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Let's have a discussion on where Texas currently stands in 2025 offensive line recruiting.
Over the holiday weekend, as Suchomel was attending high school graduation events for his own daughter, the Coleman triplets (Jordan, Devin and Isaiah) announced their commitment(s) to Texas. Jordan and Devin play on the offensive line for Cedar Hill and are, as you would guess, both around the same size, listed in the 6-5 and 330-to-340-pound range. Devin has played on both the offensive and defensive line, but has settled in on the offensive side. Isaiah is a fraternal triplet who is smaller than his brothers and plays defensive tackle. He's listed at 6-1, 260 pounds and will start out with the program as a preferred walk-on while Jordan and Devin will be on scholarship. I complain that my two kids, ages 6 and 9 -- weighing in at a combined 110 pounds or so -- are going to eat me out of house and home but now I realize I should probably thank my lucky stars. My goodness.
We're now sitting at 3 offensive line commitments for the Longhorns 2025 recruiting class: Projected OG Jordan Coleman, projected OG Devin Coleman and projected OG Jackson Christian (Port Neches-Groves).
Jordan Coleman presents with a solid anchor and dense lower base. He has long arms and good play strength at the high school level. He doesn't have the most swift footwork or overall footspeed, but is not clunky or robotic, either. He can find work on the move and engage defenders in space, but looks most comfortable as a phone-booth-type of combatant. Comparing him to some members of the 2023 class like Andre Cojoe and Connor Stroh (other large human-types), his feet and balance are better as a high schooler. Devin Coleman currently has some work to do to get on the same level as his brother as an offensive lineman, but probably has just about as high an upside. Jordan currently has better play strength. Devin's actual foot speed is better than Jordan's, but his footwork is not based on highlights, and he's also not as balanced coming into engagement or immediately post-snap. On the whole, though, these two guys look -- unsurprisingly, I suppose, as they shared a womb -- pretty dang similar as players. Like fellow 2025 commit Jackson Christian, you can make a case for both of these guys fitting in well as developmental depth on the offensive line's interior for a system like Kyle Flood's at Texas where a premium is placed on the ability to moves bodies and climb to the second level of the defense to engage linebackers off of double-teams in the inside-zone run concept.
As usual, I'm not going to second-guess Kyle Flood's evaluations on players. If he wants them, he should have them. I've been radicalized into this belief after seeing what he was able to do with Christian Jones. If you can turn Christian Jones from what he was upon Flood's arrival to what he became this year in the NFL draft, you will not be questioned by me. For the record, though, I think that all three 2025 commits thus far are takes. I am not doing backflips over them, but I do think they are better prospects than a few others that Flood has brought to Texas.
And we know that the interior of the Texas offensive line certainly needs depth as things currently stand. DJ Campbell is Texas' highest-quality and upside iOL who could be gone next season if he continues the positive trend in his progression we saw through the 2023 season. Jake Majors and Hayden Conner are both gone after 2024. Even if Campbell were to come back for the 2025 season, you'd still have those two spots to fill. Cole Hutson can take over at center and hopefully not give you as big a fall-off as you would get if you had to move to Conner Robertson or Daniel Cruz, but the real question here is whether Neto Umeozulu will finally have the light bulb come on. On one hand, you can be optimistic about that by understanding that he's studying under one of the best OL coaches in the game, so of course he'll come around. On the other, it's hard to just ignore the fact that Neto's objectively struggled mightily every time we've seen him get any sort of significant run, including (and especially) as recently as this spring's Orange-White scrimmage.
Other candidates to step into starting roles as early as 2025 in the interior offensive line could eventually be good -- after all, Christian Jones DID happen -- but, they don't inspire an overwhelming amount of confidence. We're talking about guys like Malik Agbo who was relegated to a jumbo TE role last season, Connor Stroh, Andre Cojoe (who gave up ground to Brandon Baker this spring as backup RT and seemed to sort of get moved inside to guard by the end of the spring game), Daniel Cruz (who looks more like the 2026 answer at center) and summer arrival Nate Kibble, who looked like by far the most developmental prospect among the three-man 2024 recruiting class which also included Cruz and Brandon Baker.
The offensive tackle situation, ironically, feels a little more settled than the situation on the line's interior moving into the immediate future, which is the good news here. True tackles are more valuable commodities than guards and centers and for this season, Texas has Kelvin Banks for one more year and Cam Williams for at least one more year. One of Cam Williams' trainers indicated to me recently that Williams would certainly be keen on the idea of going pro after the 2024 season if the market was there for him to do so, but even if he did, you wouldn't feel terrible about the idea of Trevor Goosby at LT and Brandon Baker at RT after another year under Flood given the small glimpse of development curves we've seen with both of them over their respective short times in Austin. Add in the chance of adding a Michael Fasusi and then another John Mills-type of prospect in the 2025 class and things feel pretty darn good at those bookends.
The potential plan for succession is not as clear on the interior OL, and that's the value in taking these first three commits of this 2025 class. If Kyle Flood sees these guys as eventual candidates to step into those roles, then that is the clear path forward.
