Former Texas players on the 2025 Longhorns' schedule

USA Today

3 days ago

As Texas heads into the 2025 season, they are slated to face a number of familiar faces. Leading the way, a trio of former Longhorns will be waiting for Texas in Starkville later in the year.
In one of the final games of last season, Texas ran into Arizona State and a number of former Longhorns, Zac Swanson, J'Mond Tapp, Troy Omeire and Prince Dorbah. They've had a number of former Longhorns move on to other Power 4 programs and a few that even found their way to other SEC programs.
That movement is lessened, because of the rule that intra-conference transfers in the SEC can only occur during the winter window. Despite that, Texas will run into several familiar faces in the 2025 season, but it will take until October 25th, when they go to Starkville. There are a trio of former Longhorns on the Bulldogs this year that figure to play big roles.
Brenen Thompson is further removed from his time at Texas, with a stop at Oklahoma in between. He has now found his way to Mississippi State and could very well end up being WR1 for the Bulldogs. On defense, you have two rotational pieces in Jaray Bledsoe up front and Derion Gullette that should play a role in that defense.
The following week, Texas returns home against Vanderbilt and will welcome a former Longhorn back to Austin. Aaron Bryant found his way to Nashville this offseason and figures to play a large role in their defensive front. Bryant only totaled one tackle a year ago for Texas, but was a top 10 prospect in Mississippi coming out of high school. We will see if he can reach that potential for the Commodores.
Texas gets a brief hiatus from seeing former players against Georgia and Arkansas, but they are quickly back to it for the Lone Star Showdown. Amari Niblack, the former transfer into Texas from Alabama, has made his way to College Station for the 2025 season. He is in great position to be the starter for Texas A&M to start the season, and could put together his best season yet. We will know going into that one how much Niblack will factor in, but he could be a major part of the gameplan for the Aggies this year.
That does it for the former Longhorns that are set in stone on Texas' schedule, but there are a couple more they could run into late on. In a possible SEC title, they could very well see Sydir Mitchell and LSU or Jalen Catalon and Missouri. If Texas makes their third playoff in a row, there are plenty of other names that could factor into this equation.
In the transfer portal world, there have been a number of 'homecoming' games in the last few years. Texas is slated to have a number of those this upcoming season, with Mississippi State being something of a reunion. We will see how much some of those players factor into the equation for their new teams, but it will be nice to see some familiar faces facing the Longhorns in 2025.