Texas WR Isaiah Bond Dazzling With 'Elite' Speed: 'Hold Your Breath!'

AUSTIN -- Texas Longhorns receiver Isaiah Bond entered this season with first-round NFL draft hype and has already lived up to that billing through his first five games wearing the burnt orange.

His big-time playmaking ability was certainly on display during his time at Alabama, something Steve Sarkisian touched on when speaking to the media Monday. However, the Texas head coach called Bond's speed his "redeeming quality."

"He's fast. He's definitely fast," Sarkisian said. "Everybody's got their own redeeming quality. And probably at the top of his list from a redeeming quality is he has elite speed. ... For us, he's made some big-time catches, some big-time plays. He's starting to become one of those guys. He catches a curl route, you hold your breath because he might spin out and go."

Bond showed off his track speed on a 75-yard touchdown against UTSA when he took a short screen pass and sprinted past the defense and down the sideline for the score. In Saturday's 35-13 win over Mississippi State, he got a chance to run the ball, and the former pee-wee running back put his wheels on display once again on a 26-yard end-around for a touchdown.

"I'm a playmaker. So anytime the ball is in my hands, I'm gonna make a play," Bond said Saturday. "I played running back all throughout little league. I switched to receiver in high school, obviously cause of the speed and lack of weight."

Through his first five games as a Longhorn, Bond leads the team in catches (20) and receiving yards (364) and has scored three times through the air.

According to Sarkisian, Bond's adjustment to the Texas offense has been smoother due to some of the similarities that Alabama's offense maintained the past few seasons.

"I think what's helped him in coming here was having spent his time at Alabama -- even though I didn't coach IB at Alabama -- I think they kept a lot of some of the things that we did," Sarkisian said. "And so when he came here, the transition for him to integrate himself into the offense and feel comfortable in the offense was probably a little easier for him than maybe a Matthew Golden or a Silas Bolden, just coming from from other places. And so it kind of sped up his process. He makes plays in critical moments. I'll say this. you look at his career at Bama, everybody knows about the fourth-down catch at Auburn. I think just our players, our quarterback, seeing that on TV automatically gave him a little bit of a head start. Like, this guy can make a play when you got to have it, and he hasn't disappointed in that way for us."

Bond, who made one of the best plays in Iron Bowl history last season for the Crimson Tide, will get his first taste of the Red River Rivalry when Texas faces off against the Oklahoma Sooners in Dallas on Saturday, Oct. 12 at 2:30 p.m. CT.