An outstanding All-American career for Texas Longhorns junior left tackle Kelvin Banks officially moved to its next stage on Sunday as the 2024 Outland Trophy and Lombard Award winner declared for the 2025 NFL Draft.
Since spring practice, Banks had deflected questions about his professional future with a hearty chuckle, forced to conceal the obvious reality — that his draft projections have not been in doubt for years and that he has nothing left to accomplish in college at an individual level.
During the first full recruiting cycle for Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian and offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Kyle Flood, Banks was a top target for the Longhorns in the 2022 recruiting class. Originally committed to Oklahoma State as a sophomore, Banks officially reopened his recruitment the summer before his junior year, pleading to Oregon a year later after taking official visits to Austin, Baton Rouge, College Station, Eugene, and Stillwater.
When then-Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal took over at Miami before the early signing period in 2021, however, Texas had another opportunity to sway the consensus five-star prospect in the final moments of the cycle and did exactly that, landing a pledge from Banks five days after he committed from the Ducks and a signature shortly thereafter.
At the time, Banks dropping from No. 15 nationally to No. 33 in the 247Sports Composite rankings seemed absurd at the time and absolutely laughable in retrospect — although the other six offensive line signees for the Horns in the 2022 recruiting class enrolled early, Banks arrived during the summer, but quickly proved his ability.
By the season opener against Louisiana-Monroe, Banks was already entrenched as the starting left tackle and immediately looked like a star, especially after he shut down Alabama’s star edge rushers Will Anderson and Dallas Turner in his second career start.
As a true freshman, Banks allowed only two sacks all season, according to Pro Football Focus, earning Freshman All-American honors in addition to receiving recognition as the Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year and Big 12 Offensive Lineman of the Year.
In 2023, Banks continued his incredible trajectory as a first-team All-Big 12 selection and second-team All-American while allowing only one sack and 12 total pressures.
And although Banks suffered an ankle injury against Texas A&M that kept him out of the SEC Championship game loss to Georgia, his performance on the field matched the high standard set by his first two seasons on the Forty Acres. PFF credited Banks with only one sack allowed and 10 total pressures in a campaign that earned the Humble Summer Creek product recognition as the nation’s best offensive lineman and the nation’s best interior linemen in receiving the Lombardi Award and the Outland Trophy.
“He’s a very physically talented player — he’s got size, he’s got speed, he’s got change of direction, he’s got to stop-start ability, balance, body control. He’s got all the tangible things that you kind of check the list off when you’re looking for a player, whether you’re recruiting or whether you’re drafting whatever it is, he’s got all those,” Flood said last year.
“But I’m telling you what makes him special is his mindset. As much success as he has had this early in his career, he works as hard as any player on our team every day to perfect his craft and that’s ultimately what creates the best players, the guys who ultimately get to play on Sundays. So to me, that’s what separates him because there are other players out there that have the size, the speed, the length, all the tangible stuff, but mentally, they don’t have the mental toughness or competitive maturity to go out there every day and work to get better regardless of the success they’ve had in the past. That’s ultimately what separates it.”
Listed at 6’4 and 320 pounds, Banks is a candidate to become the first offensive tackle selected in this year’s draft as long as he doesn’t measure under 6’4 or have a short wingspan. And even if Banks doesn’t measure well, he has put enough on film to make NFL teams reconsider the accepted orthodoxies for professional offensive tackles.
