FAMU EDGE transfer Isaiah Land should be a must-get for Texas football

Much is being made about the recent news in the NCAA Transfer Portal concerning the Texas football program missing on the former TCU Horned Frogs two-time All-Big 12 senior edge rusher/defensive end Ochaun Mathis to the Nebraska Cornhuskers. And that comes with good reason as Texas needed to upgrade the pass rush. Thus, it looked like Mathis was the priority transfer portal target of the spring.

Yet, the defensive coaching staff for the Longhorns came up short yet again with an important transfer portal target on this side of the ball. Texas has made this a pattern so far this offseason to miss on some of their bigger defensive portal targets.

There is a chance to right the ship in this regard coming out of the spring, though. Texas just had a potential key transfer portal target emerge seemingly out of nowhere in the former Florida A&M senior edge rusher and the reigning FCS sack leader Isaiah Land.

Land’s name emerged in the transfer portal just before the spring deadline for immediate eligibility on May 1. And he’s likely going to be one of the most highly sought-after players in the transfer portal entering the summer months now.

Texas football should immediately make FAMU transfer EDGE Isaiah Land a top priority in the portal

Nonetheless, Land should be a priority portal player for the Longhorns coaching staff right away. If Texas has not made contact with Land already, that should happen very soon.

It’s rare that Texas is going to be able to miss on a key portal target that appeared to be trending in their favor such as Mathis, and then have another talented and proven edge rusher such as Land show up on the transfer market. Texas really needs to take advantage of this opportunity popping up.

Texas won’t have many other options to turn to in terms of finding a way to upgrade the pass rush this offseason other than nabbing a key portal player such as the touted Land.

What Land could bring to the table for the Longhorns is an explosive and athletic 6-foot-4 and 215-pound edge rusher that lives for getting pressure on the quarterback and blowing up plays in the opposing team’s backfield.

Land has incredibly quick get-off from the line of scrimmage and has excellent footwork and bend to work through opposing blockers in the pass rush. He’s also bendy and quick enough to shed blockers when defending the run.

This type of explosiveness and body control is something that would translate immediately to the elevated level of competition in the Power Five.

And in terms of where Land could fit for the Longhorns, it looks like he would be a perfect scheme fit at the buck position. Land would likely come in and immediately challenge the senior former Notre Dame transfer outside linebacker/edge rusher Ovie Oghoufo for starting reps in this defensive front.

The overall explosiveness and nose to get to the quarterback that Land brings to the table would completely reshape the effectiveness of Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense if he could translate these skills right away.

Texas obviously needs something to provide a spark for this pass rush, and Land might be the perfect solution here.

Statistically, you can see the impact that Land made on Florida A&M’s defense in a big way last fall.

Last season, Land got roughly 60 quarterback pressures under his belt, which was good to lead all of Division I. But it wasn’t just the pass rush that Land stood out for FAMU last season.

Land was one of the leaders in Division I last season with nearly 26 tackles for loss. He also registered three pass breakups (all batted balls around the line of scrimmage), three forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, and three-dozen stops.

Land proved last season that he can be a disruptive force in other ways than just getting after the quarterback. He was able to get in the passing lanes and notch a few batted balls and force a few turnovers along the way.

Moreover, it would be difficult to expect Land to come in and come even close to matching his production from last season at FAMU. But if he could even put up half the number of sacks and quarterback pressures that he did last season, that would go a long way to boost this pass rush dramatically for the Longhorns.

To provide an example of just how much he could help this pass rush, you just have to look at how his pass-rushing productivity measured up with some of the better pass rushers for Texas last season.

Last season, Alfred Collins and Demarvion Overshown tied for the team lead in quarterback pressures, with 15 respectively. By comparison, Land posted four times the number of quarterback pressures. And he had more than twice as many sacks as the four leading sack getters for Texas last season (Collins, Overshown, Oghoufo, and Byron Murphy all tied for the team lead with two each).

Land’s pass-rushing productivity blows that of any of the leading pass rushers for Texas last season out of the water. No one from the Longhorns’ defensive front last season was even in the same stratosphere as Land.

Even removing the potentially skewed statistics from the lower level of play, you can see that Land would be able to make an immediate impact on this pass rush. He would likely still be more effective than any other pass rusher on this current roster.

Pass rushers have succeeded before when transferring from a lower-level FBS or FCS school to Power Five competition out of the transfer portal in recent years (i.e. Quincy Roche at Miami in 2020). That should provide a good level of confidence that Land could do the same this year.

We will monitor to see if the Longhorns do wind up reaching out to Land out of the portal in the days ahead. Land should be an immediate priority portal target for the Longhorns, so this could be an interesting developing storyline if anything comes to fruition in this regard soon.