According to a Sunday report from OnTexasFootball, Texas Longhorns defensive tackle Hero Kanu is expected to return in 2026 for his final season of eligibility.
The 6’5, 299-pounder had a decision to make about his professional future after walking on Senior Night, though Kanu told Burnt Orange Nation after the game that he hadn’t make a decision about whether to return to Texas and had extra incentive to receive recognition because his family was visiting from Germany.
Discovered in Germany by a former
college football player, Brandon Collier, when he was 14, Kanu moved to California to play high school football and showed enough promise to become a consensus four-star prospect ranked as the No. 129 player nationally and the No. 19 defensive lineman, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings, in the 2022 recruiting class.
Over 25 other offers, Kanu signed with Ohio State after taking official visits to Georgia, Notre Dame, and Oklahoma, and boasting an offer list that also included Alabama, Clemson, Florida, Florida State, LSU, Michigan, Ole Miss, Oregon, Texas, Texas A&M, and USC, among others.
Kanu redshirt his first season in Columbus and began to show some promise in 2023 with eight tackles and eight defensive stops in 90 snaps over 12 games before seeing only a modest increase in playing time as the Buckeyes surged towards a national championship, including a Cotton Bowl win over the Longhorns.
With position coach Kenny Baker looking for experienced talent in the NCAA transfer portal last offseason, Kanu landed in Austin and broke out as a contributor, playing 435 snaps, the most of any defensive tackle on the team, and recording 30 tackles, four tackles for loss, two sacks, four quarterback hurries, and one pass broken up while making 20 defensive stops, overachieving compared to the relatively modest expectations that accompanied him to campus.
Kanu’s emergence increased the pressure for the Horns to bring him back to the Forty Acres for another season and it appears Texas has accomplished that goal after developing a strong track record as a program in developing older defensive tackles like T’Vondre Sweat, Alfred Collins, and Vernon Broughton.
