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The fanbase, in general, has high hopes for Texas in 2023 as the Horns return a load of seasoned talent while many other Big 12 programs suffered significant losses to the NFL draft, graduation and the transfer portal. Clearly, though, there are players on the schedule who have the chance to give the Horns trouble. Players who you worry about being a real problem in the week coming into games versus their respective teams. I took a look at the schedule and tried to identify one such player on each squad:
Rice (9/2/23)
WR Luke McCaffrey - Of course Texas is likely to decimate the Owls as 35-point early favorites, but it doesn't mean that Rice doesn't have ANY talent on the roster. McCaffrey, son of Ed and brother of Christian, clearly has a lot of athletic pedigree, and now has a year under his belt playing WR at Rice after switching positions from QB, where he started his college career playing at Nebraska. Last season, McCaffrey led the team in receptions and was named MVP. If nothing else, he definitely LOOKS like just the kind of pest out of the slot that can really hurt the Texas LBs, nickels and safeties if they don't keep things buttoned up in the intermediate areas of the field.
Alabama (9/9/23)
CB Kool-Aid McKinstry - This dude is a freaking pest and he's one of the top players not only on his team, but in the entire sport -- regardless of position. Facing him this year will be like facing Will Anderson last season -- where it will be a true, highest-level test to see how the opposition holds up against a Top 10 NFL draft pick lock. Whether it will be AD Mitchell or Xavier Worthy he locks horns with will be interesting to monitor, as McKinstry really didn't seem to travel with any one player last season, and usually just lined up on the right side of the defense. If that continues, at least the Texas staff should be able to dictate their preferred matchups. Texas wasn't necessarily "scared" of Kool-Aid last year, as he was targeted 6 times in the ballgame. On top of the coverage skills, McKinstry is also a major weapon in the return game.
Wyoming (9/16/23)
LB Easton Gibbs - Most of the lists of top inside LBs you look at coming into the 2023 season have Gibbs listed more highly than you would anticipate for a player from Wyoming. Gibbs missed spring ball with an injury, which has given some buzz to his freshman backup, Connor Shay, but any talk of a true competition between these players seems like pure smoke. Some commentators and closer observers of the program say that Gibbs could actually be the best linebacker to come out of the Wyoming program, ever. He'll be a challenge worth watching as a massive volume-tackler in seeing how Texas' guards and its center can climb to the second level and engage him -- and whether they can win in open space versus a cagey veteran thumper.
Baylor (9/23/23)
DL Gabe Hall - This was a tough one, as Baylor lost one of its best DLs in recent years (Siaki Ika) to the 2023 NFL draft and naming Hall as the biggest problem on the Baylor team is certainly making a projection that he will take the next step and really take the reins as a full-time, dominant force. But, all the reporting through spring practice would lead you to believe that this is sort of an expected outcome at this point. At 6-6 and nearly 300 pounds, Hall is big, long and he's going to be hard to handle if reports out of Waco have any substance. He's athletic, too, apparently logging 20-plus MPH speed at times on the Catapult GPS devices during spring ball. Another potential challenge for whatever 3-man unit Texas rolls out to man the offensive line's interior.
Kansas (9/30/23)
QB Jalon Daniels - @Ketchum would put me on administrative leave if I chose anyone else for the Jayhawks. When you talk about the type of guy who has every opportunity to pop up and bite you in the ass as a team, dynamic QB weapons who have shown they can take over games like Daniels are the type of player you have to worry most about.
Oklahoma (10/7/23)
S Billy Bowman - This was one of the toughest ones to choose from between Bowman, LB Danny Stutsman (who led the Big 12 in tackles last year) and C Andrew Raym (who some draft analysts have as a Top 5-7 interior-line prospect for the 2023 NFL draft, but who has had trouble staying healthy). In the end, I've always seen Bowman as a bit of a unicorn who could develop into something really dangerous, and it feels like, through an up-and-down Year 1 under Venables, that Bowman came more and more into his own as time went on. Now is the time when the light should be really coming on. He has the speed, size and opportunistic instincts to pop up in extremely problematic ways should Ewers be off-target or underestimate Bowman's ability to close on the football.
Houston (10/21/23)
LT Patrick Paul - The Cougars lost their star connection of QB Clayton Tune to WR Tank Dell in the 2023 NFL draft and their star running back to Deion Sanders' Colorado Buffaloes in the transfer portal. They will, however, retain LT Patrick Paul, who made the decision to come back for another season at UH after being first-team All-AAC for two-straight seasons in hopes of elevating his stock for the 2024 draft. Paul's brother, Chris, plays for the Washington Commanders, so he has NFL bloodlines and a great-looking frame to continue developing into. He'll pose more of a challenge for guys like Barryn Sorrell and relative-newcomer edge guys like Ethan Burke than fans might have expected from a player at "Cougar High."
BYU (10/28/23)
LT Kingsley Suamataia - Suamataia, a former 5-star recruit who transferred from Oregon to BYU, has basically already said that this will be his final season in Provo, and he's being projected as an early-round draft pick in 2024 after moving from RT to LT. Another guy with some length and a really solid base. According to the BYU OL coach “As much of a freak as Blake was at the NFL combine and everything, Kingsley is super athletic and in a lot of ways more (athletic) than Blake, in some instances. So we haven’t lost anything there.” The "Blake" he's referring to is Blake Freeland who absolutely blew up the NFL combine in 2023 with a 84th percentile three cone, 98th percentile broad jump, 99th percentile vertical, 93rd percentile 40-yard dash and at 92nd percentile 10-yard split. Texas will face a very tough two-game stretch of opposing left tackles in Paul then Suamataia.
Kansas State (11/4/23)
OL Cooper Beebee - Another week, another stud OL that passed up on the NFL draft in 2023, in Beebee's case, somewhat surprisingly. He was named the top offensive lineman in the conference by the Big 12 coaches, and according to OC Collin Klein, “He’s an absolute stud. Top to bottom, he’s always helping. Just being able to communicate and help those guys solve problems before they happened. … And obviously being extremely gifted and hard-working. He’s all-around top shelf.”
TCU (11/11/23)
CB Josh Newton - TCU lost soooo much talent to the NFL draft in 2023 that they really should be looked at as a rebuilding team during Texas' last season in the Big 12. Even with this said, Dykes is not a coach I'll be making the mistake of underestimating, and there is talent on the roster remaining -- if somewhat unproven. I was going to go with Freshman All-American DL from 2023 Damonic Williams as a player who really looks to be an emerging force in the trenches for the Horned Frogs, but this blurb from Dave Campbell's Texas Football was enough to get me on board with Newton here for my TCU nomination: "TCU tied a program record set in 1957 with eight players selected in the NFL Draft, but the National Championship runner-up squad has a surefire professional prospect returning in Josh Newton. The 6-foot, 195-pound corner was the perfect complement to Thorpe Award winner Trevius Hodges-Tomlinson playing opposite him. In his first season with the Horned Frogs after transferring from ULM, Newton allowed a 35.3% completion percentage when tested and broke up 12 passes en route to a First-Team All Big-12 selection. He’ll serve as a lockdown corner for TCU this year while Florida transfer Avery Helm gets acclimated."
Iowa State (11/18/23)
CB T.J. Tampa - Iowa State keeps losing players to the NFL -- this year Will McDonald and Xavier Hutchinson, the year before Breece Hall and the stud tight ends, but new players of note seem to emerge every season under Matt Campbell. This year, there appears to be breakout buzz about Tampa really becoming a Big 12-wide household name in the mold of the other guys mentioned. He was second-team All-Big 12 in 2022 and led one of the best passing defenses in college football (10th nationally in passing yards allowed per game) in PBUs.
Texas Tech (11/24/23)
QB Tyler Shough - If everyone is expecting Texas Tech to emerge as a dangerous team in 2023, it's going to have to start with their quarterback and Shough seems, at this point, more than likely to win that job over sophomore Behren Morton (although HC Joey McGuire certainly has great things to say about the recent form of both). In the end, Shough has consistently been talked about through his circuitous college career as a guy who seemingly has all the tools -- you can even look back two years to the 2021 season where analysts were talking about him as a possibly high draft pick based on his physical upside alone, plus, when he has started games and actually finished them, he's been a winner. If he's healthy, he's probably the Red Raider to fear the most.
... at least that's what the Texas Tech fans are telling Ketch
