with the Wildcats would be former Iowa State head coach Paul Rhoads taking over as their defensive coordinator. One of the strongest relationships that Vaughns had with any assistant on the recruiting trail (beside with the Longhorns staff) was with Rhoads when he was on staff with Arkansas.