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Once unheralded as a walk-on, Michael Taaffe is now impossible to ignore. The senior saftey is a star for the No. 7 Texas Longhorns and is climbing up the board as a 2026 NFL Draft prospect.

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Named a preseason All-American by ESPN, Taaffe leads Texas in tackles with 17 through two games. It’s the latest chapter of his ascension, which reached new heights during the 2024 season when he logged a career-high 78 total tackles, two sacks, two interceptions, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery. That performance earned him second-team All-American honors from the Associated Press.

If Texas is to make a run at the national championship, as it’s expected to do, Taaffe figures to be a key reason why. But while the spotlight on him has gotten brighter over the last few years, he hopes to deflect it back to Jesus.

“God’s telling me, ‘Hey, no, I’m on top and you should serve Me,’” Taaffe said recently on “The Sam Acho Podcast.” “I’m just as broken as every single one of y’all. And my faith is the only reason that I have that approach.”

Taaffe joined the Longhorns in 2021 as a walk-on, but by 2022 he was getting regular minutes. He ended that season with 25 total tackles, then followed it up in 2023 with 48 total tackles and three interceptions before his breakout 2024 season. ESPN NFL Draft analyst Matt Miller has him listed as his No. 4 safety prospect for the 2026 draft.

But even before he arrived at Texas, Taaffe had to scrap and claw and earn his way onto the field. As a freshman at Westlake High School in Austin, he began on the B team. As a sophomore, he was on the junior varsity’s B team. He talked with Acho about the frustration he felt.

“All I’m thinking about is my goals,” he said. “… ‘If you want to go D-I football, how are you going to go play D-I if you can’t even beat out varsity or JV-A team guys on your own team?’”

Those years helped shaped him into the player and person he is now, and he credits his coaches who instilled in him discipline and work ethic.

“They got all that little kid talk out of you. … ‘You listen to me,’” he said. “‘You respect people that are trying to coach you and lead you.’”

At Westlake, Taaffe leaned on a close circle that included teammates Jaden Greathouse — now a Notre Dame wide receiver — and Cade Klubnik — now Clemson’s quarterback — and family friend Zach Rodgers, a Young Life leader. Together they launched a Bible study, kept each other grounded, and made sure football never became bigger than their faith or their friendship.

“We got so close as a group that it wasn’t even an option to get too big in our head for things that were happening on the outside,” Rodgers said for a Fall 2025 Sports Spectrum Magazine feature on Klubnik. “We were so close, we were able to keep ourselves humble. You could even compare it to watching Charles Barkley and Shaq on their ‘Inside the NBA’ show.”

Taaffe was offered a scholarship to play at Rice, but turned it down to walk on at Texas. He believed in his ability and didn’t think he had reached his ceiling. He also wanted to fulfill a larger dream of playing for his hometown team.

“The motivation you have when you put on that burnt orange … it’s a sense of pride,” he told Acho. “It’s carrying family legacy — fifth-generation Longhorn — while representing something larger.

“We weren’t in a great spot as a university. … My mission was to try to get Texas back to where it always belongs … nothing’s about me right now. I’m working for such a greater purpose and it pushed me.”

Between him, quarterback Arch Manning and others, the Longhorns were the preseason No. 1 team before suffering a road loss to defending national champion Ohio State in Week 1. But Texas is still considered a strong contender for the SEC championship and a deep run in the College Football Playoff.

There’s perhaps less pressure after that heavyweight battle in Week 1, especially since the hype around Manning being QB1 has come and gone. Taaffe was asked after that game how the team handled that pressure and how they can move on and just focus on football going forward.

“We always remind each other before the game that you’re free,” he said. “God already won the battle on the cross, so everything that we do has no impact in this earth. The plan on this earth has already been finished. So this is not our eternal life. It’s a temporary life. And I told [Manning], ‘Hey, dude, you’re free.’ And we always remind ourselves. So after the game we lost, he’s still free. He still has the ability to do whatever he wants in life, because God came down and sent His only Son to die on the cross. So that’s what I reminded him; he’ll be good.”

Asked Texas safety Michael Taaffe if there’s now a collective sense of being able to move forward without the hype of Arch Manning’s season debut:

“We always remind each other before the game that you’re free. God already won the battle on the cross, so everything that we do has… pic.twitter.com/hhaNl9ZkMK

— Matt Fortuna (@Matt_Fortuna) August 30, 2025

Like he did in high school, Taaffe has launched a player-led Bible study while at Texas with teammate Trevor Goosby. It’s a space for players to share the highs and lows of playing college football and living life as young adults.

“We’re not perfect. We’re going to fail. And that’s all right,” Taaffe told Acho. “We’re in this together. … I hope this is a place where you can just come rest — rest in God’s Word, rest in God’s love and His mercy.”

After a 38-7 win over San Jose State in Week 2, No. 7 Texas hosts UTEP at 4:15 p.m. ET Saturday.

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