Texas Football: Experienced EDGE Ovie Oghoufo enters the portal

A weird day for the Texas football program in the NCAA Transfer Portal continued to transpire into the night of Jan. 4. After the saga involving true freshman running back Jaydon Blue, who will return to Texas in 2023, we saw another notable player on this team decide to enter the transfer portal.

Redshirt senior edge rusher/outside linebacker Ovie Oghoufo announced on social media on Jan. 4 that he intends to enter the portal as a graduate transfer. The former Longhorn and Notre Dame Fighting Irish edge player will have one year of eligibility remaining at his next stop.

He said in his post on Twitter on Jan. 4 that “the memories and friendships I’ve made here will last forever”. He thanked the staff and his Longhorn teammates for his time on the Forty Acres in the last two years.

Oghoufo spent two seasons at Texas, where he registered 95 combined tackles, 13.0 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, 50 quarterback pressures, 47 stops, five pass breakups, one batted ball, and one forced fumble. He wound up taking more than 1,200 defensive snaps for the Longhorns since 2021.

Texas football loses fifth-year EDGE Ovie Oghoufo to the transfer portal

Only junior safety Jerrin Thompson and senior cornerback D’Shawn Jamison played more defensive snaps in the last two seasons combined for the Longhorns than Oghoufo.

The fifth-year edge rusher will bring plenty of experience and production to the table at his next stop out of the portal. He is one of the most experienced edge rushers currently available in the portal at the moment.

The 6-foot-3 and 240-pound Oghoufo played more than 40 games between his five seasons at Texas and Notre Dame combined.

He is originally a three-star outside linebacker recruit hailing out of Farmington Harrison (MI) during the 2018 cycle. Oghoufo signed with Notre Dame’s 2018 recruiting class when current LSU Tigers head coach Brian Kelly was leading the way for the Irish.

Oghoufo just finished up the most productive season of his collegiate career at Texas in 2022. He registered a career-high 53 combined tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, three pass breakups, and one forced fumble.