Ochaun Mathis picking Nebraska disastrous for Texas football

A loss out of the NCAA Transfer Portal for second-year head coach Steve Sarkisian and new special assistant to the head coach Gary Patterson for the Texas football program managed to arrive on the afternoon of April 30. Texas missed out on a big-time target out of the transfer portal this weekend with the former TCU Horned Frogs two-time All-Big 12 senior edge rusher/defensive end Ochaun Mathis committing to head coach Scott Frost and the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

For a good while now, it looked like Mathis was favored to land with the Longhorns over the Huskers ahead of his April 30 decision date. But Texas couldn’t wind up securing this commitment in the end as things really started looking bad for them on the morning of April 30.

There might not be a better and more proven pass rusher that appears in the transfer portal for the rest of the offseason that Texas has a realistic shot at landing than Mathis either. That’s why missing out on his commitment hurts so much.

Texas football whiffs badly in the portal with Ochaun Mathis committing to Nebraska

Texas also likely passed up on other pass rushers out of the portal that could still make an impact, despite potentially not measuring up to an EDGE player of this caliber, to really prioritize Mathis.

It was hard to find a bigger transfer portal target following the conclusion of spring ball for Sark and the Longhorns staff than Mathis. He was going to be able to help fill a big need along the defensive front for Texas. This defense needed to bolster the pass rush coming out of spring camp.

But Sark and co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Pete Kwiatkowski will now have to find another way to address this need along the defensive front. Mathis was going to be able to really upgrade this defensive front for this coming season.

There’s no clear answer as to where Sark, Kwiatkowski, and the Longhorns go from here. The hope has to be that they can find another answer among pass rushers currently in the portal. But that might not wind up being a very promising endeavor for this coaching staff.

We will continue to dig into this matter as more pass rushers emerge in the portal ahead of the spring deadline for immediate eligibility on May 1. For now, though, this will be a tough miss on the transfer market for the Longhorns to recover from.