With the unfortunate news of Andre Cojoe’s 2025 season coming to an end before it’s even started due to what’s feared to be a torn ACL. It opens the door for the sophomore at RT. Not in a way he’d like but that’s God’s plan. We are again shown the unsightly nature of football. And now, OC coach Kyle Flood is staring down the barrel of one of the hardest jobs in college football: replacing over 70% of Texas’ OL snaps from last year.

Andre Cojoe competed with Brandon Baker for Texas’s right tackle role during preseason camp. Texas Longhorns will most likely have to start true sophomore Brandon Baker at RT. While this may have already been the plan all along, a lot of onus is on Baker to still compete even when his competition in the room is now sidelined.

In the wake of Cojoe’s injury, the assumption was that Baker would simply be slotted in. But that assumption overlooks what Texas is asking of the sophomore: to carry himself like a vet without the cushion of another contender pushing him every snap. That’s not easy. Yet his teammates already see it. “Baker does a good job. I think his fundamentals are great,” said edge rusher Ethan Burke. “Rushing, he gets his hand on my rib, and it pisses me off sometimes, but he’s really good at it, I’ll say.” When someone who’s tasked with terrorizing quarterbacks week in and week out says a tackle makes him mad because of how good his hand placement is—yeah, you’ve got something.

And it’s not just the fieldwork. It’s what Baker’s stacking behind the scenes that’s turning heads. “He’s just a smart player and really hard worker,” Burke continued. “Always here after, getting extra work. He’s always in the weight room after. He’s the only guy in there, I’ll say that, after practice. He’s the only guy usually putting in extra work and he’s getting extra recovery. So for him, that’s really helped bring his game to another level.” That’s how you build staying power in a league where a blown assignment can lose you the job and a hit from the blindside can end a season.

So how do you compete when there isn’t actual competition? That’s the riddle Baker is about to spend the next month solving. With RT1 status nearly cemented, practice is about to become much harder, not easier. Scrimmages and weekly good-on-good periods won’t offer breathers. Instead, Baker will line up against arguably the best edge duo in the nation in Burke and true sophomore Colin Simmons.

Steve Sarkisian won’t coddle him; they’ll over-prepare him. They have no choice. Replacing nearly three-quarters of the 2024 offensive line’s snaps isn’t just tough—it’s borderline unheard of for a playoff-caliber team. Flood’s blueprint? Test Baker (and left tackle Trevor Goosby) against every weapon the roster can offer: speed, length, power, twitch.

Horns has the personnel to simulate any edge threat they might see this fall. Brad Spence brings length and closing speed. Colton Vasek has the bend and burst to mirror SEC edge defenders. Zina Umeozulu offers size and raw torque. Lance Jackson can collapse a pocket with his bull rush. And Justus Terry? That’s 6-foot-5 and 275 pounds of five-star fury. Each of them brings a unique problem for a tackle to solve—whether that’s how to reset the anchor, counter a swipe, or mirror a ghost move off the edge. Baker and Goosby won’t face just one prototype; they’ll rotate through every flavor of pass-rush chaos.

Brandon Baker’s big leap into the firestorm

Texas OL coach Kyle Flood called it before the pads even went on. “Yeah, it’s definitely going to be a camp battle for sure,” Flood said last week. “We’ve got a couple of guys who have been playing there in the spring, in Andre Cojoe and Brandon Baker, who have done a really nice job. Both of those guys have changed their bodies, improved their skill sets. We’ll figure out in training camp how that all plays out, but I think one of the advantages we have is we’re going to play against a really talented EDGE group in training camp.”

That “battle” now ends before it truly began—with Andre Cojoe down for the year, Baker doesn’t inherit a job so much as he inherits the fire. The pressure? Sky-high. The margin for error? Shrinking by the day. Flood didn’t sugarcoat what’s ahead, either. “I think these guys are going to get challenged on a day-to-day basis. And I know it’s going to come fast, but, you know, right now we’re at the beginning of it.”

We are at the beginning of something real. Baker’s first collegiate start isn’t going to be some sleepy opener against a C-USA school. Nope. It’ll be in Columbus. Against Ohio State. In a hornet’s nest of 100,000 Buckeye fans. His eardrums will ring. The edge pressure will roar.