Texas Football: 5 important transfer portal targets for March

5) Important Texas football portal targets in March

The first name up on the list is one that college football fans in general should be familiar with in the former “Last Chance U” star at Independence Community College in Kansas, defensive lineman Emmit Gooden. As one of the most highly rated recruits ever to come out of a school featured on Netflix’s Last Chance U, Gooden was a player a lot of people were rooting for once he took his talents to a Power Five school.

After landing with the Tennessee Volunteers and now former head coach Jeremy Pruitt as a very highly touted four-star JUCO recruit during the 2018 recruiting cycle, Gooden played in just one year in the SEC East. Gooden missed all of the 2019 season due to injury issues, and then was dismissed from the team last offseason.

Now Gooden’s name is in the transfer portal, and if any off-the-field/injury issues are cleared up at this point in time then he could be a target for Sark and the Longhorns. Although, it would be a pretty good sized risk that Sark would be taking if he were to bring on Gooden, given his past track record of off-the-field and/or injury issues.

The risk could be worth the reward, though, given some of Texas’ depth needs in the front seven, and how much potential Gooden flashed during the 2018 season with the Vols. During that one season that Gooden did play in with Tennessee, he registered 33 combined tackles (17 solo and 16 assisted), 7.5 tackles for loss, and one sack, in 10 games played.