Texas Football: 3 players that will benefit most from early move to the SEC

The announcement finally came last week that Texas football and the Oklahoma Sooners would be able to leave the Big 12 for the SEC in 2024. The parties were able to reach a deal to leave Texas and Oklahoma to leave the Big 12 one year earlier than originally anticipated to be able to compete in the SEC during the 2024-25 athletic/academic calendar year.

Head coach Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns will now play one more season in the Big 12 before officially competing as a member of the SEC in 2024.

That means that the 2023 season will be a crucial one for Texas to get itself in a spot to be ready to compete in the SEC in less than two years.

Texas must prove that the efforts on the recruiting trail and some of the player development that we’ve seen take place on the Forty Acres in the last 18 months or so aren’t flukes.

Cedric Baxter Jr. and the Texas football players that can standout right away in the SEC in 2024

With that in mind, here’s a look at three Longhorns players that will benefit most from the move from the Big 12 to the SEC in 2024.

Cedric Baxter Jr., RB

Texas signed the nation’s top running back recruit in the 2023 class in the elite five-star Orlando Edgewater (FL) product Cedric Baxter Jr. The Florida running back was a huge get for Sark, running backs coach Tashard Choice, and the Longhorns as he will be expected to contribute immediately to this offense.

The 6-foot-1 and 215-pound Baxter brings elite power and downhill running ability to the table. He’s got a pretty remarkable amount of speed and balance given his larger frame and ability to break tackles with ease.

Texas is getting a bell-cow running back in Baxter that can handle a workload of at least 20 or 25 carries per game. He is that traditional big-bodied rusher that Sark loves to have to set the tone in the zone run game.

And given the losses of All-American junior running back Bijan Robinson and senior leader Roschon Johnson to the NFL Draft this offseason, Baxter will have a shot to get some starting reps out of the gates next season for the Longhorns.

That will give Baxter the opportunity to get his feet wet in terms of the competition at the collegiate level before Texas makes the move to the SEC in 2024.

I firmly believe the SEC is the level of competition that Baxter was always meant to play against. He’ll get to put his physical running style to the test week in and week out against the SEC, which should bring out the best version of his game. His skill set will truly be maximized when he’s able to be utilized namely in a power running offense along with a few simple route concepts out of the backfield to use him as an outlet in space.

That type of powerful run element to the offense is something that Texas is definitely building up in a big way upon the move to the SEC with all the big bodies it’s adding along the offensive line. Baxter will also be one piece to the puzzle here in terms of what Sark, Kyle Flood, and the Longhorns are building on the offensive side of the ball upon the move to the SEC.

It’s also worth noting that Baxter played his high school football nearly at the highest level in the state of Florida. He’s used to competing against some SEC-caliber players, where he averaged nearly eight yards per carry for his career at Edgewater and more than nine yards per carry as a senior (per MaxPreps).

Baxter will truly get to show what he can do against the top competition at the collegiate level when he’s able to go up against SEC fronts, which will do nothing but help develop his game and thus solidify his NFL Draft stock a few years down the line.