This year’s East-West Shrine Bowl at The Star is set to showcase a significant presence from Texas during the nation’s oldest college football all-star game.
This year’s game will feature players from six Texas universities: Houston, SMU, Texas, Texas A&M, TCU and Texas Tech. Among these schools, the Longhorns and the Horned Frogs lead with three players each, while Texas Tech will contribute two players to the roster. But five of these athletes are North Texas natives.
Trey Taylor (safety) will represent the Air Force Academy but previously played for Lone Star High School in Frisco. Taylor was named the 2023 Paycom Jim Thorpe Award winner and is the first Air Force Falcon to be named first-team All-America by the AFCA since 2010.
Defensive back Tyler Owens, a graduate of Plano East Senior High School, is coming off a season at TTU with 38 total tackles.
Tight end, JT Sanders is representing the Longhorns, but previously played for Ryan High School in Denton. Sanders, the school’s record holder for receptions by a tight end, was an All-Big 12 First Team selection in 2023 after snagging 45 catches for 682 yards. He is the only Texas tight end in program history with multiple 100-yard receiving games.
Also a Longhorned player, safety Ryan Watts, is a 6-foot-3 defensive back, who finished his senior season with 38 total tackles and three pass break ups. Watts attended high school in Little Elm.
Willis Patrick, a former Mansfield Tiger, left a lasting impression after one season at TCU as an offensive lineman. Patrick was an AP Second-Team All-Big 12 selection after playing 978 snaps in 2023, the most by a Horned Frog on either side of the ball.
Scheduled for February 1 at 7:00 p.m., the 99th East-West Shrine Bowl will be broadcast live on the NFL Network. The bowl game is known for being the starting point of many noteworthy NFL careers, including nearly 100 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
