When Lou Holtz passed away last week, it brought up a lot of the late coaches more famous quotes and incidents.
Many of you have probably seen the video of Coach Holtz addressing the Texas team during the Charlie Strong era.
Or this story from ESPN’s Mike Greenberg who shared some advice that Holtz gave him prior to the birth of Greenberg’s first child.
The fact is, the legendary coach had a lot of wisdom that he collected and dispensed in his 89 years on this Earth.
But Holtz had another bit of wisdom that I found myself thinking about when Geoff Ketchum posted the latest depth chart on the board.
Holtz was talking about the challenge of coaching players at the different stages of their development when he said (paraphrasing) freshmen just want to play, sophomores want to start, juniors want to win and seniors are always looking down the road.
Juniors want to win.
Now, I will grant you, that when Holtz made those comments, it was a very different time in college football. Heck, the number of juniors declaring for the NFL draft then was very low. Now, it’s commonplace. Freshmen are also much more likely to come in and earn a starting spot because there are more opportunities to do so thanks to early enrollees, transfers and early NFL departures.
But in general, his comment still holds.
The good news for UT is that the depth chart is loaded with juniors, especially on offense.
Which means that if Texas is going to win a national championship in 2026 then it will be up to Arch Manning and the rest of the junior class in order to make it happen.
