Iowa State OL Jarrod Hufford on Texas: ‘They’re just people that have such a high ego that needs to be checked’

Print it out and hang it around Moncrief.

Iowa State Cyclones left guard Jarrod Hufford met with the media in Ames on Tuesday and had some thoughts about the Texas Longhorns ahead of Saturday’s primetime matchup at Jack Trice Stadium.

“It’s definitely be gonna one heck of a farewell present. They’re going to come in here on Senior Night in the dark. I don’t think they really know what’s going to be coming for them. I think they’re gonna have to come out and figure it out,” Hufford said.

“I just think the Cyclone community in Ames when it comes to night games, especially against Texas, we’ve beat them four of the last five times they’ve been here, so they don’t have a good record here. We have distaste in our mouth for them — we definitely want to send them off the SEC with a loss on our end.”

Asked to elaborate on the distaste, Hufford more than obliged.

“Ever since I got here, it was Iowa and Texas,” Hufford said. “That was kind of the thing, horns down all the time and what not, but it’s just that program, much like Oklahoma, they get all the big five-star recruits, they have all the nicest stuff in the world, and they just think their (blank) don’t stink, to put it in layman’s terms. They’re just humans and that’s how I see them. They’re just people that have such a high ego that needs to get checked.”

Unsurprisingly, Hufford didn’t exactly shower the Texas defensive line with respect, either.

“I don’t necessarily think it’s the best unit team-wise that we’ve been up against,” Hufford said.

The comments from the fifth-year senior offensive lineman didn’t seem to escape the notice of Texas players.

Or even the team account.

And, by point of fact, the two players that Hufford will find himself lined up against most often — Texas senior defensive tackle T’Vondre Sweat and junior defensive tackle Byron Murphy — were far from five-star prospects.

Out of Huntsville in the 2019 recruiting class, Sweat was 100 pounds lighter and ranked as a consensus three-star prospect outside the top-600 players nationally when he signed with Texas.

Despite playing at state powerhouse DeSoto, Murphy committed to Baylor before his senior year and only earned an offer from the previous Texas staff after recording 79 tackles, 22 tackles for loss, 14 sacks, 14 pressures, one fumble recovery, and one forced fumble as senior. Even then, Murphy didn’t get much respect put on his name by the recruiting services, which barely ranked him inside the top-400 players nationally and the top-50 defensive linemen in the 2021 recruiting class.

But make no mistake, Sweat and Murphy are currently playing at an elite level.

In fact, the two players combined for 12 quarterback pressures on Saturday against the Horned Frogs.

At times, Sweat and Murphy looked unblockable in Fort Worth, sometimes on the same play.

So good luck with all that, big guy.