Texas football: 3 biggest Longhorns vs. OU recruiting battles this summer

Visit season looms large on the recruiting trail for Texas football and head coach Steve Sarkisian as we head into the summer. Texas is set to have another pivotal visit season during the month of June on the recruiting trail this offseason.

Last offseason, Sark and the Longhorns staff started to build a major wave of momentum on the recruiting trail in the 2023 class. The June visit season in 2022 saw the Longhorns add a good portion of the commits it had from the high school ranks in the 2023 class that wound up signing with Texas.

Sark and his staff look to be charting a similar course this offseason in terms of the timeline that they are looking to build out the 2024 class.

At the moment, Texas holds commitments from just two recruits in the 2024 class. To start adding numbers with the recruits that are the right fits at Texas in the 2024 class, Sark and the Longhorns staff will have to beat out the Oklahoma Sooners in a lot of battles on the trail this summer.

Top 2024 recruiting battles this summer between Texas football and OU

With that in mind, here’s a look at three of the biggest 2024 recruiting battles between the Longhorns and Sooners this summer.

Zina Umeozulu, EDGE

A recruit in the 2024 class that we’ve covered for the Longhorns for a long time now is the touted four-star Allen edge rusher Zina Umeozulu. The little brother of second-year Texas offensive lineman and fellow former four-star recruit Neto Umeozulu is still being heavily recruited by the Longhorns this offseason.

Texas has hosted Umeozulu on campus for multiple unofficial visits since last fall. The most recent trip that Umeozulu took to the 40 was for the second Junior Day of the offseason on March 25. It is also expected that he will make it back to Austin for a return visit in the summer or early fall.

Although, he doesn’t have any official visit dates set yet for the summer, so that will be something to watch in the coming weeks as this recruitment enters its critical stages.

I will say that Umeozulu has seemingly fallen down the big boards for both the Longhorns and Sooners in the last few months. After it looked like Umeozulu was one of the top priority edge rushers in the 2024 class for both of the Red River rivals throughout most of 2022, other blue-chip recruits at the position have received more attention this offseason.

Gerry Hamilton of Inside Texas (paid content) put it well this week when he said that the amount of priority that Texas and Oklahoma “have pushed have been in question at times” throughout the offseason. But the fact of the matter is that Texas and Oklahoma still look like the two schools that are in the best position in this recruitment this spring.

We should take into account, though, that other schools involved in this recruitment of late such as the Texas A&M Aggies, SMU Mustangs, Arkansas Razorbacks, and TCU Horned Frogs could all creep back into the picture if they push hard heading into the fall.