Texas
New Texas Longhorns Defense Shaped on Attention to Detail and Technicality
The Texas offense keeps making headlines across the country named as the team’s biggest strength. While the offense had to reinvent itself in the wide receiver room with the losses of Xavier Worthy and Adonai Mitchell, the defense had to do the same to deal with the departures of Byron Murphy,T’Vondre Sweat, and Jaylan Ford.
Steve Sarkisian wasted no time after the end of the 2023 season to start bringing strength into the back line.
Defensive line coach Kenny Baker joined the Texas Longhorns football staff in January 2024 after a season as the Miami Dolphins assistant defensive line coach and 11 years of coaching at the collegiate level.
Though his impact on the team could already be seen in the Spring scrimmage, the start of the season on Aug. 31 will show how much Baker actually improved an already strong Texas defense.
Defensive lineman Vernon Broughton missed the spring game to get married to his now-wife Camille Broughton but has shown growth in practices and summer scrimmages ahead of his senior season. Broughton highlighted the coach’s technicality with hand and footwork.
“I needed all that,” Broughton said. “That improves my game so much and I appreciate him for that.”
Broughton is returning to DKR for his fifth year with 40 career games to his name. Throughout his years in the program and playing under different coaches, Broughton sees the locker room as more mature in regards to game approach than it’s ever been before.
“With younger kids coming in I need to show them ‘Hey, this is the standard,’” Broughton said. “Especially playing D-line you gotta be vocal.”
The entire Texas team is held up to these standards, now even bigger entering arguably the strongest football conference in the nation. For defensive back Malik Muhammad, that means discipline, toughness and commitment — all the time. It is that standard that set this Texas defense to a “great” one for the sophomore.
“We’re focusing more on the details,” Muhammad said, emphasizing Broughton’s earlier comment. “We got our D-line straight, I feel like we have a great defense this year…(Tackling) was one of the details we focused on, getting our drops right, just knowing our opponents and playing together and communicating.”
Muhammad played 14 games with two starts as a freshman in 2023 and totaled 31 tackles (21 solo), one interception, four pass breakups, and returned a blocked punt for a touchdown.
The revamped Longhorns defense will make its debut on Aug. 31 against the Colorado State Rams in Austin.
AUSTIN, Texas (KBTX) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has notified the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) that two Texas residents were passengers on the MV Hondius, a ship that experienced an outbreak of hantavirus while traveling in the Atlantic Ocean. The passengers left the ship and returned to the United States before the outbreak was identified.
“Public health workers in Texas have reached the two individuals, and they report they are not experiencing any symptoms and did not have any contact with a sick person while aboard the ship. They have agreed to monitor themselves for symptoms with daily temperature checks and contact public health officials at any sign of a possible illness,” the agency said on Thursday in a statement.
DSHS will not release additional personal details about the passengers to protect their privacy.
“This is not the next COVID, but it is a serious infectious disease,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness at the World Health Organization. “Most people will never be exposed to this.”
More than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing nearly two weeks after the first passenger died on board.
Health authorities on at least four continents are now tracking down and in some cases monitoring the cruise passengers who disembarked on April 24, and trying to trace others who may have come into contact with them since then.
That includes two people in Georgia who are also being monitored, according to our affiliate WTOC.
Hantaviruses are usually spread through contact with wild rodent droppings or urine. The strain in the Hondius outbreak, Andes virus, can spread from person to person in limited circumstances. It typically requires close, prolonged contact with a person who is actively sick with the disease.
It is not known to spread through casual contact such as shaking hands or being in the same room for a few minutes. There have been no documented cases where a person without symptoms spread it to someone else.
Copyright 2026 KBTX. All rights reserved.
PORTLAND (WGME) – A Portland woman who has been held in a Texas ICE facility for more than six months is reportedly set to be released by Friday.
That’s according to Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, who traveled to the facility this week to demand that ICE release 19-year-old Olivia Andre.
Pingree says a federal district court judge ordered Andre to be released no later than Friday.
Andre and her family were arrested by ICE when they were seeking asylum in Canada.
DHS previously said Andre is in the United States illegally but didn’t explain why the rest of her family was released and she wasn’t.
Pingree called the conditions at the facility inhumane, and Andre’s lawyer says her physical and mental wellbeing deteriorated from not having access to clean drinking water, palatable food and appropriate medical care.
“Olivia and her family should never have been detained. The federal court ordered her release because the Trump administration had no lawful basis for detaining her,” Pingree said. “She suffered in detention for six months in violation of federal law and the U.S. Constitution’s protections.”
-
Pennsylvania1 minute agoMan wanted in connection with fatal stabbing in Pottstown, Pa.
-
Rhode Island7 minutes agoRhode Island man dies after crashing into Connecticut home
-
South-Carolina13 minutes agoNew poll shows tight GOP race for South Carolina governor
-
South Dakota19 minutes agoUSC Trojans Pick Up Final Transfer Portal Addition From South Dakota
-
Tennessee25 minutes agoTennessee Republicans pass a map to break up the state’s lone Democratic House seat
-
Texas31 minutes agoTexas officials monitoring two residents who were on board ship with hantavirus outbreak
-
Utah37 minutes agoHill AFB ends Starbase program that sparked STEM interest among Utah students
-
Vermont43 minutes agoTreasurer Pieciak highlights Vermont Saves eligibility expansion