Three Texas Longhorns Receive Huge Honor Ahead of 2025 Season

A trio of Texas Longhorns defenders will head into the 2025 season recognized as some of the best at their position.

Dec 21, 2024; Austin, Texas, USA; Texas Longhorns linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. (0) in action during the game between the Texas Longhorns and the Clemson Tigers in the CFP National Playoff First Round at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Three Texas Longhorns defensive standouts will go into the 2025 season with a prestigious preseason award under their belts.

On Tuesday, junior linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. and sophomore edge Colin Simmons were named 2025 Walter Camp First-Team Preseason All-Americans. Texas safety Michael Taaffe was named to the Second Team.

The Walter Camp Football Foundation releases its preseason teams during the summer each year and its post-regular season All-American teams in early December. The All-America teams are selected by the FBS head coaches and sports information directors. The WCFF is one of the selector organizations that contributes to the College Football All-America team, meaning being on the preseason roster is an indicator of confidence in and high expectations for the player.

What led to Anthony Hill and Colin Simmons earning this preseason honor?

Texas put forward one of the best defenses in college football last season, with both Hill and Simmons being distinguished members of the Longhorns' defensive front.

Simmons was the 2024 Shaun Alexander Freshman of the Year, an annual award given by the Maxwell Football Club to the best first-year player in the nation. Simmons led a loaded Texas pass-rush room with nine sacks, playing all 16 games and carving out a role for himself despite it being his first year on the Forty Acres.

Now, Simmons is clearly receiving well-deserved hype ahead of his sophomore season.

Hill demonstrated the extent of his capabilities within the Texas defense in 2024. After earning Freshman All-American honors in 2023, Hill became one of the country's best linebackers in his second year in Austin, commended as a Walter Camp Second-Team All-American. He tallied 113 total tackles and eight sacks in 2024, recording three double-digit tackle performances and filling up the stat sheet for Texas game by game.

Projected to be a high first-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, Hill is getting the respect warranted as he enters likely his final season at Texas.

It is no coincidence that Hill and Simmons are the Longhorns to make this preseason list. They are not only individual stars, but also a nightmare for opposing offenses together this season.

CBS writer Carter Bahns recently ranked the Texas tandem as his No. 2 dynamic duo in college football.

"Simmons does his work off the edge while Hill mans the middle of the Longhorns defense as a do-it-all linebacker," Bahns writes. "They are just as formidable in run defense as they are at rushing the quarterback, and that they are back in the lineup this year is a key development for a Texas unit that lost a pair of stalwarts from last season's defensive front to the NFL."

Last season, quarterback Quinn Ewers and offensive tackle Kelvin Banks Jr., both of whom are rookies in the NFL now, got second-team Walter Camp preseason honors in 2024, but no one from the Longhorns earned first-team honors.

The WCFF will release its preseason watchlist for their Player of the Season Award later on in the summer.