AUSTIN, Texas — Fourteen months ago at the Peach Bowl Media Day, then-Texas Longhorns running backs coach Tashard Choice was adamant that he wasn’t going to make a portal addition to his position room.
“Naw. Choice good,” he told Burnt Orange Nation.
Choice’s reasoning?
“For me, it’s more you’ve got to have some faith in your guys, man,” Choice said. “They’ve got to believe in you, too. You know what I mean? And that’s the biggest thing, because the developmental part of you having your room the way
you want to, it’s big, because when you’re getting guys out of the portal, you really don’t know who they are.”
Chatter about the position’s upside in 2025 was already bubbling to the surface even though the Longhorns were still in the College Football Playoff as Quintrevion Wisner edged past the 1,000-yard mark in the win over the Sun Devils, in part because of the expectation that speedster Jaydon Blue was leaning towards declaring for the 2025 NFL Draft, an announcement he made two days after the Cotton Bowl loss to the Buckeyes.
Choice had earned some benefit of the doubt after building on the success of his predecessor Stan Drayton by tutoring Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson after his arrival for the 2022 season, developing Jonathon Brooks into one of college football’s breakout stars in 2023 prior to his season-ending knee injury, and helping Wisner go from a consensus three-star prospect to a special teams standout to an avatar for the team’s toughness and success in rivalry games.
Concern was mounting, however, because Texas struggled to run the ball effectively against elite defenses in 2024 despite its talent and experience along the offensive line, and needed to count on high-level contributions from CJ Baxter coming off a season-ending knee injury and depth from Christian Clark, who tore his Achilles in preseason camp, and Jerrick Gibson, who fumbled three times in 78 carries as a freshman.
Six weeks later, Choice left the Forty Acres for a job with the Detroit Lions coaching former protege Jahmyr Gibbs.
And now head coach Steve Sarkisian is on his second running backs coach since Choice left, Wisner is at Arizona State, Baxter is at Kentucky, Clark is at South Carolina, and Gibson is at Purdue, part of a mass Texodus that also included the departure of Rickey Stewart to SFA.
As the rebuilt offensive line struggled and Arch Manning struggled through massive mechanical issues early in the season, the running game found itself in something of a worst-case scenario as Wisner and Baxter both suffered early-season hamstring injuries and Clark and Gibson struggled to hit the right holes. Gibson left the program in mid-October to preserve a redshirt.
Texas finished the season tied for 78th nationally in runs of 10-plus yards with 57, 21 of which came from Manning, who needed offseason foot surgery. Baxter’s longest run of the season was 18 yards against San Jose State prior to his hamstring injury, and Wisner saw his runs of 10-plus yards drop from 27 to 13 amidst a continued inability to consistently create explosive runs as his breakaway percentage only dropped slightly.
The clear takeaway? The Longhorns needed to add speed and game-changing ability back to the running back room that Choice believed was in such good shape when he left.
Into the fold are Arizona State transfer Raleek Brown and NC State transfer Hollywood Smothers, headliners of the largest NCAA transfer portal class Sarkisian has taken in his Texas tenure, and early enrollees Derrek Cooper and Jett Walker.
The 5’9, 195-pound Brown and 5’11, 195-pound Smothers were brought in to fix in the rushing woes of the Horns.
“I just felt like we had an opportunity to get back to the style of players that fit what we were trying to do,” Sarkisian said on Monday.
“Two really versatile players that are explosive, players that can run the style of runs that we like to run, that are very versatile of catching the ball out of the backfield, that are have home-run hitting ability. We have to get back to being the explosive offense that we’re accustomed to be, that those two guys fit.”
With the Sun Devils in 2025, Brown had a breakaway percentage of 45.8 compared to 27.1 for Wisner, and 31 runs of 10-plus yards, adding 34 receptions for 238 yards and two touchdowns. Brown also has increased versatility because he played wide receiver for USC as a sophomore in 2023.
An Oklahoma signee out of high school, Smothers had a breakaway percentage of 52.3 last season with 24 runs of 10-plus yards, a number limited by by an injury in November. In the passing game, Smothers caught 37 passes for 189 yards and a touchdown for the Wolfpack.
Initially linked to Florida’s Jadan Baugh, the former pupil of new Texas running backs coach Jabbar Juluke, and Louisville’s Isaac Brown, the Longhorns were nonetheless able to land two all-conference running backs, something that Sarkisian didn’t think was possible when the portal process started.
“It hit right and those two guys had the right mentality to come in,” Sarkisian said.
To secure the talented duo, Texas had to flip Smothers from Alabama, and it wasn’t because they made him an NIL offer that he couldn’t refuse.
“NIL didn’t play a big factor for me… I honestly just want to win,” Smothers told On3 in January. “And I feel like we are in the best position to go win it all with the talent and depth at Texas.”
It’s an attitude that makes it easier to understand why Brown and Smothers have grown so close since arriving on the Forty Acres in January.
“Oddly enough, since they’ve come in they’re probably two of the closest transfers. They’ve almost become best friends on our team already — they understand they need each other, and I think they understand, historically for us in our program, we’ve always done well when we’ve had two that can play off of one another, and so it’s been a great marriage,” Sarkisian said.
The Longhorns head coach hopes the marriage benefits all parties involved.
“To get two experienced players that have done it at a high level at the Power Four level, all-conference type players, I think is going to going to benefit us, and I think it’s going to benefit them in the long run as well.”
