The Texas Longhorns’ class of 2021 featured three players who play the tight end position. One, Ja’Tavion Sanders, parlayed a standout career in Austin to a role on the Carolina Panthers. The second, Gunnar Helm, is Texas’ TE1 this year and has 10 catches for 189 yards and a score. The third is Juan Davis, who had two touches during his freshman year in 2021 but factored little on standard downs in 2022 and 2023.

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That’s different in 2024. Davis caught a pass for 11 yards against UTSA, his first reception since 2021. He’s tallied 77 total snaps this season per Pro Football Focus, already more than he totaled on standard down offense last year. The effort Davis has put in has caught the eye of Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian.

“Juan, the transition to the athlete he was in high school to playing that position, then having to wait his turn, he’s been a really pleasant surprise here in year four,” Sarkisian said Wednesday. “He had a great spring. He had a really good summer. He had a really good training camp. He’s playing good football for us right now.”

Davis wasn’t given the second tight end role. The Longhorns brought in Alabama transfer Amari Niblack during the offseason, a player On3 ranked as the No. 1 tight end and a five-star prospect in the 2022 class. In situations when Texas has needed a second tight end on the field, something that happens often under Sarkisian, it’s been Davis out there and not Niblack. That’s a testament to the hard work Davis has put in, and also functions as a success story the program can sell to other tight ends on the recruiting trail.

“I’m really proud of Juan just because of the perseverance and the resiliency he showed over the years,” Sarkisian said. “Any time you have that and you have to fight through some injury bug and you have to fight through some of the lack of playing time that you like but to stay the course, keep working hard, and reap the benefits of it here in year four, I think it’s a great story for him.

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“But it’s also a great story for us and our program, the types of people we have in our organization, the players we have, and the culture that we have that players stick around. I hate to say ‘wait their turn,’ because nobody’s waiting their turn. They’re working every single day. But he had the patience to keep working and when his number got called he was producing for us.”

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