Officially just 152 days (21 weeks) until the Longhorns host the Colorado State Rams in the season opener. So there is no better time than now, to jump head-first into the first iteration of 2024 offensive projections. With two weeks of spring practice in the books, and a bevy of notes from practices to build off of, this will include expected role growth, pending teammates at the same position entering the transfer portal, and historical knowledge of how Coach Sarkisian has attacked usage, both while at Texas and Alabama as an offensive coordinator. The reason for using Alabama is pretty simple, it's his most recent job, and the only job with comparable talent on offense.
The above image portrays the past five seasons in which Coach Sarkisian has overseen as the Head Coach at Texas and the Offensive Coordinator at Alabama. 2021 was the only season with less than 800 plays run and a massive 56% rush attempt split, easily explained by having Bijan Robinson and first-year starter Casey Thompson at quarterback, with lackluster weaponry, outside of Xavier Worthy. There is occasionally food for thought regarding if you allow more points, you will get more opportunities on offense, that hasn't been the case with Sarkisian at Texas. In 2023, the Longhorns held the football for an average of 31:13, good for 34th in the FBS, in 2022 that number was 27:18 and in 2021 Texas ranked 110th in FBS at 28:05. Translation, allow fewer points by possessing the ball more.
At Alabama in 2020 and 2019, the average time of possession was 30:55 and 30:10.
Working through likely scenarios for offensive output is the toughest part of feeding the projection machine, every season the skill players change, however, not every season does a loaded skill group depart while being replaced by an entirely new group of veterans. Thankfully for Texas, a few things have stayed the same, Quarterback Quinn Ewers is entering Year 3 and Head Coach Steve Sarkisian is entering Year 4. Both are subjectively important to building projections and understanding a team's trajectory/goals. As you can see in the 2024 Quarterback projections, I have accounted for 16 games played, this infers a National Championship appearance. According to FanDuel Sportsbook, Texas has the 3rd best odds to win the National Championship, behind Georgia and Ohio State.
A talking point of the offseason to this point has been the depth of the running back room, who is the next 1,000-yard rusher and is there simply "too many cooks in the kitchen" at the position. The first iteration of projections tells us that the former is true, although I didn't project every single carry on the team, I only focused on players with 50+ carries or 20+ targets over the past 5 seasons, I still believe there is plenty of room for Jerrick Gibson in his true freshman season to earn some opportunities. Tre Wisner is the other running back who feels like a fringe transfer portal guy, however on special teams, in the backfield, and potentially as a receiver, the coaching staff should have a nice offensive complement as a weapon, in Wisner, think about Keilan Robison of last year.
I limited prior wide receiver and tight end data to a 5% target share threshold for sharing purposes. This eliminated Johntay Cook (2.3%) and Gunnar Helm (3.2%) in 2023 and Casey Cain (4.7%) in 2022 from the shown data set. However, for the 2024 Projections I decided to keep Ryan Wingo involved for viewing pleasure.
At Alabama in 2020 and 2019, the average time of possession was 30:55 and 30:10.
I'm becoming increasingly worried about Matthew Golden's role as a Wide Receiver in 2024, he is just a Junior this year with another year of eligibility, after all. I wouldn't be surprised to see him dominate special teams this year and work in slowly as a wide receiver.
The most interesting factor I found, was even with the array of weapons that Texas has to start the 2024 season, there is a high likelihood that most of the players underwhelm, given the pre-season hype. Despite a bump in total pass attempts, total passes, and the efficiency growth at the quarterback position. Players like Matthew Golden (Junior), Ryan Wingo (Freshman), Amari Niblack (Junior), and Silas Bolden (Senior) could all see a lower-than-expected target share. Bolden's easiest path to success is the continued utilization of his speed, something the Longhorns expect can help replace Xavier Worthy from 2023.
Bolden is not participating in the 2024 Spring Practices, while he finishes graduating from Oregon State, however, he does have the playbook and installs, so he is prepared for fall camp.
The Longhorns 2024 Projected Top 3 Target Shares are 53.7%, this comes in 4th over the last 5 seasons, ahead of just the 2021 Longhorns and trailing the 2023 Longhorns by 4.17%.
On paper, Johntay Cook's 123 targets look astronomical, however, when you take the context of 16 games played it comes out to just 7.7 targets per game over the season. This is .81 targets per game lower than Xavier Worthy in 2023 and trails all WR1 options that Coach Sarkisian has had since 2019 at Alabama.
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