AUSTIN, Texas — On Early Signing Day in December, Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian wasn’t even two minutes into his opening statement before addressing the need for Kyle Flood to add offensive linemen from the NCAA transfer portal for the first time since the two coaches arrived on the Forty Acres five years ago.
That wasn’t a surprise — the need was apparent throughout the season before considering the departures of starting guards DJ Campbell and Cole Hutson.
What was a surprise was how Texas decided to attack the portal as Flood hosted Michigan offensive tackle Andrew Sprague and Yale offensive tackle Mikey Bennett with reported interest in star Colorado transfer Jordan Seaton before signing standout Wake Forest transfer Melvin Siani.
If the intentions weren’t clear when Sprague visited the Forty Acres before returning to Ann Arbor to play for new head coach Kyle Whittingham, they were certainly clear by the time that Siani’s portal recruitment lasted several hours between the news of his entrance into the portal and his commitment to Texas — the staff planned to move rising junior Brandon Baker inside to guard.
A consensus five-star prospect ranked as the No. 2 offensive tackle in the 2024 recruiting class, landing Baker was the biggest coup for Flood since his landmark 2021 class and required a significant investment for Texas to secure a signature from the Mater Dei product.
After playing 65 snaps over eight games as a freshman, Baker appeared poised to become the starter at right tackle. But that required winning an unexpectedly competitive position battle in preseason camp over Andre Cojoe, a lower-ranked recruit with more developmental time on the Forty Acres.
Instead of beating out Cojoe, Baker won the battle by default when Cojoe suffered a season-ending knee injury in in August.
It wasn’t always an easy transition for Baker into the starting role on the right side — he allowed five pressures and committed two penalties in the season opener against on the road against Ohio State, ultimately getting flagged for 12 penalties and allowing 23 pressures, including two quarterback hits.
But Pro Football Focus didn’t credit Baker with allowing a sack the entire season, which seemingly solidified his role at right tackle until Texas attacked the portal with the intent to replace him on the outside.
Although Baker was listed at 6’5 as a recruit and is listed at 6’4 at Texas with an 83-inch wingspan, the projection from the Longhorns staff always differed from the projection by recruiting analysts, Sarkisian revealed on Monday when asked about the position change by Burnt Orange Nation.
“I just think when you look at Brandon’s measurables, and you look his future in the game, he’s got a guard build,” Sarkisian said.
In fact, the expectation from the staff was that Cojoe would win the starting job at right tackle and Baker would move inside to fill the need at left guard.
“Quite frankly, that was one of the hopes we were gonna have for him last year, but, obviously, Cojoe got injured in training camp, and he ended up winning the job at right tackle. We’ve got to play the best players we have available,” Sarkisian said.
So instead of having Baker available to replace Hayden Conner at guard, Texas struggled to find an adequate solution on the left side as top-100 2021 signee Neto Umeozulu played sparingly, surprise starter Connor Stroh struggled to remain upright, and true freshman Nick Brooks, a natural tackle, was a disaster, allowing eight pressures in the second half of the loss to Florida in Gainesville to open SEC play.
The Horns finally found a solution when starting center Cole Hutson returned from injury to allow Connor Robertson to take over at center and Hutson to move to left guard. The compromise was a loss of overall athleticism that limited Texas in the running game, but at least the pass protection issues diminished in handling basic challenges like end-tackle twists and interior blitzes.
In terms of the team’s College Football Playoff hopes, it was too little, too late after Georgia scored on three consecutive possessions to run away from Texas in Athens in November, leaving the loss to a bad Florida team that quickly fired Billy Napier after the upset as a deciding factor in the Longhorns settling for a Citrus Bowl bid instead of landing a spot in the 12-team playoff field.
Assessing the the failures of the 2025 season, the staff’s decision not to more aggressively pursue a transfer portal solution at left guard looms as a monumental mistake that looked like coaching malpractice without the benefit of the perspective that Sarkisian provided on Monday about the plan behind the scenes.
Now, with Baker moving to right guard, Sarkisian and Flood believe they have the long-awaited solution on the interior.
“I think solidifying ourselves from the inside on that right side of the line with him and Melvin at right tackle is really beneficial for us long term,” Sarkisian said.
Because Baker was listed at 308 pounds last season and 305 pounds on the spring roster, the initial concern with moving him inside is whether he can anchor against much heavier defensive tackles given his lack of mass compared to last year’s starter DJ Campbell, listed at 321 pounds, and Conner, who was listed at 320 pounds in 2024.
At the same time, the difference between Baker’s current weight and the listed weight of those previous starting guards for Texas is not huge — gaining 15 pounds over six months is not typically difficult for collegiate offensive linemen. For Sarkisian, though, it’s not about gaining weight just to add mass.
“Natural weight is important to me. I think sometimes just trying to get heavy… one of his strengths is his ability to move and play with great balance and body control, and that’s something that I think will benefit him. Now, mass is helpful, right? But we just want to make sure it’s the right type of mass as his weight goes up,” Sarkisian said.
The end of the Texas head coach’s statement suggests that Baker will add weight this offseason, but regardless of whether Baker plays at his current weight or at 320 pounds or somewhere in between or somewhere over, the intent is to improve the athleticism at the position to afford Sarkisian greater scheme flexibility.
That means the ability to run more outside zone, the team’s staple running play in 2024, which fits the skill sets of transfer running backs Raleek Brown and Hollywood Smothers. It means becoming more effective climbing to the second level on inside zone and duo. It means becoming more effective pulling in gap schemes like power, counter, and pin and pull. It means becoming more effective on screen passes to the running backs, tight ends, and wide receivers.
It could mean the difference between Texas struggling to make the playoff and making the expected deep run to compete for a national championship in what projects as Arch Manning’s last season on the Forty Acres throwing to star wide receiver Cam Coleman, in whom the Horns made a huge financial investment to play for titles.
At least, that’s the hope of a Longhorns offensive braintrust that revealed a much different projection for Baker than anyone outside the facility anticipated when he signed or even directly after the Citrus Bowl.
