Nebraska the favorite for Texas transfer WR Marcus Washington?

The biggest recent entrant to the NCAA Transfer Portal for second-year head coach Steve Sarkisian and the Texas football program officially came to fruition on May 3 with the rising senior wide receiver Marcus Washington. It began to look like Washington was going to be entering the transfer portal to cap the weekend news cycle for Texas.

And that wound up coming true with Washington’s name officially surfacing in the transfer portal on the morning of May 3, essentially meaning he put in his intentions to test the waters on the transfer market very close to the May 1 spring deadline for immediate eligibility.

Washington was one of the more surprising transfer portal entrants for the Longhorns post-spring ball. He was mostly getting key second-team reps, with even some practice reps working with the ones, during spring camp. And considering the fact that Washington held a key spot on the two-deep depth chart last season, you would figure he was bound to return for the Longhorns this fall.

That wound up not being the case, though, with Washington now intending to test the waters and see if there’s another landing spot where he can make a bigger impact and compete for a starting spot.

Could the next destination for Texas football transfer WR Marcus Washington be Nebraska?

It appears that he might have his next landing spot out of the portal in mind this week. A report from Horns247 on May 3 (paid content) indicates essentially that there’s a shot that Washington could pick the Nebraska Cornhuskers as his next landing spot out of the portal to link up with his former Texas teammate and rising redshirt senior quarterback Casey Thompson.

Thompson and Washington had close ties as teammates with the Longhorns. In fact, all three of Washington’s touchdown catches during his three seasons playing for Texas were tossed to him by Thompson.

Moreover, Nebraska appears to be a favorite landing spot of players in the transfer portal with Texas ties. The former Texas starting quarterback Thompson chose head coach Scott Frost and the Huskers out of the portal a few months ago. And Texas missed out on the former TCU senior edge rusher Ochaun Mathis to Nebraska last weekend.

Washington himself also has some close ties to the Huskers. Nebraska was one of the top schools pursuing him out of high school.

There was a point 24-48 hours ago where it felt like there was at least a slight chance that Washington could wind up returning to Texas. But the fact that Nebraska appears to be a consideration for him out of the portal this spring might mean that he’s drifting away from the Longhorns as time moves along.

We will continue to monitor what happens throughout this transfer process for Washington in the days and/or weeks ahead.

Washington enters the portal with 25 career catches under his belt for 366 receiving yards (14.6 yards per catch) and three touchdown catches.