Steve Sarkisian Ecstatic Over Young Texas Longhorns Tight End Room

The Texas Longhorns reconstructed plenty of position groups for the 2025 season, especially on the offensive side of the ball, with key starters and contributors on every level of the offense needing to be replaced from a year ago.

One of the biggest is the Longhorns' tight end room, which essentially has an entirely new look to it, with the core of the unit in Gunnar Helm leaving for the NFL Draft after his stellar senior season, Juan Davis exhausting his college eligibility and Amari Niblack, who chose to transfer to Texas A&M after just one season in Austin.

Leading the charge for the tight end group is junior Jack Endries, who, in two games, has already become a focal point of Texas's offense, which many tight ends become in Steve Sarkisian's offensive scheme. Through two games, Endries has recorded six catches for 102 yards and two touchdowns; however, the junior is not the only bright spot in the new tight end corps.

Steve Sarkisian Highlights Young Tight Ends

Texas Longhorns tight end Jordan Washington (84) makes a catch while defended by San Jose State Spartans. | Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

In his most recent media availability on Thursday, Sarkisian emphasized two of the younger tight ends in the room, redshirt freshman Jordan Washington and true freshman Emaree Winston, praising their abilities as pass catchers. Washington has seen action in both of the Longhorns' games and Winston made his debut a week ago, making a splash play with a reception for 33 yards.

"They're both natural pass catchers; they both have very good hands." Sarkisian said. "Both of those guys, Jordan in particular, was really almost a wide receiver in high school, so his comfort level running routes and catching the ball is just natural to him, as well as Emaree.

Sarkisian went into detail about Washington, adding how he liked what he saw from the second-year player, focusing on how quickly he has become a key piece of the Longhorns' offense, especially after missing the spring portion of the offseason practice. Through two games, the tight end has only caught one pass for 22 yards; however, his role could grow throughout the year.

"I think the evolution for those guys of really becoming tight ends, especially for Jordan, how essential was last year for him," Sarkisian said. "Learning the position of tight end and having missed basically all of spring football practice, a credit to him to get back to where he is now as being a reliable three-down player for us that way."

As Sarkisian put it, one of the "unsung" players in the tight end rotation is true freshman Nick Townsend. While the true freshman has not found himself incorporated into the passing game, Townsend has seen the field in both games thus far, particularly as a blocker in multiple tight end sets.

"I think one of the unsung guys of all this is Nick Townsend," Sarkisian said. "I just don't think that everybody has seen him yet. He's a very physical player. He's got great hands as well, so that the deep room for us, probably deeper than we've had since we've been here and we're just trying to utilize these guys to the best of their ability."