Daily Short #134, January 29th, 2017: The Calvin Anderson Puzzle
presented by the Dental Offices of Wendy Swantkowski, DDS
The Absolute BEST in family and cosmetic dentistry for the Houston-Memorial Area
Now Accepting New Patients --- 281-293-9140
Here we are at the end of January and man does time ever fly. We're over a year into Tom Herman's tenure at Texas and so much has happened over the course of 2017 following Herman's hire until here, on the tip of 2018's iceberg. Anyone who tells you they know what's going to happen with the Longhorns football team over the remainder of these next 11 months is full of it, but, what we can know with a fair amount of certainty is that Texas will undoubtedly sign an amazing 2018 class in recruiting. You could actually argue that this feat has already been achieved via the early signing period alone.
You could also argue that the biggest remaining factor in the recruiting portion of the cycle (as it pertains to the actual 2018 W/L column) could be landing LT Calvin Anderson, a graduate transfer recruit from Rice who played at Westlake High School. Everyone knows the offensive line has been a mess (heard that one before?). Tom Herman must have agreed because there is a new offensive line coach in Austin for 2018 -- a changing of the guard that's felt like an annual rite of passage lately. When looking at what new OL coach Herb Hand has to work with on the unit, it becomes clear that options are slim at the left tackle position and it makes sense that Texas is pulling out all the stops for Anderson; even providing edits for Sam Ehlinger to send out on Twitter showing Ehlinger, Breckyn Hager and Anderson -- all donning Longhorns icy whites -- and giving a nod to their shared high school alma mater.
Let's make it clear that landing Anderson should be a priority. If you look at what he has done over the 2016 and 2017 seasons at Rice, it's impressive. He started 36 straight games as an Owl and won at least Honorable Mention All-Conference honors over his last two seasons. If you watch his games from the 2016 season versus the 2017 season, you'll see that Anderson clearly worked a lot on his pass-pro chops for the 2017 senior campaign. There were times in 2016 that he looked worse than Elijah Rodriguez or Denzel Okafor in pass-pro, but that changed in 2017, at least if you can judge by the Army game. The guy looks balanced with a nice, well-placed punch, a wide base and decent feet. It's a different-looking cat than the one you see in 2016 when he can find himself often off-balance and overextended (watch the 2016 Baylor game).
And we know that offensive linemen can change so much from year to year in college -- especially smart ones who give effort to truly perfecting their craft. Considering Anderson is a smart kid (he can solve a Rubiks cube ... behind his back) with the size and strength to be very good, continued improvement should reasonably be expected. Now, of course there is the issue of playing against "lesser competition" at Rice, but 2017 was no cakewalk. Hell, fraudulent schools like Baylor sometimes create themselves easier out-of-conference schedules than what Rice saw, facing the likes of Stanford, Pitt and Southern Miss.
They also played UTSA, and I was disappointed I did not get to see much facing off between Anderson and 2018 Senior Bowler (and a guy scouts say will go first-round) Marcus Davenport, who played almost exclusively off the right side of the offense and avoided Anderson for the most part.
You can still see in these clips (that aren't even designed to highlight Anderson's good plays) that Anderson (LT No. 66) would bring a skill set to the Longhorns on the front-side of power concepts and the back-side of zone plays that caves defenders down in a manner similar to Connor Williams. He keeps his eyes up, stays balanced, keeps his hands inside for the most part and finishes with power and nastiness to blow guys off the line of scrimmage. You put all of this together along with the fact that Anderson finished Top 20 in pass-block efficiency per PFF in 2017 and he's beyond a take all the way, despite his lowly 2-star rating as a prep. (It should be noted that he reportedly gained 60 pounds in college, so the initially low rating likely had to do with size concerns more than anything). It only makes sense to project him to step right into the starting LT role for 2018 should Texas land him.
This would likely allow Denzel Okafor, who is now a junior (remember how we talked about that time flying by?) to possibly compete with Elijah Rodriguez at the right guard position where he could absolutely be better suited given what have been bad feet and mirroring abilities in space out on the edge. This scenario would leave you open to numerous previously unforeseen options about depth because the starting line (Anderson, Vahe, Shack, Rodriguez OR Okafor, Kerstetter) would already be set ... plus one. You'd have your starting five and your primary swing guy already set to go without even factoring in depth that could possibly push in the form of Samuel Cosmi, Patrick Hudson or numerous others.
Tom Herman is executing moves like a Jenga player hoping the blocks don't topple on the Rubiks cube master who could be the key piece in assimilating a worthwhile offensive line at Texas. Because that has been a puzzle which has proven much harder to master than either of the two aforementioned games of strategy and logic of late.
presented by the Dental Offices of Wendy Swantkowski, DDS
The Absolute BEST in family and cosmetic dentistry for the Houston-Memorial Area
Now Accepting New Patients --- 281-293-9140
Here we are at the end of January and man does time ever fly. We're over a year into Tom Herman's tenure at Texas and so much has happened over the course of 2017 following Herman's hire until here, on the tip of 2018's iceberg. Anyone who tells you they know what's going to happen with the Longhorns football team over the remainder of these next 11 months is full of it, but, what we can know with a fair amount of certainty is that Texas will undoubtedly sign an amazing 2018 class in recruiting. You could actually argue that this feat has already been achieved via the early signing period alone.
You could also argue that the biggest remaining factor in the recruiting portion of the cycle (as it pertains to the actual 2018 W/L column) could be landing LT Calvin Anderson, a graduate transfer recruit from Rice who played at Westlake High School. Everyone knows the offensive line has been a mess (heard that one before?). Tom Herman must have agreed because there is a new offensive line coach in Austin for 2018 -- a changing of the guard that's felt like an annual rite of passage lately. When looking at what new OL coach Herb Hand has to work with on the unit, it becomes clear that options are slim at the left tackle position and it makes sense that Texas is pulling out all the stops for Anderson; even providing edits for Sam Ehlinger to send out on Twitter showing Ehlinger, Breckyn Hager and Anderson -- all donning Longhorns icy whites -- and giving a nod to their shared high school alma mater.
Let's make it clear that landing Anderson should be a priority. If you look at what he has done over the 2016 and 2017 seasons at Rice, it's impressive. He started 36 straight games as an Owl and won at least Honorable Mention All-Conference honors over his last two seasons. If you watch his games from the 2016 season versus the 2017 season, you'll see that Anderson clearly worked a lot on his pass-pro chops for the 2017 senior campaign. There were times in 2016 that he looked worse than Elijah Rodriguez or Denzel Okafor in pass-pro, but that changed in 2017, at least if you can judge by the Army game. The guy looks balanced with a nice, well-placed punch, a wide base and decent feet. It's a different-looking cat than the one you see in 2016 when he can find himself often off-balance and overextended (watch the 2016 Baylor game).
And we know that offensive linemen can change so much from year to year in college -- especially smart ones who give effort to truly perfecting their craft. Considering Anderson is a smart kid (he can solve a Rubiks cube ... behind his back) with the size and strength to be very good, continued improvement should reasonably be expected. Now, of course there is the issue of playing against "lesser competition" at Rice, but 2017 was no cakewalk. Hell, fraudulent schools like Baylor sometimes create themselves easier out-of-conference schedules than what Rice saw, facing the likes of Stanford, Pitt and Southern Miss.
They also played UTSA, and I was disappointed I did not get to see much facing off between Anderson and 2018 Senior Bowler (and a guy scouts say will go first-round) Marcus Davenport, who played almost exclusively off the right side of the offense and avoided Anderson for the most part.
You can still see in these clips (that aren't even designed to highlight Anderson's good plays) that Anderson (LT No. 66) would bring a skill set to the Longhorns on the front-side of power concepts and the back-side of zone plays that caves defenders down in a manner similar to Connor Williams. He keeps his eyes up, stays balanced, keeps his hands inside for the most part and finishes with power and nastiness to blow guys off the line of scrimmage. You put all of this together along with the fact that Anderson finished Top 20 in pass-block efficiency per PFF in 2017 and he's beyond a take all the way, despite his lowly 2-star rating as a prep. (It should be noted that he reportedly gained 60 pounds in college, so the initially low rating likely had to do with size concerns more than anything). It only makes sense to project him to step right into the starting LT role for 2018 should Texas land him.
This would likely allow Denzel Okafor, who is now a junior (remember how we talked about that time flying by?) to possibly compete with Elijah Rodriguez at the right guard position where he could absolutely be better suited given what have been bad feet and mirroring abilities in space out on the edge. This scenario would leave you open to numerous previously unforeseen options about depth because the starting line (Anderson, Vahe, Shack, Rodriguez OR Okafor, Kerstetter) would already be set ... plus one. You'd have your starting five and your primary swing guy already set to go without even factoring in depth that could possibly push in the form of Samuel Cosmi, Patrick Hudson or numerous others.
Tom Herman is executing moves like a Jenga player hoping the blocks don't topple on the Rubiks cube master who could be the key piece in assimilating a worthwhile offensive line at Texas. Because that has been a puzzle which has proven much harder to master than either of the two aforementioned games of strategy and logic of late.
