Texas Longhorns Tight End Among Favorites To Win Prestigious Award

The Texas Longhorns are expected to have one of college football's most lethal offenses in the 2025 season, led by Arch Manning, one of the most anticipated quarterbacks in the sport.

One of the significant parts of their production on the offensive side of the ball comes from the tight end position, as no Power Four school has more receiving yards from their top two tight ends in the last two seasons than the Longhorns.

For the upcoming 2025 season, Steve Sarkisian went into the transfer portal to find his new addition to the tight end room. They were able to land one of the transfer portal's most coveted players in the position, Jack Endries.

Garnering Expectations

While yet to be named to the John Mackey pre-season watch list, one betting website currently lists Endries with the second-highest odds to win the award, behind SMU's R.J. Maryland.

This is part of the expectations that the coaching staff has placed upon the Cal transfer: they expect him to be a dominant force on the field for quarterback Arch Manning. Special teams coordinator and tight ends coach Jeff Banks was ecstatic to land the coveted ACC product, and has sang high praise of him already.

“He’s done a great job just kind of meshing into the team right away, being very humble and being very unselfish and being kind of cognizant of, like, ‘I don’t need to be the one all of a sudden, in the beginning, first day, leading, like, let me look and see the dynamic of the team first, and start to get to know everybody.’ And I think he’s done a tremendous job in seven weeks,”

Sarkisian was impressed with Endries during his time at Cal, where he caught 91 passes for 1,030 yards, finishing with four touchdowns. Endries earned All-ACC honorable mention last season and comes to the Forty Acres with the most receiving yards in the past two seasons from a returning Power Four tight end.

The Longhorns' head coach found Endries cerebral and a team-first player who, like the other players in the tight end room, cares more about winning than about personal achievements. Now, tasked with being the safety blanket for Manning, Endries should contribute to the wins while filling out his own stat sheet, hoping to become the first player in burnt orange to win the John Mackey award.

The Texas Longhorns will play their first game of the season Aug. 30 in Columbus, Ohio, against defending national champions Ohio State