Texas

Three keys to Texas Longhorns winning the College Football Playoff | Sporting News

Published

2 years ago

June 17, 2024

Three keys to Texas Longhorns winning the College Football Playoff | Sporting News

Not long ago, the Texas Longhorns were a once legendary program in decline.

Now Head Coach Steve Sarkisian and surprise QB Quinn Ewers have put the Longhorns back in the national championship conversation. But as Uncle Ben once told Peter Parker, aka Spiderman, with great expectations comes great pressure to win the whole damn thing… (or something like that.)

Head coach and former Alabama Crimson Tide offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian has steadily improved his Texas Longhorns since taking over in 2021. He found a projected top 10 NFL Draft pick in Ewers, brought in his heir apparent with the most famous last name in football, No. 1 overall recruit Arch Manning, won the Longhorns’ first Big 12 title since 2009, and took his team to the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history.

Now expectations are higher than ever. Texas is preseason ranked No. 3 with the third best odds to win it all in 2024. What do the Longhorns have to do to turn high hopes into reality?

Shut down opposing QBs

The glaring weakness in an otherwise impressive 2023 campaign from the Longhorns was a young secondary without much depth that finished 113th in the country against the pass. This included a 430 yard, two touchdown torching by Washington Huskies phenom Michael Penix Jr. in a season-ending loss at the Sugar Bowl in the College Football Playoff.

But the Longhorns have taken measures to turn this weakness into a strength. They’ve snagged the No. 1 ranked safety in the transfer portal, Clemson standout Andrew Mukuba, who helped lead the Tigers to a top-5 defense against the pass. They also managed to bring back NFL-calibur cornerback Jahdae Barron, a fifth-year senior with loads of much-needed experience who had entertained leaving for the draft at the end of the 2023 season.

With the continued development of second-year starter Derek Williams Jr., and incoming freshmen talent like four-star recruit and track athlete Xavier Filsaime, improved secondary play will be essential, especially in an all-important matchup against the top-ranked Georgia Bulldogs QB Carson Beck, who threw for nearly 4,000 yards in 2023.

Excellence from Quinn Ewers

High-level quarterback play is a no-brainer for any team, but Quinn Ewers will have to rise above multiple challenges most signal callers never face, much less simultaneously.

For starters, Ewers lost his top four pass catchers from the 2023 season to the NFL Draft: wide receivers Xavier Worthy, Adonai Mitchell, and Jordan Whittington, plus tight end Ja’Tavian Sanders. On top of that, the Longhorns’ moving from the Big 12 to the SEC comes with a significant rise in the defensive capabilities of their opponents.

Only one defense Texas played in 2023 ranked higher than 50th in total defense – and that was Alabama at No. 18, a team Texas managed to upset by only a field goal. In 2024, against a host of SEC foes, Texas will face six such defenses, including their new SEC rival Georgia Bulldogs, who come in at No. 9.

Ewers will have to quickly gel with his new receiving corp, including heralded Alabama transfer Isaiah Boyd, if he hopes to repeat his 2023 success and lead his team through a tough SEC and extended College Football Playoff.

Watch out for Oklahoma

Who would ever think that the Red River Rivalry, an unbroken, heated, 95-year matchup that is one of the most celebrated in all of college football, against all-time nemesis and fellow Big 12 escapee Oklahoma, could be a sneaky trap game?

It might seem especially unlikely given last year’s huge upset at the hands of the Sooners, led by a monster, 398 total-yard performance from uber-talented QB Dillon Gabriel, now of course surprisingly an Oregon Duck. But when Texas and Oklahoma face off on October 12th, the Longhorns will be coming off their first SEC matchup against the always tough Mississippi St. Bulldogs on September 28th, then will have the biggest matchup on their calendar the very next Saturday, a visit from top SEC QB Carson Beck and the unanimous preseason No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs, a game teeming with SEC Championship and playoff bye implications.

The good news is that Texas’ bye comes right before this brutal stretch. The Longhorns will have to somehow keep Georgia off their minds for those two weeks prior and handle business in Dallas before turning their attention to their toughest matchup of the season.

Expectations are high for the breakout Longhorns in 2024, yet so are the challenges they will have to overcome. But on the other side of those obstacles is a realistic shot at a national championship trophy they haven’t hoisted since 2005.

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Texas

Paxton hails Trump’s endorsement as ‘most powerful force in politics’ after Texas runoff win – US politics live

Published

5 hours ago

May 27, 2026

Press Room

Paxton hails Trump’s endorsement as ‘most powerful force in politics’ after Texas runoff win – US politics live

Trump endorsement ‘most powerful force in politics’, says Paxton after runoff victory

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Texas attorney-general Ken Paxton said Donald Trump’s endorsement is “the most powerful force in politics” as he comfortably won the Republican nomination for the Senate last night.

Paxton defeated four-term senator John Cornyn in the latest contest where president Trump sought to oust an incumbent he saw as insufficiently loyal, AP reported.

Trump endorsed Paxton, calling him a “true MAGA warrior”, with Paxton’s victory in the runoff making Cornyn – who was first elected to the Senate in 2002 – the first Republican senator from Texas to lose the party’s nomination for reelection.

“When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me and abandon the people of Texas, he didn’t listen,” Paxton said. “President Trump is the leader of our party, and his endorsement is the most powerful force in politics.”

Cornyn’s loss followed primaries this month where Trump successfully backed challengers to Republican lawmakers who had displeased him in Louisiana, Kentucky and Indiana, a sign of his enduring influence among primary voters.

“After a public service career lasting more than four decades and 18 consecutive campaign wins, tonight we’ve come up short in this primary runoff,” Cornyn said shortly after the race was called. “I’ve always supported the GOP ticket. I intend to do so again this general election.”

The race had wide implications for Trump’s strength heading into November’s midterm elections, where Paxton will now face James Talarico, a Democratic pastor and state legislator whose message of peace and populism has attracted much attention. If he wins, Talarico would become the first Democrat in more than 30 years to win statewide office in Texas.

In other developments:

Christian Menefee defeated Al Green to represent Texas’s newly redrawn 18th congressional district. Green, 78, had served 11 terms as a Democrat, earning a reputation as one of Donald Trump’s top critics, when he became the first member of Congress to call for his impeachment, as early as 2017. Menefee, 38, began serving in Congress earlier this year after he won a special election. The two Democrats faced off against each other in this year’s election after Republican redistricting saw their home districts near Houston redrawn.
Two Republican-led efforts to redraw congressional maps in Alabama and South Carolina hit setbacks. In Alabama, a federal court said the proposed map could not be used because it was drawn to intentionally discriminate against Black voters. The South Carolina Senate voted against redrawing the state’s congressional map due to political and administrative reasons.
Construction is under way on the White House lawn for a UFC arena that will host a cage-match next month to mark the United States’s 250th anniversary and Trump’s 80th birthday. The mixed martial arts fight is planned for 14 June.
Trump completed his annual physical after year of public attention to health issues. Trump, the oldest inaugurated president in US history, completed a physical exam on Tuesday at Walter Reed national military medical center, amid questions around his health. “Everything checked out PERFECTLY,” the US president declared in a social media post.
The Trump administration considered asking federal workers to sign NDAs. The goal of asking federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements is to prevent them from sharing confidential information with journalists.

Key events

Trump moves Camp David cabinet meeting to White House as Iran talks continue

Robert Tait

Donald Trump will host the 12th cabinet meeting of his second term on Wednesday as talks on ending the nearly three-month war with Iran reach a crucial stage amid conflicting signals over whether an agreement is close.

The gathering had originally been scheduled to take place in the bucolic setting of Camp David, the presidential retreat that had previously been the site of sensitive Middle East negotiations, including the historic Israeli-Egyptian peace accords.

But Trump switched it back to its more accustomed White House setting, citing adverse weather forecasts.

“Based on the possible bad weather conditions tomorrow, we will be having our Cabinet Meeting in the White House, and will be postponing the Cabinet trip to Camp David,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. Heavy rain is expected in the area on Wednesday.

The initial decision to stage it at Camp David had raised eyebrows, given that Trump had visited the presidential retreat deep in the Maryland countryside, 62 miles north-west of Washington, much less frequently than most of his predecessors.

Veteran Texas congressman Al Green beaten in Democratic primary runoff

Uwa Ede-Osifo

Christian Menefee, a freshman Democratic US representative, beat veteran congressman Al Green on Tuesday in a fierce runoff that was the product of Republican gerrymandering.

Last year, the Republican-dominated Texas legislature unveiled a congressional map designed to flip seats in the GOP’s favor. Donald Trump had urged the state’s lawmakers to safeguard the party’s congressional majority.

Under the new map, Green, a congressional fixture for over two decades and a staunch Trump critic, saw his reliably Democratic ninth district effectively eliminated. He announced a bid for the 18th district in November.

Menefee was sworn into the seat in January, after winning a special election to replace the late US representative Sylvester Turner.

On the campaign trail, Green sought to link Menefee with big-money politics, accusing his challenger of being aligned with “Trump crypto cronies”, Houston Public Media reported.

Green’s protests of the Trump administration have garnered national attention in recent years.

In February, he was ejected from the president’s State of the Union address after holding a sign that read “Black people aren’t apes!” It was a counter to Trump sharing a racist AI-generated video where Barack and Michelle Obama were depicted as the simians.

Trump endorsement ‘most powerful force in politics’, says Paxton after runoff victory

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Texas attorney-general Ken Paxton said Donald Trump’s endorsement is “the most powerful force in politics” as he comfortably won the Republican nomination for the Senate last night.

Paxton defeated four-term senator John Cornyn in the latest contest where president Trump sought to oust an incumbent he saw as insufficiently loyal, AP reported.

In other developments:

Christian Menefee defeated Al Green to represent Texas’s newly redrawn 18th congressional district. Green, 78, had served 11 terms as a Democrat, earning a reputation as one of Donald Trump’s top critics, when he became the first member of Congress to call for his impeachment, as early as 2017. Menefee, 38, began serving in Congress earlier this year after he won a special election. The two Democrats faced off against each other in this year’s election after Republican redistricting saw their home districts near Houston redrawn.
Two Republican-led efforts to redraw congressional maps in Alabama and South Carolina hit setbacks. In Alabama, a federal court said the proposed map could not be used because it was drawn to intentionally discriminate against Black voters. The South Carolina Senate voted against redrawing the state’s congressional map due to political and administrative reasons.
Construction is under way on the White House lawn for a UFC arena that will host a cage-match next month to mark the United States’s 250th anniversary and Trump’s 80th birthday. The mixed martial arts fight is planned for 14 June.
Trump completed his annual physical after year of public attention to health issues. Trump, the oldest inaugurated president in US history, completed a physical exam on Tuesday at Walter Reed national military medical center, amid questions around his health. “Everything checked out PERFECTLY,” the US president declared in a social media post.
The Trump administration considered asking federal workers to sign NDAs. The goal of asking federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements is to prevent them from sharing confidential information with journalists.

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Texas

NASA lays out its moon base plans with Texas ties to make it happen

Published

17 hours ago

May 26, 2026

Press Room

NASA lays out its moon base plans with Texas ties to make it happen

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — NASA laid out its moon base plans, and the operation has Texas ties beyond the Johnson Space Center.

Only weeks have passed since NASA sent humans further in space than ever before. While the agency achieved something new, on Tuesday afternoon, NASA said it’s only the beginning.

The agency said a moon base is coming. A place where astronauts will explore, perform experiments, and provide data to get to Mars.

Although NASA has sent humans before, NASA’s moon base program manager, Carlos Garcia-Galan, said this moon base mission is different.

“Eventually, when we matched the assets, habitat modules with the logistics and all the things to move the logistics around,” Garcia-Galan explained. “Then we’ll be able to say, we’re permanently here, and we’re not giving it up.”

The plan, NASA said, is to build a moon base in three phases over 75 launches over the next six years. The first steps, officials said, will be by the end of the year when they start to send supplies to the moon, ahead of astronaut lunar missions scheduled for 2028.

Rice University physics and astronomy professor Patricia Reiff said it’s ambitious but doable. “I think this was a very sensible way to proceed,” Reiff said.

NASA isn’t doing it alone. The agency said it’s spending hundreds of millions of dollars with private companies to build the base.

On Tuesday, it announced that Firefly Aerospace, based in Austin, will deliver drones to the moon. Axiom Space, based in Houston, said it’ll work with the company selected to build the new lunar rovers.

“I think it’s fantastic news because even the ones not based in Houston will be having people here in Houston to work closely with the Johnson Space Center,” Reiff explained.

A moon base, NASA said, is ready to start just weeks after completing Artemis, not just for its own exploration, but what could one day benefit us on Earth.

“We go for the technology we will pioneer to get there,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said. “The science and all that we will learn that’ll make life better here on earth. To advance humankind on this great adventure.”

While NASA plans to send supplies to the moon starting later this year, astronauts won’t be with it. NASA said it plans to launch astronauts into space next year to test its lunar landers.

Then, in two years, it says it plans to start sending humans back to the moon.

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Texas

Texas oil companies push to fend off far-right bid for regulatory post

Published

1 day ago

May 26, 2026

Press Room

Texas oil companies push to fend off far-right bid for regulatory post

Top Texas Republicans and some of the state’s biggest oil and gas producers closed ranks in recent weeks to boost an incumbent energy regulator trying to knock off a hard-right challenger.

Jim Wright, who is seeking a second term on the Railroad Commission of Texas, won 32 percent of the vote in a five-way race in the Republican primary in March.

Bo French, who is known for social media posts disparaging immigrants and Muslims, finished with just over 31 percent.

The difference was less than 7,000 votes. The results set off alarm bells — and oil companies opened their checkbooks during the runoff campaign as politicians warned that the seat could fall into Democratic hands if French won the Republican primary.

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