Get ready for the 2024 Texas Longhorns Season with Preview and Predictions! Dive into the loaded roster, coaching staff stability, and bold game-by-game projections.
A lot is different for the Texas Longhorns this year:
Texas is now playing in the SEC
Texas went to the CFP last year and now is trying to RETURN to the playoff
Texas has a LOADED ROSTER - one of the deepest in all of college football
Even the Longhorn Network as we knew it is gone
Many of the team's stars from last year went to the NFL and Texas proved it could develop players
A wave of WR mercenaries have arrived in the transfer portal to make the WR group the deepest and one of the best
The top megastars at DL have left and this is one of the biggest questions for the 2024 Team
Some things have not changed
Texas has one of the most stable coaching staffs in the country and when coaches leave for better opportunities they have been backfilled strategically
Texas returns its Starting Quarterback Quinn Ewers.
Texas returns most of its Offensive Line and likely has a top 3 O-Line in the country
Most of the defense except for the interior DL is back and/or supplemented with Transfer upgrades or generations recruits
How will Texas deal with all of this change?
Let's start with a frank discussion about the TALENT of the 2024 Longhorns. To do that we will use my scale- the Adjusted Rating. This scale synthesizes recruiting rankings with the quality of play experience. Multiple year starters who have played well will always score high in my scale.
To help calibrate to my unique scale here were the top 10 Longhorns prior to the 2023 Season
Xavier Worthy- 1.3221
Jordan Whittington- 1.2558
T'Vondre Sweat- 1.2232
Christian Jones - 1.2034
Jerin Thompson - 1.1897
Jake Majors - 1.1817
Ja'Tavion Sanders - 1.1657
Kelvin Banks - 1.1644
Jahdae Barron - 1.1586
Quinn Ewers - 1.1386
Several others went on to have great seasons and surpassed some of these players by the end on the 2023 season in Adjusted Rating, but the key is that was the top ten this time last year.
Remember, that was a team that ALMOST got to the National Championship Game!
Let me calibrate you further with some of the NFL Early Round picks you might find interesting. For these players I am going to give you two numbers- the pre and post 2023 season Adjusted Ratings.
#1 Caleb Williams - QB - 1.6224 - 1.9291
#2 Jayden Daniels - QB - 1.6835 - 1.9973
#3 Drake Maye - QB - 1.4114 - 1.7805
#4 Marvin Harrison Jr. - WR - 1.2882 - 1.5471
#5 Joe Alt - OT - 1.4342 - 1.7243
#6 Malik Nabers - WR - 1.1690 - 1.4723
#9 Rome Odunze - WR - 1.2109 - 1.5746
#11 Olunuliwa Fashanu - OT - 1.0172 - 1.2251
#13 Brock Bowers - TE - 1.5701 - 1.7490
#16 Byron Murphy - DL - 1.0880 - 1.2680
#28 Xavier Worthy - WR - 1.3221 - 1.4795
#38 T'Vondre Sweat - DL - 1.2232 - 1.4330
#46 Jonathon Brooks - RB - 0.9234 - 1.1092
#52 Adonai Mitchell - WR - 1.0715 - 1.2659
All of these players had a development score added in their last college year of 0.15- 0.37. Remember that range.
How do the 2024 Longhorns matchup right now? Let's start with my dominant dozen Adjusted Ratings Longhorns as they enter the 2024 season.
Quinn Ewers - 1.4426 - Ewers is NUMBER ONE on the team. I love that the reports have been so disrespectful related to Ewers. Listen to me now and here me later. The Texas coaching staff is sandbagging you with Ewers. HE IS ABOUT TO GO OFF ON THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL WORLD. He is the closest match to Drake Maye at the same point last year.
Kelvin Banks - 1.4165 - Ditto Banks. You may tell your grandkids that Banks was the greatest OL in Texas history after this season. Yes, I am old enough to remember Leonard Davis and Casey Hampton among others. He is the closest match to Joe Alt at the same point last year.
Jake Majors - 1.3697 - Ain't noboby ready for Jake Majors in 2024. You heard it here first.
Jahdae Barron - 1.2956 - Whether he is a corner back or nickel, Barron is the glue that will hold the defense together from the back.
Trey Moore - 1.2392 - The pass rush / failure to sack the QB are over.
Andrew Mukuba - 1.2196 - The fact that Mukuba is fighting for playing time says more about how incredible the Texas DB are.
Gavin Holmes - 1.1970 - the third DB. Holmes is fighting for a CB starting job with Barron. You know who is NOT surprised about reports of a vastly improved secondary? ME and the Adjusted Ratings.
Alfred Collins - 1.1952 - Collins has a higher Adjusted Rating now than Byron Murphy had last year at this same time and almost as good as Sweat. The reports of a DL freak out are vastly overrated. Collin's PFF score was great last year.
Isaiah Bond - 1.1708 - How do you replace Worthy and Mitchell? You transfer in dominant WRs rated higher than Mitchell was as a transfer last year.
Silas Bolden - 1.1522 - Ditto. Remember how people thought Bolden would not see the field because he did not transfer in January? Not me because I had the Adjusted Rating.
DJ Campbell - 1.1261 - THREE OL starters ready to dominate. Conner is not that far behind. Give Williams PT and the OL is scary for everyone else.
Malik Muhammad - 1.1162 - Malik is a SOPHOMORE. He is the ONLY Sophomore on this list. Others including Williams, Hill, and Cook are close. Muhammad is the four DB on this list. The Longhorns are going to victimize teams trying to throw on them in 2024.
You may think I am just a Texas homer at this point. That is the nature of much of what I will write here about the Longhorns. This is a FAN space more than a DATA space for UT. I admit it. I bleed burnt orange and my dad's Silver Spurs are on the bookshelf behind me. I am the middle generation of what is now three Longhorns graduates. I suspect my daughter will someday have a child in Austin too. That is just how it is in this household. What is different here is that we are real about who we are.
Ok that's the disclaimer. Now it's time to get back to this year's bold predictions.
I have created a system to generate projections for every team given their schedule. I am about to give you all of that content in the next 48 hours. I will also create an index post for you to access everything from. Here is the Texas Schedule and my projections for this season.
For each game you can see:
The opponent
Home / Away / or neutral site
Whether the opponent is a Power 2, Mid 2, Group of 5, or FCS or below opponent.
The preseason over/under projected by Vegas for each opponent
My projected point spread for the game. You can use this as a guide for action if you want.
I have a home field advantage built into my model prediction.
I will periodically post the actual results in these tables on the right.
For the season you can see
The Projected Win total of that team's opponents by adding the over/ under for each opponent.
A WEIGHTED Projected Win total that factors in also the level of each opponent
A season projected win-loss prediction
I KNOW ACC and Big 12 fans will hate this. I know it is a simplification to correct for teams that schedule a lot of lower division cupcakes. They will hate when I told them that the SEC and B1G will have between 7 to 9 teams in the CFP every year. Don't hate the messenger because you don't like the message.
For the CCG and CFP teams I also show the projected post regular season games including their projected CFP Seeding.
For Texas
The schedule is one of the more challenging with a combined 76 wins projected by the Texas opponents. As a point of reference, the Longhorns, who many considered to have one of the toughest schedules last year, played teams with a combined 84 wins in the 2023 regular season.
Texas also projects to have a weighted 67.3 wins in 2024. Last year, Texas' Big 12 schedule was a weighted 58.8 wins.
I am projecting the Longhorns will go 11-1 in 2024
I think they will lose to Georgia by 4 in an epic battle in Austin in week 8.
I have the Horns losing to Georgia in the SEC Championship game this time by 6. I think poll voters and the CFP committee will not punish teams for losing their CCG.
This would result in Texas being ranked #4 in the country at the end of the CCGs and net them the #6 CFP seed.
I have Texas beating Iowa (the #11 CFP seed) by 11 in Austin in the CFP First Round on 12/21/24.
Then, I have Texas beating Clemson (#3 Seed ACC Champion) in the Peach Bowl CFP Quarterfinal game by 10 on 1/1/25.
I have the road ending for the Longhorns losing to Ohio State by 2 in the Cotton Bowl CFP Semifinal on 1/10/25.
I always see the season as a range of results. I think 11-1 is the most likely, but I will say 10-2 is more likely to me than 12-0. You can see how I see other possible results here.
There are my Texas Longhorns 2024 Season Predictions. Tell me what you think.
So, leave a comment on your bold predictions for your team or for the Longhorns in the comments below,
As usual we start with my Longhorns, but we will be posting broader NCAA Predictions in the next two days. Stay tuned.
Here are links to the FBS Conferences.
Next
My predictions for the top 25
My CFP Predictions
Conference-by-conference season standing predictions. Game by Game predictions for the conference top 25 teams.
You will have predictions for the entire FBS
A Revised Texas Longhorns depth chart with Adjusted Ratings
Hook 'Em Horns!
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