Assessing 3 underrated summer portal targets for Texas football
While most of the news cycle concerning the NCAA Transfer Portal is now behind us at this point of the offseason, especially in the realm of the Texas football program, there could still be some activity before fall camp begins. Second-year head coach Steve Sarkisian and his staff do still have room for at least one more addition to the roster by way of the transfer portal.
If the Longhorns staff has other position groups on either side of the ball in the midst of summer workouts that they don’t feel too great about, there are still some players available in the portal that could help shore up the depth this fall. There likely won’t be any game-changers for Sark and the Longhorns staff to pursue, but adding depth wouldn’t hurt anything if needed in any spot in particular.
The last transfer addition for the Longhorns this offseason was the former FCS All-American and James Madison Dukes senior grad transfer linebacker Diamonte Tucker-Dorsey. He and the former Iowa State Cyclones senior wide receiver Tarique Milton rounded out a busy offseason in the transfer portal up to this point for Texas.
Underrated summer transfers still worth a look for Texas football
In a world where the Longhorns are still looking to add one more piece out of the portal this offseason, what’s still on the market at this point? Here’s a deeper look into a breakdown of three underrated portal players available for the Longhorns this summer.
Issiah Walker Jr., OT
There’s no doubt that there is still a good amount of uncertainty surrounding the status of the offensive line ahead of the 2022 season. Roughly two months ahead of kick-off, it’s still likely that offensive line coach/offensive coordinator Kyle Flood and the Longhorns have at least a couple of position battles on their hands along the O-Line for fall camp.
An obvious option for Flood and the Longhorns to turn to this summer to shore up the offensive line depth heading into fall camp is adding one more body by way of the transfer portal. And that could be made possible with one recent portal entrant in the former Miami Hurricanes and Florida Gators redshirt freshman offensive tackle Issiah Walker Jr.
Walker will be seeking out his third college program out of the portal this summer. He only spent one semester at Florida before transferring to Miami last year. And after playing just a handful of snaps with the Canes, he’ll now be seeking out another landing spot this offseason.
Yet, there’s still a good amount of value that Flood and the Longhorns could find out of Walker if they nabbed him in the portal. Walker is a former blue-chip recruit that stands at 6-foot-5 and 305-pounds. He has more than enough size to compete in the trenches right away for Texas.
Walker also displayed key skills and reliability in pass protection in his senior season at Norland High School. He was much more proficient in protecting the passer once he added more size to his frame. And it now seems like he has reached a point where his body puts him in a spot to compete on a regular basis at the Power Five level.
A staple of Walker’s game has also always been the ability to reach the second and third levels of the defense by punishing his blocking assignments in the ground game. That should, in theory, translate nicely for the Longhorns if Walker wound up with Texas this offseason.
At this point of the offseason, it looks like Walker is the best option among any offensive linemen in the portal for Flood and the Longhorns. He could be a long-term value addition for Texas if Flood took a flier out on him.