3 post-spring transfer portal losses that will hurt for Texas football

Jordon Thomas, EDGE/DE

Texas experienced two losses to the transfer portal among younger edge rushers/defensive ends in the last few days. Those two Texas edge rushers that entered the portal post-spring-ball were rising redshirt freshman David Abiara and fellow freshman Jordon Thomas.

But Thomas looks to be the more impactful of these two transfer losses for the Longhorns in terms of the long-term implications for this position group. Thomas had a high upside and looked like he could be a year or two away from solidifying a spot in the two-deep among the edge rushers for Pete Kwiatkowski.

Texas losing the 6-foot-3 and 270-pound Thomas leaves Kwiatkowski and the defensive coaching staff one more player short post-spring ball along the defensive front. This wasn’t a very strong position group for Texas as is coming out of spring ball. Losing Thomas does at least add another question mark in terms of the depth at this spot.

It wouldn’t be as big of a deal for Texas to lose Abiara and Thomas to the transfer portal if they had landed Mathis out of the portal last weekend and secured at least one other proven linebacker commit at this point of the offseason.

But that is not the case for the Longhorns staff, who now have even more pressure on them to find help along the defensive front in a number of different spots out of the portal following the conclusion of spring camp.

It will be important for Texas to hit on this last major wave of transfer portal entrants among linebackers and edge rushers at the conclusion of spring ball around the college football landscape.