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Ranking the states that have produced the most Texas Longhorns

UT’s historic out-of-state players have primarily come from these states.

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Texas tailback Ricky Williams, winner of the 1998
Texas Longhorn legend Ricky Williams at the 1998 Heisman Trophy ceremony. Williams’s home state is very well represented among UT’s all-time football lettermen.
ADAM NADEL/AFP via Getty Images

Three weeks ago I wrote a two-part series on the high schools that have historically produced the most Texas Longhorn football lettermen. All of those high schools were, unsurprisingly, in the state of Texas, as no out-of-state school has produced more than five Longhorns.

See: These high schools have produced the most Texas Longhorns - Part One

These high schools have produced the most Texas Longhorns - Part Two

The Longhorns’ 2023 recruiting class currently boasts commits from six different states, including one (Hawaii) that the program has never had a player from before. The 2022 Longhorn roster includes 29 players who attended high school outside of Texas. One of them, Montana transfer wide receiver Gabe Sulser, will potentially be the first UT football letterman from the Treasure State.

Out-of-state products have been common on recent Longhorn rosters, and a long look at UT football history reveals that there have been more out-of-state Longhorns than one might expect, given the fact that the program rarely spent much effort recruiting outside the state during the 30 combined seasons it was led by Dana Bible (1937-46) and Darrell Royal (1957-76), the two most successful Longhorn coaches of the program’s first century. By my count there have been at least 238 Longhorn lettermen who went to high school outside of Texas, which amounts to a little over 10% of the program’s all-time lettermen.

This post is not intended to be a grand exposition on the history of Longhorn out-of-state recruiting, but there will still be plenty of history lessons as we cover the top eleven states (other than Texas) that have produced the most Texas Longhorns. (A top ten would have been more aesthetically pleasing, but there was a three-way tie for ninth place.)

Before we go further there are some terms that need defining. By “Texas Longhorns” I’m referring to student-athletes who have been awarded letters by the UT football program and are considered to be among the team’s all-time lettermen, so Bru McCoy and Cameron Rising don’t count toward the state of California’s total. And when listing the states that have “produced” those Longhorns I’m referring to states where those players attended high school, or otherwise their home states for the few instances where an out-of-state Longhorn’s high school or prep school alma mater is unknown.

Following the standard I outlined in previous posts, when an athlete spends significant time at more than one high school (particularly if they play a full varsity football season at more than one), I’ll credit them as being a product of each school and not try to adjudicate them as being only from one school or another. For the sake of consistency, the same will go for an athlete who attends high schools in different states, thus former UT linebacker Ayodele Adeoye will count toward the totals for both Florida and Missouri.

The notable players mentioned from their respective states are listed in order of the year they won their first letter at Texas, and are not ranked by “notability”. The high school attended by each named letterman is included after the dash, and the years in parentheses after the school names are the years that each player lettered with the Longhorns.


The top eleven (non-Texas) states that have produced the most Texas Longhorns

9. (tie) Arizona

Longhorn lettermen from this state: 7
First letterman from Arizona: HB Gib Dawson — Douglas (1950-52)
Most recent letterman from Arizona: RB Bijan Robinson — Tucson, Salpointe Catholic (2020-21)

The Longhorns very rarely drew players from Arizona for the program’s first century, but it has become a relevant recruiting ground in recent years. Five of the seven Longhorns to come from Arizona played at UT within the past 20 years. Current Longhorn freshmen Lance St. Louis and Zac Swanson are both from Arizona, and should improve their state’s number within a year or two.

Most notable Longhorn lettermen from Arizona

Gib Dawson (1950-52) starred at Douglas High School in Douglas, Arizona, then was a two-time All-Southwest Conference halfback with the Longhorns, and also served as the team’s placekicker. As a senior in 1952 he was part of a four-man backfield (along with halfback Billy Quinn, fullback Richard Ochoa, and quarterback T. Jones) that all made the All-SWC first team. At the end of his college career he was UT’s second all-time leading rusher with 1,724 yards. He was picked in the 4th round of the 1953 NFL Draft and played for one season with the Green Bay Packers. Dawson was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1984.

Mossy Cade (1980-83) came to Texas from Santa Cruz Valley Union High School in Eloy. He played cornerback at UT, and as a senior in 1983 he recorded six interceptions and 21 pass breakups for a Longhorn defense universally regarded as one of the best — if not the best — the program has ever had. He was one of three Longhorn defenders named to the Associated Press’s 1983 All-America first team. Cade was the sixth overall pick in the 1984 NFL Draft. He played one season in the USFL, and then two in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers (1985-86), but a sexual assault conviction in 1987 ended his career.

Lyle Sendlein (2003-06) and his brother Austin (2002-03) were sons of former Longhorn linebacker Robin Sendlein, and both were standouts at Chaparral High School in Scottsdale before coming to UT. Lyle was the starting center on UT’s 2005 national championship team, and was a team captain as a senior in 2006. He signed with the Arizona Cardinals as an undrafted free agent in 2007 and went on to start at center for 124 total games in nine seasons with that franchise.

Bijan Robinson (2020-21) averaged an otherworldly 17.7 yards per carry during his senior year at Salpointe Catholic High School in Tucson. He has more than lived up to his high school hype in his two seasons at Texas and goes into his junior year as one of the leading Heisman Trophy betting favorites. With 1,830 rushing yards in his first two seasons, he is currently 21st all-time among Longhorn runners, and if he were to run for an even 1,500 yards this fall he would move all the way up to fourth place on that list.


9. (tie) Illinois

Longhorn lettermen from this state: 7
First letterman from Illinois: G Magnus Mainland — Wheaton Academy (1905-06)
Most recent letterman from Illinois: TE Kendall Moore — Chicago, Simeon (2017)

Very few of the seven Longhorns to attend high school in Illinois are particularly notable, and only two of them (Magnus Mainland and Carter Hill) won multiple letters. Transfer tight end Jahleel Billingsley attended the Phillips Academy in Chicago and is the only current Longhorn from Illinois, so he if gets regular playing time this fall he’ll improve his state’s figure by one.

Most notable Longhorn lettermen from Illinois

Magnus Mainland (1905-06) was born in 1879 and was a native of the Orkney Islands in northern Scotland. He moved with his family to the United States in 1898 and settled in Racine, Wisconsin. He attended the Wheaton Academy in Wheaton, Illinois for his preparatory education, then was a student at Wheaton College for a year before transferring to the University of Texas in 1905 to study engineering, a field of study not offered at Wheaton. He played guard on the UT football team for two years, and also helped organize the first UT varsity basketball team in 1906. He was a player-coach on the 1906 basketball team and also coached the team in 1907.

Nick Frankovic (1935) was recruited to Texas from Chicago’s Tilden Technical High School during the head coaching tenure of Indiana native Jack Chevigny. He won his only letter as a sophomore in 1935, and was a reserve tackle for the next two seasons. After graduating from Texas he coached football at Lockhart High School for a few years and was the school’s head coach in 1941, then he coached at a series of public and private schools in southeast Texas for over two decades.

Carter Hill (1985-87) lived in Texas for several years as a kid before moving to Illinois and spending his high school years at Naperville Central just west of Chicago. He developed into a blue chip offensive tackle recruit in the 1984 class and eventually picked Texas over Notre Dame. He practiced at multiple positions on the offensive line and was nominally a backup tackle as a redshirt freshman, then became the starting center as a sophomore in 1986, but he missed significant time due to injury, and neck issues forced him to give up football midway through the 1987 season.


9. (tie) Indiana

Longhorn lettermen from this state: 7
First letterman from Indiana: T Bothwell Kane — Culver Military Academy (1912)
Most recent letterman from Indiana: T Gordon Roberts — West Lafayette (1961-63)

Indiana is the first of two states highlighted in this post whose numbers are boosted by native Texans who attended a prep school or military school there. It has been nearly 60 years since UT had a letterman from that state. None of them were particularly notable as players, but each of the seven had some interesting history around why they came to UT, or what happened to them after college. So rather than pick one or two to highlight, I’ll run through all of them.

The first three Longhorns to attend a school in the Hoosier State were Bothwell Kane, Robert Hanger, and Julian Mastin, who won their letters at UT in 1912, 1916, and 1919, respectively. All three of them were from Fort Worth, Texas and attended the Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana. Hanger and Mastin both attended Fort Worth High School before graduating from Culver.

Bothwell Kane served in the Army during World War I, and was one of four Longhorn football lettermen who were killed in action during that war. Robert Hanger became a lawyer and was Tarrant County District Attorney from 1923 to 1927, and he is almost certainly the namesake of Bob Hanger Street in northwest Fort Worth. Julian Mastin was a grandson of William B. Bate, a former Confederate general who held office as Governor and U.S. Senator from Tennessee many years after the Civil War. Mastin and Hanger were classmates at Fort Worth High, Culver Military Academy, and then UT, and Mastin later worked under Hanger as an assistant district attorney.

The next three Indianans to letter at Texas were QB John Morrow (1935), HB Henry Mittermayer (1936-37), and QB Bill Forney (1936-38). All three were recruited to Texas during the brief head coaching tenure of the aforementioned Indiana native and former Notre Dame star Jack Chevigny. Morrow and Mittermayer — whose last name has been misspelled “Mintermayer” on UT’s all-time lettermen list for at least 50 years — were both all-state halfbacks on South Bend Central’s 1931 state championship team. Morrow played for Chevigny during the latter’s one season (1933) as head coach at St. Edward’s University in Austin, then transferred to UT after Chevigny became its head coach in 1934.

Gordon Roberts, the last Indianan to letter at Texas, graduated from West Lafayette High School in 1959. He had grown up in Norman, Oklahoma and his father had worked as the Assistant Dean of Men at the University of Oklahoma while future Texas Longhorns head coach Darrell Royal was a student there in the late 1940s. Roberts was 11 years old when his family moved from Norman to West Lafayette, Indiana after his father was hired as Dean of Men at Purdue University. He had planned on attending OU after his high school graduation, and he went so far as to pay a deposit for a dorm room there, but changed his mind after taking a visit to the UT campus.

Though he had been an all-state tackle and team captain as a senior at West Lafayette, Roberts came to UT to study petroleum engineering and not as a football recruit. He weighed 225 pounds, which was a solid weight for a tackle in that era, and made the varsity football team during his second year on campus. He went on to be a three-year letterman as a tackle with the Longhorns, and as a senior in 1963 he was a member of the first UT squad to win a national championship. In that championship season his play at left offensive tackle was invaluable, as it allowed All-American Scott Appleton to concentrate primarily on defense and not have to play both ways for entire games.


8. New Mexico

Longhorn lettermen from this state: 8
First letterman from New Mexico: E Charlie Turner — Roswell (1913-15)
Most recent letterman from New Mexico: DL Aaron Lewis — Albuquerque, La Cueva (2005-08)

New Mexico has produced a few contributors but only one true star for the Longhorns. Four of the eight lettermen from this state won multiple letters.

Most notable Longhorn lettermen from New Mexico

Ralph Greear (1932-33) was a football and basketball standout at Clovis High School, and came to the University of Texas several years after his older brother William Greear, a future Army colonel. Ralph was a two-year football letterman who played guard and tackle for the Longhorns, then graduated in 1934 with a B.B.A. During World War II he served in the Army in a tank unit, and was killed in action in Germany during the Battle of Hurtgen Forest on November 29, 1944, at age 34.

Bill Hamilton (1973-76) was the star quarterback of the 1971 Las Cruces Mayfield team that won New Mexico’s AAAA state championship. He converted to linebacker while at Texas and was one of the team’s leading tacklers during his time as a starter. As a junior in 1975 he was credited with seven forced fumbles, a single-season team record that would stand for 29 years. After the end of his football career he attended medical school and became a surgeon. He was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 2018.

Aaron Lewis (2005-08) lived in several places growing up due to his father’s service as an Air Force Chaplain. He came to UT after an all-state career at La Cueva High School in Albuquerque, in which he broke the state’s record for sacks in a season. He was a member of UT’s national championship team as a freshman in 2005, and went on to start 15 games at defensive end and defensive tackle over his last three years. Curiously, UT’s all-time lettermen list only credits him with letters from 2005 to 2007, despite his appearing in all 13 games during the 2008 season.


7. Florida

Longhorn lettermen from this state: 9
First letterman from Florida: OG Greg Wright — Martin County (1983-84)
Most recent letterman from Florida: LB Ayodele Adeoye — Bradenton, IMG Academy (2018-19, 21)

Only two players from Florida high schools lettered for UT during the first 120 years of Longhorn football, but seven others have won letters within the past eight seasons. Florida’s ranking would be a bit higher right now if the program had had a better hit rate with the much-ballyhooed “Florida Five” from the 2015 recruiting class.

The current Texas roster includes three wide receivers from Florida high schools: redshirt freshman Jaden Alexis, sophomore transfer Agiye Hall, and senior transfer Tarique Milton. Between them and current 2023 commits Cedric Baxter Jr. and Payton Kirkland, the Sunshine State could move at least two spots higher on this list within a few years.

(Note: Lou Maysel’s 1970 book Here Come the Texas Longhorns stated that 1929 letterman James Beard was from Jacksonville, Florida, but according to Beard’s daughter he actually attended high school in Atlanta, Georgia.)

Most notable Longhorn lettermen from Florida

Andrew Beck (2014-16, 18) was one of the last remaining Mack Brown-era commits on the Longhorn roster by the time he was a senior in 2018. He signed with Texas out of Florida powerhouse Tampa Plant, and though most recruiting services labeled him a linebacker prospect he ended up playing tight end at UT and started 29 games in his career. He was a two-time team captain in 2017 and 2018, though he missed all of the former season due to injury. As a fifth-year senior in 2018 he had the best season by a Longhorn tight end in years, and was named to the coaches’ All-Big 12 first team. He went undrafted in 2019 but eventually landed with the Denver Broncos and has appeared in 38 games over three seasons with that team.

John Burt (2015-17, 19) came to Texas from Lincoln High School in Tallahassee, and during his college career he was a track & field All-American and a Big 12 hurdles champion. He also put his speed to good — if inconsistent — use on the gridiron. He led the Longhorns with 457 receiving yards as a freshman in 2015 and was a starter in 23 career games, but his production dropped in each successive full season. Still, his career was not without highlights; his 90-yard reception vs. Oklahoma State in 2017 and his 84-yard touchdown reception against Kansas in 2015 represented the two longest passing plays for the Longhorns during the entire decade of the 2010s.

Davante Davis (2015-18) signed with Texas in Charlie Strong’s first full recruiting cycle after helping Miami’s Booker T. Washington High to a 4A state championship. He started at cornerback in 26 of his 48 career games as a Longhorn and twice made the honorable mention All-Big 12 team.

Chris Nelson (2015-18) signed with Texas from Lakeland Victory Christian on national signing day in 2014, after having previously been committed to Louisville and its former head coach Charlie Strong for four months. He started 29 games on the defensive line in his career and was a team captain in 2018.


6. Missouri

Longhorn lettermen from this state: 14
First letterman from Missouri: E Joseph Hunter Byrd — Jackson, Carlisle Training School (1899)
Most recent lettermen from Missouri: LB Ayodele Adeoye — Ritenour (2018-19, 21); DE Jacoby Jones — Florissant, McCluer North (2019-21), and WR Marcus Washington — St. Louis, Trinity Christian (2019-21)

Missouri’s total includes two players who began their high school careers in the Show Me State but finished them elsewhere (Jeff Leiding and Ayodele Adeoye), but it would still be comfortably in sixth place even if those two were not included. Ayodele Adeoye began his high school career at Ritenour in the St. Louis suburb of Breckenridge Hills, before spending his senior year in Florida at the IMG Academy.

One of my favorite unbelievable historical factoids is that John Tyler, who was the 10th President of the United States and held office from 1841 to 1845, has one grandson who is still living, as of this writing. In my research I discovered a similar, though less astounding, Longhorn-specific factoid. Joseph Hunter Byrd, an 1899 letterman who was the first Missouri native to play football at the University of Texas, has at least one son who is still living. Joseph Hunter Byrd Jr., born in Kentucky when his father was 57 years old, is now an 84-year-old retired community college music professor living in California. He was a musician and composer of some note in the 1960s and 1970s, and once led an experimental rock band called the United States of America, which released its first and only album on the Columbia label in 1968.

Most notable Longhorn lettermen from Missouri

Don “Mogul” Robinson (1903-05) was one of UT’s biggest stars in the first decade of the 20th century. He was born in Indiana but grew up in Springfield, Missouri, and received at least some of his preparatory education at the Drury College Academy in that city. He was well-traveled in his youth, and is believed to have attended Montana State, Colorado State College (now the University of Northern Colorado), and Stanford before his time at the University of Texas. He was nicknamed “Mogul” after a classification of steam locomotives. He was a short but powerful runner who was a star at halfback for three years at Texas and was the team captain in 1905. (He would be the last non-Texan to serve as a team captain until Park Myers of Caldwell, Kansas in 1939.) Robinson also won three letters on the UT track & field team. He was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1971.

George Howard “Hook” McCullough (1920-21) was a native of Fayette, Missouri, and he attended Independence High School in Independence, Missouri and the Kemper Military School in Boonville, Missouri for his preparatory education. He briefly attended the University of Missouri and then served in the Army during World War I before enrolling at Texas in 1919. He starred at left end on the UT football team for two years and also won two letters in basketball, and was the basketball team captain in 1922. During his lifetime McCullough was regarded as one of the best receivers in the history of the Longhorn football program, and after his death from pneumonia in 1935 the Austin Statesman wrote, “he has been considered the paragon of all southwestern ends, of all time.” He was one of the earliest inductees into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor, joining in 1959 in that hall’s third class.

Jeff Leiding (1980-83) attended Hickman Mills High School in Kansas City for his first three years of high school before moving to Oklahoma and spending his senior year at Tulsa Union. He was a three-year starter for the Longhorns at middle linebacker and was among the team’s top tacklers in each of those years. He was a team captain as a senior in 1983 and a consensus All-American, and he helped lead Texas to an undefeated regular season record before a heartbreaking 10-9 loss to Georgia in the 1984 Cotton Bowl. He was picked in the 5th round of the 1984 NFL Draft, and went on to play two seasons with the Indianapolis Colts.

June James IV (1981-84) was a highly-recruited linebacker while at Kansas City Southeast, and at one point he signed a Big 8 Conference letter-of-intent with Nebraska, but he later changed his mind and signed with Texas. He was a four-year contributor at linebacker for the Longhorns (strangely, the current all-time lettermen list doesn’t credit him with a letter in 1983, though he played in nearly every game and was the team’s seventh-leading tackler that season), and as a senior in 1984 he was credited with 120 total tackles and 8 sacks. He was picked in the 9th round of the 1985 NFL Draft, spent time with a pair of NFL teams, and played one season in the CFL.

Tony Edwards (1981-84) was another four-year letterman linebacker from Missouri, coming to UT from St. Louis University High School. As a senior in 1984 he was credited with a team-leading 149 total tackles.


5. Tennessee

Longhorn lettermen from this state: 15
First letterman from Tennessee: T/G Victor Cloud Moore — Bell Buckle, The Webb School (1893-95)
Most recent letterman from Tennessee: DE Eric Hall — Clarksville, Northwest (2003-05)

Tennessee’s placement on this list should come with a sizeable asterisk, but it’s still a top-ten state any way you slice it. Of the 15 Longhorns who went to high school or prep school in Tennessee, seven of them were native Texans who attended either a boarding school (The Webb School) or military school (Castle Heights Military Academy) in that state. At least two other Longhorns who went to high school in Tennessee were born in Texas.

The Tennessee contingent of Longhorns is a sizeable group that doesn’t include very many standout athletes, but has a few who were notable for their professional work or for the way their life intersected with interesting historical moments.

Most notable Longhorn lettermen from (or “from”) Tennessee

Victor Cloud Moore (1893-95) was a native of Austin who attended The Webb School along with his two younger brothers. The Webb School is a boarding and day school about 50 miles southeast of Nashville in Bell Buckle, Tennessee whose history dates back to 1870, and which remains in operation today. Moore’s father was a lawyer and judge in Austin, and he and his brothers all followed their father into the legal profession. At age 19, Victor was one of the starting guards on the very first UT varsity football team in 1893. He played in two more seasons and was the team captain in 1894. After graduating from Texas he moved to El Paso to establish his law practice, and he lived in that city for the rest of his life. After working as a lawyer for nearly 30 years, he retired from that profession and spent his last 14 years as the superintendent of the Southwest Children’s Home, a home for orphaned children in El Paso. He died in 1939, at age 65, and the El Paso Times reported that he had “one of the longest funeral corteges in the history of the city.”

Alexander Galpin “A.G.” Blacklock (1897) was born in England in 1873. His family moved to the United States in 1880 and settled in Tennessee. He had his earliest college education at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and during his time there he played three varsity sports and was the valedictorian and class president of the graduating class of 1896. He was also the captain of the school’s football teams of 1894 and 1895. He left Sewanee with both a bachelor of arts and master of arts degree. He enrolled at the University of Texas as a law student in 1897, played quarterback on the football team that fall, and was a member of the baseball team the following spring. He graduated with a bachelor of laws degree in 1898. When he died in 1969 at age 95, he was one of the last surviving Longhorn football players from the program’s first decade.

Cloyd Henry Read (1897) was another Tennesseean on the 1897 Longhorn football team. He was born and raised in Brownsville, Tennessee and began his collegiate career at the University of Tennessee in the early 1890s. He graduated from that UT with a bachelor of arts degree in 1896, and he most likely played on one of the earliest Tennessee football teams. That school’s all-time lettermen list includes a “C.H. Reed” who played on the 1892 team (the second varsity team in Tennessee’s history), and local news articles from that year mention a starting end whose last name was variously spelled “Reed” or “Reid”. He was a substitute end on the 1897 Texas football team and graduated with a bachelor of laws in 1898. He moved to Dallas to begin his legal career and lived in that city for the rest of his life.

Isaac Newton “Ike” Sewell III (1925, 27-28) was another Texan who spent his high school years in Tennessee. Ike Sewell was a native of Wills Point, a small town about 50 miles east of Dallas, and he was a nephew of 1894 UT football letterman Ed Sewell. He attended the Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon, Tennessee before his days at the University of Texas. He played guard on the UT football team for three years and made the All-Southwest Conference first team in 1927. In that era the Longhorns had a team captain as well as captains for different position groups, and Sewell was the “line captain” as a senior in 1928. He also wrote a regular column that year on the football team and other topics that was published in the Austin Statesman. He later moved to Chicago and had a long career in the restaurant business. He opened his Pizzeria Uno restaurant in Chicago in 1943, and some sources have credited him as the creator of “Chicago-style” deep dish pizza. He was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 2001.

Kenny Neal (1990-92) lived in Abilene, Texas as a youth before moving to Tennessee, where he was a two-sport star at Memphis Catholic High School. He was a highly-recruited running back in the 1989 class and originally committed to Georgia Tech, but went on to sign with Texas, picking the Longhorns over several other schools who wanted him for football but weren’t willing to let him also play baseball. He was moved to receiver while at Texas and started a number of games in the 1991 season, then was second on the team with 29 receptions and 424 receiving yards in 1992. He did not win a letter with the baseball team.


4. Colorado

Longhorn lettermen from this state: 16
First lettermen from Colorado: OT Bobby Mitchell (1968-70) and S Freddie Steinmark (1968-69) — both from Wheat Ridge
Most recent letterman from Colorado: TE Gunnar Helm — Greenwood Village, Cherry Creek (2021)

I suspect Colorado would not be one of the first five states most UT football fans would think of if asked to guess which states aside from Texas have produced the most Longhorns, but is has quietly made its way into the top four. The first five Colorado Longhorns all played in the span of a decade between the late 1960s and late 1970s, and almost all of the others were on a UT roster within the past 20 years.

Some Longhorns from Colorado are more notable than others, but 13 of the 15 players in that group aside from current sophomore tight end Gunnar Helm were multi-year lettermen.

Most notable Longhorn lettermen from Colorado

Bobby Mitchell (1968-70) and Freddie Steinmark (1968-69) were teammates on the 1966 Wheat Ridge High School team that won Colorado’s AAA state championship. Mitchell was a fullback and kicker on the football team and a state champion in the shot put during track season, while Steinmark was a talented but undersized halfback. Both were recruited to Texas, and Mitchell was moved from fullback to guard and developed into a two-year starter on UT’s 1969 and 1970 national championship teams, and he made the United Press International’s All-SWC first team as a senior.

Steinmark was a starting safety on UT’s 1969 national championship team and was named an honorable mention All-American by the Associated Press. He played the final game of his career in UT’s legendary 15-14 win over second-ranked Arkansas in December of that year. Just days after that game it was discovered that he had a tumor in his left leg, and that leg was amputated soon afterward. He stood on the sidelines with the help of crutches a few weeks later when Texas won the 1970 Cotton Bowl 21-17 over Notre Dame, the team Steinmark had grown up hoping to play for. He was just 22 when he died on June 6, 1971. He was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1987 and his life was the subject of the 2015 movie My All-American.

Ron Bones (1977-79) was a star at Pueblo East before he played defensive end for the Longhorns. He made the UPI’s All-SWC second team as a senior in 1979.

Bobby Duncum Jr. (1985-88) moved frequently in his youth because of his father’s professional wrestling career. He graduated from Durango High School in Colorado, while his younger brother Duane Duncum (a Longhorn letterman from 1986 to 1989) finished his high school career at Austin Westlake. He was an athletic linebacker and defensive end while playing with the Longhorns, and as a junior in 1987 he was tied for third on the team in total tackles, but he frequently battled injuries during his college career. After a few years spent playing in the Arena Football League and the short-lived World League of American Football, he followed in his father’s footsteps and began a pro wrestling career. As with his football career, he battled many injuries and physical ailments during his time in wrestling, and underwent well over a dozen surgeries during that period of his life. He eventually developed a dependency on painkillers, and died on January 24, 2000 at age 34, reportedly from an accidental overdose of Fentanyl.

Bo Scaife (1999, 2001, 03-04) was considered the state of Colorado’s top football prospect in the class of 1999 as a senior at J.K. Mullen High School in Denver, and he was rated among the top tight end recruits in the country. ACL injuries cost him two whole seasons while in college, but he recovered and played two full seasons to finish his college career, and as a senior in 2004 he was the Big 12 coaches’ pick for the tight end spot on the All-Big 12 first team. He finished his UT career with 75 receptions for 997 yards, graduating with the second-most career receptions by a Longhorn tight end at the time. He was picked in the 6th round of the 2005 NFL Draft and played for six seasons with the Tennessee Titans, and he was a starter in 62 of his 90 career NFL games played.

Tillman Holloway (2000-03) graduated from Basalt High School in western Colorado, but spent most of his high school football career at Faith Christian High School in the Denver suburb Arvada. (Basalt dropped its football program due to low numbers shortly before the start of Holloway’s junior year, which prompted his transfer to Faith Christian, a school he had attended as a freshman). Holloway’s grandfather Bud McFadin had been a consensus All-American guard at Texas in 1950, and after redshirting in his first year in Austin, Holloway became a four-year starter at guard. As a junior in 2002 he made the AP’s All-Big 12 honorable mention team, then as a senior in 2003 he was a team captain and made the All-Big 12 first team.

Kyle Shanahan (2001-02) attended Cherry Creek High School in the Denver suburb of Greenwood Village while his father Mike Shanahan was the head coach of the NFL’s Denver Broncos. He began his college career at Duke, but later transferred to Texas and won two letters playing receiver for the Longhorns in 2001 and 2002, though he caught just 14 total passes in those two seasons. He began a coaching career after graduating from Texas, and aside from a year as a graduate assistant at UCLA (2003) he has spent the entirety of that career in the NFL. He has been head coach of the San Francisco 49ers since 2017.

Kasey Studdard (2004-06), son of 1970s Longhorn offensive lineman and NFL veteran Dave Studdard, was a four-year starter at Highlands Ranch High School near Denver before signing with the Longhorns’ 2002 recruiting class. He was a three-year starter on the offensive line at UT and was the left guard on the 2005 national championship team. He was a team captain as a senior in 2006 and was named to the All-Big 12 second team. He was picked in the 6th round of the 2007 NFL Draft and played with the Houston Texans for four seasons.

Lamarr Houston (2006-09) signed with Texas in 2006 out of Doherty High School in Colorado Springs, and he was a four-year contributor who made an impact at both defensive end and defensive tackle. He started 33 games in his college career and was a team captain as a senior in 2009. In his final season in burnt orange he was a defensive tackle starter and made the All-Big 12 second team after being credited with 68 tackles, 8 sacks, and 22 tackles for loss. He was picked in the 2nd round of the 2010 NFL Draft and played in the league for eight seasons.


3. Oklahoma

Longhorn lettermen from this state: 20
First letterman from Oklahoma: HB Joseph Maytubby — Wapanucka, Rock Academy (1896)
Most recent letterman from Oklahoma: QB Casey Thompson — Newcastle (2019-21)

The Texas Longhorns and their rivals north of the Red River, the Oklahoma Sooners, have an equal demand for football talent, but their respective home states have a very unequal supply. The 20 Oklahoma prep products who have won football letters at Texas is exponentially smaller than the number of Texans who have played for the Sooners, and that figure is also smaller than the number Texans who have won All-America honors while attending OU.

Several football contributors have crossed the Red River on their way to college in Austin, but very few would be considered stars. The state of Oklahoma’s biggest contribution to the Longhorn football program will always be Hollis, Oklahoma native Darrell Royal, who coached UT for 20 seasons (1957-76) and led the school to its first three national championships.

With the transfer of Casey Thompson to Nebraska there are no Oklahomans on the 2022 Longhorn football roster, unless you could deep snapper Zach Edwards, a Texan who was a member of OU’s 2018 roster as a freshman.

Most notable Longhorn lettermen from Oklahoma

Joseph Maytubby (1896), the first Oklahoman to play football at UT, was born near the present-day town of Hugo in what was then called Indian Territory, and he was of Chickasaw ancestry on his father’s side. He received his preparatory education in Wapanucka at a school for Native American youth that was known at different times as the Wapanucka Institute or Rock Academy. He attended Trinity College (now Duke University) in North Carolina, where he was a football star and an award-winning orator. After graduating from Trinity with a bachelor of philosophy degree in 1896, Maytubby enrolled at UT as a law student and played halfback for the school’s football team that fall. He was a lawyer, farmer, horse rancher, and cotton gin operator in Oklahoma at different points in his post-college years. He was also the first elected mayor of the city of Tishomingo, and held a number of civic and educational roles within the Chickasaw Nation.

See also: my BON post from October of last year on Joseph Maytubby and his remarkable life and football career.

Ralph Hammonds (1927) graduated from Hugo High School shortly before his 16th birthday and began his college career at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State), but transferred to UT in 1924 after his family moved to San Antonio. He only played for one season on the Longhorn varsity football team, winning a letter as a substitute guard in 1927, but he was a star in his two other sports. In track & field he was a record-setting pole vaulter, and finished 2nd in that event at the 1927 NCAA Track & Field Championships. But he is most notable for being the most accomplished wrestler in the short history of UT’s wrestling program. He was twice an AAU national wrestling champion in the 160-pound division, and he competed at the 1928 Olympic Games in the middleweight division of freestyle wrestling.

See also: my BON post last September on Hammonds and another of UT’s “forgotten Olympians”

Orban “Spec” Sanders (1940-41) came to UT from Temple, Oklahoma, a small town about 30 miles northeast of Wichita Falls. He played football at Cameron Junior College in Oklahoma before enrolling at UT. He was a solid halfback at Texas for two years, but not a regular starter, and some contemporary articles labeled him UT’s “All-American substitute”. Despite his somewhat limited college football resume, his size (6’1” and 195 pounds) and triple-threat skill set (which in that era meant running, passing, and punting) led to him being the sixth overall pick in the 1942 NFL Draft. He served in the Navy for the next few years and did not begin his pro football career until 1946, when he was 27 years old.

Instead of the NFL, Sanders played for his first three professional seasons with the New York Yankees of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). He twice led the league in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns, and was twice an AAFC All-Pro. In 1947 he rushed for 1,432 yards (over 500 yards ahead of the league’s second-place rusher), scored 18 rushing touchdowns (twice as many as any other player), and also passed for 1,442 yards, but his Yankees team lost 14-3 to the Cleveland Browns in that year’s AAFC championship game. He played one more year in the AAFC (1948), then retired, and the league itself folded after the 1949 season. He returned to pro football at age 32 in 1950 and played for one season in the NFL with the short-lived New York Yanks franchise (which was unrelated to the AAFC’s Yankees). He was a defensive back and punter that season and did not play on offense, and he was named to the Pro Bowl after recording 13 interceptions. Spec Sanders’s 13 interceptions in 1950 is tied for the second-highest single-season total in NFL history.

Rodney Tate (1979-81) was a star running back at Beggs High School in Beggs, Oklahoma, and was the state’s most coveted running back prospect in the 1978 class. Texas eventually won out over Oklahoma in a hard-fought recruiting battle for his signature. Tate was a backup running back with the Longhorns for four seasons and won three letters. He gained less than 1,000 yards from scrimmage in his college career (A.J. “Jam” Jones was UT’s leading rusher in all of Tate’s four seasons with the team), but showed enough to get picked in the 4th round of the 1982 NFL Draft. He played three seasons in the NFL as a kick returner and backup running back.

Jeff Leiding (1980-83) spent his senior year of high school at Tulsa Union after previously attending Kansas City’s Hickman Mills High School. See: the above entry in this post for Leiding in the Missouri section.

Casey Thompson (2019-21), whose father Charles Thompson had played quarterback at Oklahoma in the late 1980s, spent his senior year of high school in the Oklahoma City suburb of Newcastle after previously attending nearby Southmoore High School. He redshirted after signing with Texas in 2018, and was a backup QB for the next two years, then he started 10 of the team’s 12 games in the 2021 season. He transferred to Nebraska in January and is that team’s starting QB this season.


2. Louisiana

Longhorn lettermen from this state: 28
First letterman from Louisiana: G Thomas Kelly — Haynesville (1894, 97)
Most recent lettermen from Louisiana: DE Barryn Sorrell — New Orleans, Holy Cross (2021); DL Myron Warren — Many (2021); and DB Darion Dunn — Oakdale (2021)

Despite its close proximity to Texas and the high amount of football talent the state has historically produced, Louisiana was not a significant pipeline state for UT football for most of the program’s first century. 22 of the 28 Louisianans to letter at Texas won their last letter in 1990 or later.

The first Pelican State product to play for the Longhorns was Haynesville, Louisiana native Thomas Kelly (sources differ on whether his last name was spelled “Kelly” or “Kelley”), who played guard on a pair of 1890s teams at UT three years apart, and who was later a teacher in Hillsboro, Texas for three decades. Nearly 50 years passed between Kelly and the next letterman from his home state: Fred Brechtel. Brechtel was a graduate of Warren Easton High School in New Orleans (Casey Cain’s alma mater) who enlisted in the Navy during World War II, and due to his participation in the Navy’s V-12 officer training program he was transferred first from Rice to Southwestern University in 1944, then to Texas in 1945, where he played halfback.

The Longhorn football program’s first true standout from a Louisiana high school was arguably 1970s defensive end/linebacker Lionell Johnson (see below). Louisiana’s number of lettermen is certain to go up with redshirt freshman wide receiver Casey Cain in line for significant playing time this fall, true freshman defensive end J’Mond Tapp likely to contribute by 2023 (if not sooner), and three other Louisianans currently committed to the Longhorns’ 2023 recruiting class.

Most notable Longhorn lettermen from Louisiana

Lionell Johnson (1973-76) — whose first name was spelled “Lionel” during his high school career — was a two-time all-state linebacker at Winnfield High School in northern Louisiana, and when he signed with Texas in 1973 he was reported to be the program’s first black recruit from an out-of-state high school. Ten Louisiana products have been four-year lettermen at Texas, and Lionell Johnson was the first. He began his college career at defensive end, and as a sophomore in 1974 he made the AP’s All-SWC second team. He was moved to middle linebacker for his junior and senior seasons and was a prolific tackler at that position. He was named an AP honorable mention All-American in 1975 after a junior season in which he was credited with 136 total tackles. He was credited with a team-leading 175 total tackles as a senior in 1976, officially the third-highest single-season total in team history. Tackles only became an official statistic at UT in 1975, and had Johnson’s freshman and sophomore seasons counted toward his career tackles total he would very likely be ranked among the top five in Longhorn history.

Mike January (1983-86) was an all-state running back at Westlake High School near Lake Charles. He redshirted in his first year at UT, then was moved to linebacker in the spring of 1983 and spent the rest of his career on defense and special teams units. He was a backup for much of his career, then became the starting weakside linebacker as a senior in 1986. He went undrafted in 1987 but played in three games as a replacement player with the Chicago Bears during the 1987 NFL Players Association strike.

Major Applewhite (1998-2001) signed with Texas out of Catholic High School in Baton Rouge. He became the Longhorns’ starting QB as a redshirt freshman in 1998 after an injury to starter Richard Walton, and he remained the starter for most of three seasons. As a sophomore in 1999 he made the All-Big 12 first team and was the conference’s Co-Offensive Player of the Year. He was a team captain as a senior in 2001 and held most of UT’s single-season and career passing records by the end of his career, despite spending most of his final season as the backup QB behind Chris Simms. He began a coaching career after college and later spent six seasons as a UT assistant coach from 2008 to 2013. He was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 2012.

Greg Brown (1998-2000) was a teammate of Major Applewhite’s at Baton Rouge Catholic. He was a three-year letterman at defensive back with the Longhorns, and a starter for his final 25 college games. He made the All-Big 12 honorable mention team as a senior, and after going undrafted he played for two seasons in NFL Europe and was a member of the Denver Broncos practice squad.

Cole Pittman (1999-2000) was the first of five Longhorn lettermen to come to Austin from Shreveport’s Evangel Christian Academy, the only out-of-state school to produce more than four Longhorns. He played in 23 games and started three at defensive tackle during his first two seasons with the Longhorns, and was set to move to defensive end in the spring of 2001 and contend for a starting spot on that year’s defense, but he was killed in a car accident while driving back to Austin from his home in Louisiana on February 26. 2001.

UT’s second home game of the 2001 season was dedicated to Pittman. In that game, Texas was tied with visiting North Carolina 14-14 early in the 2nd quarter, but scored 30 unanswered points to turn the game into a blowout. After a Brett Robin touchdown with 36 seconds left in regulation put Texas ahead 44-14, the team elected to take a knee rather than kick the PAT to keep their side of the scoreboard at 44, which was Pittman’s jersey number.

Malcolm Roach (2016-19) was an all-state defensive lineman at Madison Prep Academy in Baton Rouge. He was miscast as a linebacker at times during his Longhorn career, but was solid when played at a more natural defensive line position. He started 23 games in his college career and was credited with 134 total tackles and 22.5 tackles for loss. He went undrafted in 2020 but signed with the New Orleans Saints and appeared in 16 games with that team in his first two pro seasons.


1. California

Longhorn lettermen from this state: 41
First letterman from California: HB Verne Hendrickson — Redlands (1904-06)
Most recent lettermen from California: DB Chris Adimora — Lakewood, Mayfair (2019-21), WR/DB Brenden Schooler — Mission Viejo (2020-21), RB Gabriel Watson — Piedmont (2020-21), and WR Xavier Worthy — Fresno, Central (2021)

I actually gave away that California was the top school within last week’s “Longhorn football commits in action” post. California is another state from which UT has drawn a trememdous number of players — more than any other state aside from Texas — despite having almost no recruiting footprint there before the 1990s. 41 Californians have won letters at Texas, and of that group 33 won their final letter in 1990 or later.

The first Californian to grace a UT football roster was Verne Hendrickson, a speedy halfback from Redlands who was a three-year letterman in both football (1904-06) and track & field (1905-07), and who was one of the nation’s fastest runners in the 440-yard dash by the end of his college career. Nearly four decades passed after Hendrickson’s graduation before the Longhorns had another Californian, though the wave of Golden State natives who came to Austin in 1943 could more accurately be described as conscripts than recruits.

The University of Texas was one of 131 colleges that were host campuses for the Navy’s V-12 officer training program, a World War II-era initiative that had over 125,000 participants in the three years it was in operation between 1943 and 1946. Many college students who participated in that program were transferred away from their original school to another one, and a lot of V-12 transfers just happened to be athletes. The Texas Longhorns lost several lettermen to other schools in 1943, most notably seven Marine Corps enlistees who were transferred from UT to Southwestern University in the summer of that year. But the team also gained an influx of transfers during that period, some of whom had previously attended in-state schools like Texas A&M, Rice, or Texas Tech, but many others were from elsewhere in the country. The state most represented among UT’s incoming V-12 transfers was California, and that program was also directly responsible for the Longhorns’ first-ever lettermen from New Jersey and Wisconsin.

The August 28, 1943 Austin Sunday American-Statesman published the full list players on the Longhorns’ preseason football roster, and out of 148 players in fall camp over 40 were from California. When the dust settled on the 1943 football season, four Californians were among the 23 Longhorns awarded letters for that year, and another three Cali members of the varsity squad were awarded reserve letters due to not getting the requisite playing time to win a letter. Most of the Californians on that year’s roster went into active duty or returned to their home state after that school year, and none of the four Cali lettermen won another letter at Texas after 1943.

After World War II, three decades passed before UT had another California letterman: linebacker Chuck Holloway, a junior college transfer from Bakersfield who was one of the team’s starters as a senior in 1979. Four more Californians came to Texas in the 1980s, and some of the most prominent Longhorns from that state followed in the next decade, including arguably the most accomplished out-of-state Longhorn ever.

California will likely remain for quite some time at the top of the list of states other than Texas to produce the most Longhorn football players, and there have been a lot of great ones from there over the years. Here are ten notables from that group.

Most notable Longhorn lettermen from California

Marcel Gres (1943) was born in San Francisco to parents who were French immigrants, and he lived in that city for the first two decades of his life. He attended St. Ignatius College Prep in San Francisco, then began his college career at Santa Clara University, where he studied engineering and played on the football team. He enlisted in the Navy soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and in 1943 he was part of the large group of Californians who were transferred to UT via the V-12 program. Out of that group, he arguably made the biggest impact on the football field for the Longhorns, and maintained the longest association with the University after the war. Gres, who stood 6’1” and weighed about 205 pounds, was the team’s starting left tackle for most of the 1943 season, before an illness late in the year forced him to miss the Cotton Bowl. He was named to the AP’s honorable mention All-America team for that season.

Gres later went into active duty with the Navy, but returned to UT in 1946 after his discharge, and by 1950 he had graduated with both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in mechanical engineering. He and his wife married in 1946 and lived in Austin for most of their 66 years together. In 2007 he was inducted into the UT Mechanical Engineering Academy of Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame. He was 90 years old when he died in 2013.

Brian Espinosa (1985-86) was a graduate of California High School in Whittier, California, and after high school he attended Cerritos Junior College. He transferred to UT in 1985, and as a senior the following year he was a starter at defensive tackle and was credited with a team-leading 118 total tackles.

Darron Norris (1985-88) was the first of three Longhorns to come from El Camino High School in Oceanside, California, and while in high school he was one of the top sprinters in the San Diego area. He played running back and was UT’s leading or second-leading rusher in each of his four seasons with the team, and his career total of 2,079 rushing yards is currently 18th all-time in program history. He was picked in the 9th round of the 1989 NFL Draft, but did not have a pro football career.

Stan Thomas (1987-90) only began playing football in his senior year at Central Union High School in El Centro, California, after having grown from 6’3” to 6’6” as a junior. He signed with Texas and eventually developed into a powerful right tackle, and as a senior in 1990 he made the AP’s All-America second team. He was picked in the first round (22nd overall) of the 1991 NFL Draft, and played in the league for four seasons.

Bryant Westbrook (1993-96) was a Parade All-American as a senior at El Camino High School, and he was a student there while former Texas Longhorn and El Camino alum Darron Norris was an assistant coach. He signed with Texas and started at cornerback in all four of his seasons with the Longhorns. He made the All-Big 12 first team and the AP’s All-America second team as a senior in 1996. He was the fifth overall pick in the 1997 NFL Draft, and in his first four seasons in the league he recorded 11 interceptions and returned three for touchdowns. He suffered a career-altering injury when he ruptured his left Achilles tendon late in the 2000 season, a year in which he had a career-high six interceptions. He played in 17 total games over the next two years after coming back from that injury, but his career was effectively ended when he ruptured his right Achilles tendon in a 2003 preseason game. Westbrook was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 2019.

Pat Fitzgerald (1994-96) enrolled at Texas in the summer of 1993 after playing one season of football at Los Angeles Valley Junior College, where he played both offense and defense and caught only seven passes while at at H-back and tight end. He ranks very high among the best Longhorn junior college signees ever. After redshirting in 1993 he developed into an impact player as a tight end at UT, and when he graduated he held the school record for career receptions by a tight end (80, since broken by David Thomas). As a junior in 1995 he was named to the AP’s All-SWC first team, and also made the AP’s All-America third team. As a senior in 1996 he was an AP All-America first team pick, and an Academic All-American for a second consecutive year. He went on to graduate from the UT School of Law, and has been a practicing attorney since 2002. He was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 2011.

Ricky Williams (1995-98) — who changed his legal name to Errick Miron earlier this year — re-wrote the Texas and NCAA rushing record books in his four-year Longhorn career. He starred in football and baseball at Patrick Henry High School in San Diego, and after being picked in the 8th round of the 1995 MLB first-year player draft he played as an outfielder in the Philadelphia Phillies minor league system for parts of four seasons, which coincided with his college football career. Among his many accolades he made the All-Big 12 first team three times (1996-98) and was twice the conference’s Offensive Player of the Year (1997-98), was twice a unanimous All-American (1997-98), and twice won the Doak Walker Award. As a senior in 1998 he rushed for 2,327 yards, scored 30 total touchdowns, and became the second Texas Longhorn to win the Heisman Trophy. His 6,592 career rushing yards were the most in Division I-A history at the time, and have since been surpassed only by Ron Dayne. His 72 career rushing touchdowns were also a record at the time.

Williams was the fifth overall pick in the 1999 NFL Draft and played in the league for 11 seasons. He rushed for 1,000 yards or more in five seasons, and was a first team All-Pro after leading the league with 1,853 rushing yards in 2002. His 10,009 career rushing yards is currently 31st in NFL history, and the most by any former Longhorn in pro football. Texas retired his #34 jersey in 1999, and the playing surface at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium was named Campbell-Williams Field (in honor of UT’s two Heisman winners, Williams and Earl Campbell) in 2021.

Geoff Swaim (2013-14) was an unheralded tight end who played for two junior college seasons at Butte College after graduating from Pleasant Valley High School in Chico, California. He transferred from Butte to UT in 2013, and though he only caught 13 passes in his two years with the Longhorns he was a quality blocker and showed enough to be picked by the Dallas Cowboys in the 7th round of the 2015 NFL Draft. He has played in 69 games during his seven seasons in the NFL, and started 16 games for the Tennessee Titans in 2021.

Collin Johnson (2016-19), son of former Longhorn All-American and NFL safety Johnnie Johnson, signed with UT’s 2016 recruiting class out of Valley Christian High School in San Jose. He was UT’s leading receiver as a junior in 2017, and was second on the team in receiving yards in both of his final two seasons. His 2,624 career receiving yards is the fifth-most in Longhorn history. He was picked in the 5th round of the 2020 NFL Draft.

Xavier Worthy (2021) signed with Texas out of Fresno’s Central High School, and made his presence felt in his first year in Austin. He set UT freshman records in 2021 by catching 62 passes for 981 yards and 12 touchdowns. His exploits earned him a spot on the All-Big 12 first team, and he was named the conference’s Offensive Freshman of the Year. He was also named a Freshman All-American by multiple outlets. He goes into his sophomore season as a preseason All-America pick, and has been named to the 2022 Biletnikoff Award Watch List.


In the 129 seasons of Texas Longhorn football, the team has had lettermen who went to high school in no less than 35 states, plus the District of Columbia and Australia. Canada could have been added to the list had tight end and Vancouver native Blake Whiteley not been sidelined with injuries for most of his three years with the program (2014-16).

To recap, the top states other than Texas where the most Longhorn lettermen went to high school are:

1. California (41)
2. Louisiana (28)
3. Oklahoma (20)
4. Colorado (16)
5. Tennessee (15)
6. Missouri (14)
7. Florida (9)
8. New Mexico (8)
9. (tie) Arizona (7)
9. (tie) Illinois (7)
9. (tie) Indiana (7)

The only other states that have had more than three future Longhorns are: Alabama (6), Arkansas (6), Kansas (5), Georgia (4), and New Jersey (4).

In my research on the hometowns and high school alma maters of UT’s football lettermen, I have found none who came from the following 15 states:

Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky (Rondale Moore, sigh), Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. To any high school football players in those states who are aspiring college athletes and happen to read this, and who may have grown up a fan of the Longhorns, why not be the first to put your state on the UT football map?


I hope everyone who read this post and the two earlier in the month on UT’s top historical high school pipelines enjoyed them and learned something new about Longhorn history along the way. During the college and high school football season I most likely won’t be writing up any more deep dives of this type, but if you like reading bits of UT football history you can check out my weekly “Texas football commits in action” posts at BON, as I’ll be highlighting Longhorn notables from eras past at the close of those posts.

If you spot any errors in this post that need correcting or have additional information on past Longhorns who may have attended high school in multiple states, please send a message and let me know, or mention it in the comments.