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@Anwar Richardson drove down to Houston on Wednesday to hear Steve Sarkisian talk at the Touchdown Club. He reported an interaction in which Sark seemed to have gotten got a little chippy with Kirk Bohls for asking about the secondary not looking good in the spring game. According to Anwar, Sark retorted to Bohls "didn't look good according to who?"
Well ...
*Looks around tentatively and slowly raises hand*
Terrence Brooks (no longer on the team), Gavin Holmes, Wardell Mack, Xavier Filsaime, Michael Taaffe and stud freshman Kobe Black all were burned in coverage to varying degrees while Gavin Holmes, Jelani McDonald and Jaylon Guilbeau all had missed tackles on the back end.
And there's a difference between having a tough day collectively and being a collective group that looks like it's going to be just fine in the end. I share Sark's thoughts in this regard: I'm not one bit worried about the eventual Manny Muhammad, Kobe Black, Derek Williams, Andrew Mukuba, Michael Taaffe, Jahdae Barron, Gavin Holmes, Jaylon Guilbeau rotation we're likely to see in 2024. The depth behind those guys -- the guys like Filsaime and Johnson-Rubell and Wardell Mack and Warren Roberson all are intriguing in their own ways. Santana Wilson isn't even on campus yet and that guy has an awesome prospect profile, a sick highlight reel, and truly blue-chip NFL pedigree. It's impossible to tell if Texas will get back to its "DBU" roots overnight, but, just for fun, let's look what we've seen happen with the running backs:
After not having a running back drafted since D'Onta Foreman in 2017, well over a half-decade later Texas has four (4) go in the last two drafts, including the first RB off the board in both (Bijan Robinson and Jonathon Brooks) along with Roschon Johnson and Keilan Robinson. Texas' four RBs over the last two cycles is by far the most in college football. The only other programs that have had multiple RBs drafted over the last two cycles have been Alabama (Jahmyr Gibbs - RD1, Jase Mclellan - RD6), Louisville (Isaac Guerendo - RD4, Jahwar Jordan - RD4) and Kentucky (Chris Rodriguez - RD6, Ray Davis - RD4). Texas has doubled all those teams up in the running back department over the last two years while having truly viable NFL prospect-level depth across the roster in different classes who can continue this new trend into the future.
And make no mistake, it is a NEW trend. We all know that times have been lean around the 40 Acres in a lot of ways since Mack Brown's heyday, so you tend to forget some of the littler things that helped to get us there. Can you name the last four Texas running backs drafted before this latest two-cycle rash of four? Of course you remember D'Onta Foreman (2017), but before him? It had been eight years dating back to Chris Ogbonnaya (7th round to the Rams) in 2009. Then it was, of course, Jamaal Charles in 2008 to the Chiefs in Round 3. We have to go back to the 2005 draft to Cedric Benson (God rest his soul) who was taken in the first round by the Chicago Bears.
Four running backs in 17 drafts, then four over the course of just two. Again, featuring the top runner in each class, and with each leaving plenty in the pipe back home in Austin.
Bang! It happened just like that.
A character was asked in Ernest Hemingway's novel, The Sun Also Rises, how he went bankrupt: "Two ways," he answered, "gradually, then suddenly." It's a nod to a pattern of life where things sort of stack up in aggregate and next thing you know, the collective mass of those things (be they negative or positive, it doesn't really matter) lead you to either freefall or liftoff.
We're in the "gradual" portion with the Texas secondary right now, no doubt. We can't ignore the fact that Texas was one of the worst pass defenses in college football last year. And while Steve Sarkisian didn't like Kirk Bohls' question about why the secondary seemed shaky in the Orange-White game, it was a fair question for a reporter to ask given this obvious fact. But, Sark didn't answer anything specifically about the whys or the hows or what happened. Why would he want to talk about that?
Because it goes without saying that if the pass defense isn't good next year, a hard look will need to be given to that portion of the Texas coaching staff, given the raw talent at their disposal. Some of the team's biggest liabilities from last season (Kitan Crawford, and often Jerrin Thompson) are no longer on the team. Ryan Watts is going on to play in the NFL but was clearly playing hurt in 2023. Terrence Brooks was as up-and-down as they come and we were reminded of that fact in the spring game. Now he's gone, too.
In their places, we have a group of younger players and transfers like Mukuba who not only look the part to play right now, but who also profile as the kinds of guys who could get Texas DBs back on the map in the NFL draft in a big way. Manny Muhammad, Derek Williams, Kobe Black, gosh, just look at Xavier Filsaime and tell me you can't envision him going through NFL combine drills in a few years as Daniel Jeremiah fawns over the size/speed combo he brings. Don't even get me started on Jelani McDonald and some of the others.
It's why it's perfectly fine for Bohls to ask the question he asked and why it is perfectly fine for Sark to push it off as the usual journo-pot-stirring gobbledygook. These guys may take their lumps, but none of us can deny the new level of talent that exists on campus among Longhorns DBs.
They're going to come along gradually, but don't be surprised one day if things start to happen really suddenly around here.
