How many NFL Draft picks does Texas HC Steve Sarkisian think the Longhorns have?

Nobody can win in college football without talent. And with the start of a new season, everybody is trying to gauge how many star players the Texas Longhorns truly have.

Coach Steve Sarkisian believes he has a good team, so much so that UT should have plenty of NFL Draft talent available.

“I said this when I first got here,” Sarkisian said Monday. “You know, we should always be hovering around 10 draft picks. If we do this right, if we recruit the right way, if we develop our players the way we should be developing them, if we have the team success which ultimately then lends itself to the individual accolades, awards and honors, one of which is being an NFL draft pick, we should always hover around that 10 number.

“Some years, it might be plus or minus two or three,” he added. “Where some years you maybe you get 12 to 13 guys picked. Maybe another year you have eight. I don’t know what that looks like, but I wouldn't be surprised again if we’re somewhere around that number of 10 come next spring for draft picks.”

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The Longhorns had a school-record 11 NFL Draft picks last April. It was the most in the modern era for UT and second to Michigan’s 13 picks for the year.

Left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr., quarterback Quinn Ewers and receiver Isaiah Bond have all been labeled potential first-rounders. Banks would be the team’s first offensive lineman taken in the first round since 2002.

Defensive end Trey Moore and linebacker Jahdae Barron are expected to be second- or third-day picks. Defensive linemen Alfred Collins, Barryn Sorrell and Ethan Burke are all on the board as potential third-day picks, too.

This team is loaded with potential. But the Longhorns still have to go out and prove it every Saturday.

“There’s a level of physicality in which we want to play the game,” Sarkisian said. “There’s a speed element in the speed in which we want to play the game. There’s an attacking manner in which we want to play the game, and there’s a football intellect, a football IQ, that we want to play the game with. And so we have to reestablish that and that starts Saturday.”