Texas Longhorns Guard Neto Umeozulu Bringing New Physicality to Offensive Line

Texas football saw four of the team's five starters from the offensive line depart after the 2024 season, seeing the return of only right guard DJ Campbell for the Longhorns.

The 2025 season will feature four new starters, including left guard Neto Umeozulu, whom head coach Steve Sarkisian discussed in a recent media availability.

Sarkisian's Comments on Neto Umeozulu

"I think Neto, one of the things he's great at, is when he plays with a real sense of physicality," Sarkisian said on Umeozulu's progress heading into the season. "That's his calling card, and then we're trying to make those other aspects of the game still playing at a consistent level."

Umeozulu enters his fourth season with the Longhorns, taking on a starting role for the first time in his career. The biggest asset for Umeozulu heading into 2025, in the words of Sarkisian, is his physicality at the line.

"When you've got a good fastball, you've got to throw your good fastball," Sarkisan said. "His calling card is the physicality and the intensity with which he plays the game, all the while, I don't want him to lose that as we're developing the other work that he's doing. He's doing a nice job so far."

At 6-foot-4 and 325 pounds, Umeozulu takes over for former guard Hayden Connor, who was selected in the 6th round of the 2025 NFL draft by the Arizona Cardinals. He has had minimal playing time in his career thus far at Texas, playing no more than five games in a single season.

Umeozulu's five appearances last season came against Colorado State, UTSA, ULM, Florida and Ohio State in the College football Playoffs. His playing time, though, was minimal with an experienced guard such as Connor in front of him. It will be a hard act to follow for Umeozulu, with Connor and the rest of the 2024 Longhorn offensive line performing to such heights that they were named finalists for the Joe Moore award for the nation's top offensive line.

Sarkisian said that while Uemozulu's physicality is his biggest strength, the team is still developing other aspects of his game. This may be true for most of the new offensive linemen entering the season. Though there may be some growing pains to begin the year, there shouldn't be much doubt that Texas offensive coordinator Kyle Flood can mold this season's offensive line into yet another standout unit for the Longhorns.

Umeozulu will be making his debut as a starter in less than two weeks when Texas travels to take on Ohio State in Columbus on August 30th.