Texas picks up transfer portal commitment from defensive lineman Trill Carter

Texas has picked up its first commitment out of the NCAA transfer portal since it opened on Saturday with a pledge from former Minnesota defensive lineman Trill Carter on Monday. The 6-foot-2-inch, 300-pound Carter, who spent four years with the Golden Gophers, announced his decision to join the Longhorns ahead of the 2023 season on social media.

Including the additional season of eligibility granted to him and other fall sports student-athletes impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Carter heads to Texas with two seasons of eligibility remaining. Carter played in 33 games and started in 24 over parts of four seasons with the Golden Gophers, including the 2022 season when he started each of the team’s 13 games.

Carter was named honorable mention All-Big Ten at the end of a 2022 season in which he recorded 19 tackles, two tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks. According to Pro Football Focus, Carter’s 545 snaps played last season were the eighth-most by any interior defensive lineman in the Big Ten; he should provide experienced depth right out of the gate for the Longhorns behind projected starters Byron Murphy and T'Vondre Sweat after playing 95.2 percent of his snaps lined up in the A and B gaps, according to PFF.

Carter’s most productive season for Minnesota came in 2021. As a redshirt sophomore, Carter recorded 21 tackles, five tackles for loss and one sack in 12 games (11 starts), doing his part to help the Golden Gophers finish with a 9-4 record and a win over West Virginia in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl.

A three-star prospect who signed with Minnesota in 2019 out of Leesburg (Ga.) Lee County, Carter picked Texas after visiting the Longhorns, Arkansas and Illinois. Carter entered the transfer portal on March 24 as a graduate transfer.

Carter is one of five Power Five transfers head coach Steve Sarkisian and Co. have added to the roster in the 2023 talent acquisition cycle. Safety Jalen Catalon (Arkansas), cornerback Gavin Holmes (Wake Forest) and wide receiver AD Mitchell (Georgia) arrived on the Forty Acres in January for winter conditioning and spring practice while Carter will join punter Ryan Sanborn (Stanford) on campus in June for summer workouts.

The opening of the current transfer portal window on April 15 saw four scholarship players make the decision to exit the program: wide receiver Jaden Alexis, EDGE Derrick Brown, linebacker Trevell Johnson and wide receiver Brennan Thompson (Alexis participated in Saturday’s spring game while the other three didn’t suit up with the team for their 15th and final practice). In total, Texas has lost 19 members of the 2022 squad to the transfer portal since concluding an 8-4 regular season with a 38-27 home win over Baylor on Nov. 25.

The Longhorns finished Sarkisian's second season on the job with an 8-5 record after falling to Washington in the Alamo Bowl. Eight regular-season victories, however, were enough to vault Texas into the final editions of the Associated Press Top 25 (No. 25) and the USA Today AFCA Coaches Poll (No. 25).

The Longhorns will open Sarkisian's third season as head coach when they welcome Rice into Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on Sept. 2.