Texas football targeting former FSU transfer DB Jaiden Lars-Woodbey?

First-year Texas football defensive coordinator/safeties coach Chris Ash looks to be in contact with a potential transfer targets in Jaiden Lars-Woodbey.

There’s more news concerning the Texas football program coming out of the NCAA Transfer Portal this week. Texas is set to lose a good portion of their depth on both sides of the ball next offseason, depending on how early declarations for the 2021 NFL Draft shake out. But a key area of depth loss next offseason is likely to be at the safety position.

Junior standout safety and former five-star recruit Caden Sterns is likely to leave for the 2021 NFL Draft after he opted out of the rest of the 2020 season following the Longhorns Black Friday/Senior Day loss back on Nov. 27 to the Iowa State Cyclones. Texas could also lose senior safety Chris Brown next season, but we’ll see if he sticks around since he won’t lose a year of eligibility from playing this fall.

Moreover, one of the recent names to show up out of the transfer portal in connection with the Longhorns of late at the safety position is the former Florida State Seminoles highly coveted four-star recruit and redshirt sophomore Jaiden Lars-Woodbey. According to a Horns247 report (paid content) on Dec. 10, Lars-Woodbey was “in contact” with Texas very soon after putting his name into the transfer portal roughly one week ago.

Texas apparently has a good connection with Lars-Woodbey so far. He stated in this Horns247 report that he would “love to be committed by Christmas”, granted it didn’t mention a specific school. He also apparently had good connection with the Texas coaching staff.

Lars-Woodbey would certainly bring a potent and athletic presence to the Texas secondary. In his bits and pieces of three years playing at Florida State, he registered 106 combined tackles, seven tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, no interceptions, nine pass breakups, one forced fumble, and one fumble recovery.

Playing in eight games with the Noles this season before putting his name in the transfer portal, Lars-Woodbey registered 28 combined tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, no sacks, and one pass breakup.

Coming out of St. John Bosco High School in Fontana, CA, during the 2018 recruiting cycle, Lars-Woodbey was a highly touted four-star safety recruit that was an integral part of Florida State’s signing class. He ranked as the nation’s No. 35 2018 high school prospect, No. 4 safety, and No. 5 prospect out of California (247Sports Composite).

And the Top247 ranked him as the nation’s No. 55 high school prospect, No. 6 safety, and No. 7 prospect out of California.

Ironically enough, two of the just three safety prospects that ranked ahead of Lars-Woodbey during the 2018 cycle were Sterns and junior defensive back B.J. Foster.

Texas just finished up their regular season, with the Kansas Jayhawks game scheduled for Dec. 12 cancelled, with a record of 6-3 (5-3 Big 12). If they do lose Brown and Sterns at safety heading into the offseason, then it would likely be some combination of sophomore Tyler Owens, Foster, freshman Jerrin Thompson,and redshirt junior Montrell Estell that would compete for the starting jobs next year.