Spring cleaning
What a nice respite it’s been from the Shawn Wickvell offense.
Since we last convened, you’ll notice we’ve taken the time to clean some things up around the old basement. For one, the easement window in the far corner has been replaced - taking with it a years-old film of grit and grime that had largely filtered out most natural sunlight.
Descending the steps, you’ll also surely notice a much more organized set of workspaces and more cleanly run electrical wiring. “Clean lines, clean hearts,” one of our regulars says.
And still, we won’t be winning any ‘Workplace of the Year’ awards just yet. Leaks caused by shoddy patching where the furnace meets the foundation remain a huge pain in the ass. It’s been flooding in recent weeks, and let’s just say it hasn’t been the best time for dealing with such matters.
Our greatest hope is that you’ll recognize at least some improvement.
We welcome you back to …
The Deep Dig
Spring Game 2016 Part I: Offense
presented by Hat Creek Burger Company
QUARTERBACKS
16 Shane Buechele - 62 snaps on offense
27 at QB (1st team)
35 at QB (2nd team)
Average time elapsed between snaps: 16.07 seconds
18 Tyrone Swoopes - 45 snaps on offense
25 at QB (1st team)
20 at QB (2nd team)
Average time elapsed between snaps: 14.44 seconds
Scholarship non-participants - Jerrod Heard (shoulder), Kai Locksley (healthy DNP), Matthew Merrick (back)
Eagles GM Howie Roseman summed it up well in his Wednesday availability after having traded up to the No.2 overall pick in the draft via a deal with the Browns.
“What are the keys to winning, what are the keys to being championship-caliber over a long period of time? And I don’t think I’m saying anything that anyone in this room doesn’t believe in … it’s quarterbacks.”
One of the things we liked best about Shane Buechele in the spring game was his command of the offense. Maybe more importantly, it was his command of the quarterback position.
He looked like a quarterback.
Whether he was stepping up in the pocket, eluding pressure and extending plays or dishing off unscripted shovel-passes, it was clear that Buechele has the gamer gene in him. That’s a competitive, alpha-gene and it’s desirable in quarterbacks and locker-room presences alike.
Buechele also showed he was smart about getting the football out of bounds when protection broke down and being selective about when to take play-extending risks. … and Lord knows the protection broke down, which we’ll get to shortly.
RUNNING BACKS
27 Roderick Bernard - 30 snaps on offense
10 at RB (1st team)
20 at RB (2nd team)
41 Tristian Houston - 27 snaps on offense
27 at RB (2nd team)
33 D’Onta Formean - 25 snaps on offense
25 at RB (1st team)
25 Chris Warren - 17 snaps on offense
17 at RB (1st team)
40 Trenton Hafley (walk-on) - 8 snaps on offense
8 at RB (2nd team)
Scholarship non-participants: Kirk Johnson (knee)
D’Onta Foreman and Chris Warren will be the team’s most valuable players in 2016 and if the two are not fighting for the title coming into the end of the season, it will mean that an injury has occurred or something has gone terribly sideways in the plans.
Texas only played one half in the 2016 spring game and one thing we’ve already braced for around here is the sheer number of plays run. It’s not cockamamie to say that Texas may run 100 plays a game in Sterlin Gilbert’s first year as offensive coordinator. If we chalk half of those plays up to being runs, that leaves us 50 opportunities to tote the rock.
So, an issue shouldn’t exist with whether Foreman or Warren are getting adequate touches to get rolling. Each could receives 20-plus carries with the the ten-or-so remaining to be doled out among ancillary options such as Kirk Johnson or Roderick Bernard.
Bernard flashed some of the speed he’s known for, but did not live up to a lot of spring-football hype that had been built up about him as a home-run threat. Tristian Houston will not be a factor in 2016 as the depth chart barring disaster ahead of him is loaded and he still has some coming along to do.
WIDE RECEIVERS
Scholarship non-participants: Ty Templin (knee)
3 Armanti Foreman - 54 snaps on offense
37 at LWR (1st team)
17 at LWR (2nd team)
Armanti Foreman led the WR group in snaps and had a terrific game in the process. Most importantly, he showed he still has the potential to possibly be the Ferrari we’ve all dreamed of. Foreman did have one drop and another play where he was led out of bounds which resulted in an incompletion, but seemed to look a whole lot more like the player Texas fans hoped he’d become than what they saw in 2015. Don't forget Foreman still has a ton of twitch to him and his hands are soft enough.
We found it interesting that Foreman didn’t take any reps inside (at either the slot or WR4 positions) and played exclusively on the outside — primarily with the first group. It’s been a reasonable line of thought that Foreman would contend for primary slot duties while leaving the outside positions to John Burt and …
85 Collin Johnson - 53 snaps on offense
15 at LWR (1st team)
38 at LWR (2nd team)
We didn’t see the throbbing, three-touchdown mega-monster of a spring game we had dreamed about for Collin Johnson, but we noticed some interesting things.
For one, he hardly got any first-team work over at the left wide receiver, usually heeding duties opposite John Burt to Armanti Foreman.
It’s easy to see how Johnson will be used in the new offense and it matches up perfectly from everything we’ve seen and heard from practices. These quarterbacks are comfortable throwing the football to him at basically any time as he can separate on size and length alone in a few different ways.
1 John Burt - 53 snaps on offense
36 at RWR (1st team)
17 at RWR (2nd team)
For all the buzz over Collin Johnson this spring, John Burt reminded us that he’s still around and pretty sick himself. Burt dropped one ball that he’ll catch 9 out of 10 times and will likely never forget. He made up for it with a highlight grabbed where he plucked the ball out of the air on the deep bomb down the East sideline from Buechele.
8 Dorian Leonard - 53 snaps on offense
16 at RWR (1st team)
37 at RWR (2nd team)
All these snaps at RWR, it’s clear that Dorian Leonard has been passed up on the depth chart by a younger player in Burt. If the spring game is any indication, fans should expect to see Leonard in the type of role where he gets snaps every few series’ at most.
The good news for Leonard is that he at least looks in for expanded snaps over his very limited 2015 duty where he handled exclusively 18-wheeler package snaps. These had no hope of getting the ball in anyone’s hands other than one Tyrone Swoopes as a runner.
5 Lorenzo Joe - 37 snaps on offense
19 at slot (1st team)
1 at RWR (2nd team)
17 at slot (2nd team)
Lorenzo Joe lined up mainly at the inside-receiver position and was tied for the player who took the most “slot” reps with the first team at 19. Joe is another player who, like Shane Buechele, has benefitted this spring from having previously been a QB in a high school system with similar philosophies to Gilbert’s new one at Texas.
On top of this, Joe remains an excellent route-runner with (until proven otherwise) the most dependable hands on the team if nothing else. Joe should be a big part of the equation in 2016, but his reasonable snap percentage upside should be expected to be capped around 40 percent barring injuries to other key contributors due to numbers at the position.
6 Deandre McNeal - 38 snaps on offense
14 at slot (1st team)
24 at slot (2nd team)
McNeal is going to work his way into the equation somehow in 2016 but he’s a frustrating player to monitor progress with as he drew rave reviews as a freak coming into his freshman season where he didn’t get much run. This season, he’s reportedly been much more inconsistent in practice with drops and that showed up in the spring game with one wide open ball over the middle. In total, McNeal had two drops in the game, but to be fair, one came right as the harder rain started when the ball was the slickest and the other came on a Houdini interception from Antwuan Davis that Davis may still not believe he pulled off.
11 Jacorey Warrick - 31 snaps on offense
19 at slot (1st team)
12 at slot (2nd team)
Warrick and Lorenzo Joe appear to be the primary options in the slots when the team goes four WRs if the season were to start today based on spring game usage.
86 Jake Oliver - 24 snaps on offense
5 at slot (1st team)
19 at slot (2nd team)
So much for the Jake Oliver spring game breakout. Oliver was only used five times with the first team and got most of his work with the second group. If spring game usage is any indication, Oliver is behind McNeal, Warrick and Joe on the inside WR pecking order. The only “slot guy” who played less snaps on offense was …
17 Ryan Newsome - 8 snaps on offense
8 at slot (2nd team)
Ryan Newsome may be destined for a role in 2016 that involves kick and punt return duties mostly with just dashes of offensive usage as a likely speed-option and jet-sweep threat out of four-WR sets.
Speaking of four WR sets, we’re going to see them more often, right?
TIGHT ENDS
42 Caleb Bluiett - 32 snaps on offense
13 at TE (1st team)
10 at H-Back (1st team)
4 at TE (2nd team)
5 at H-Back (2nd team)
47 Andrew Beck - 31 snaps on offense
4 at TE (1st team)
17 at H-Back (1st team)
8 at TE (2nd team)
2 at H-Back (2nd team)
82 Michael Wilson (walk-on) - 5 snaps on offense
1 at TE (2nd team)
4 at H-Back (2nd team)
83 Matt Center (walk-on) - 5 snaps on offense
5 at H-Back (2nd team)
Scholarship non-participants: Blake Whiteley (Knee)
Well, maybe we were a little premature in our ushering of the TE position at Texas the way of the dodo bird as the first-team offense utilized this player on almost 86 percent of snaps, but we weren’t incorrect in our initial assessment that the position will be relegated to that of a glorified fullback until a truly dynamic receiving threat shows up on campus.
The two problems we saw with this group were easy to identify: 1) there is no depth behind Bluiett and Beck and 2) both of these players are significant downgrades to graduated TE/FB Alex De La Torre as blockers, which is largely what the scheme will call for them to do.
As seemingly always, there’s a problem at the tight end position at Texas. The Longhorns will hope for immediate contributions from any incoming freshmen capable of getting their noses in a linebacker’s numbers with some leverage and power.
Any ability to actually catch the football on top of that is gravy.
OFFENSIVE LINE GRADES AND QUICK HITS
Grading scale
55 LT Connor Williams - 52 snaps
1 QB pressure, 2 QB hits allowed
1 knockdown
DEEP DIG GRADE: 74.81
- It would have been one of the worst games Connor Williams played all last season and it came against the likes of Breckyn Hager and Quincy Vasser on the edges. We’ll chalk it up to a bad day for Williams as the line’s best returning player, but we worry about a new motion to his initial punch that seems to get him overextended and vulnerable at times. Perhaps he is just adjusting to new technique being taught by Mattox.
LG 58 Brandon Hodges - 52 snaps
1 pressure allowed
1 holding penalty
DEEP DIG GRADE: 75.09
- Graded out better than we thought on the whole. He was playing against walk-ons, but doing this every week in-season against real opponents would represent an upgrade over Sedrick Flowers.
C 56 Zach Shackelford - 52 snaps
No disruption allowed
1 knockdown
2 false start penalties
DEEP DIG GRADE: 75.36
- Can't ignore the fact that Shack didn’t allow any disruption when everyone else on the line allowed at least some. One thing that was clear in the spring game is that Shackelford has been somewhat protected in spring drills by not going against many powerful players. Therefore, his ability to drive talented, anchoring nose-tackles and one-shades off of the football still remains a question mark. If he played like this every week in-season he would be an upgrade on Taylor Doyle.
RG 77 Patrick Vahe - 52 snaps
1 run-stuff allowed
1 knockdown, 1 pin
1 false start penalty
DEEP DIG GRADE: 78.36
- Had a simply awesome game that if he matched in-season consistently, through 2015 (no east task seeing as he faced a walk-on for the majority of snaps), Vahe would come into his junior year as a player with a near-certainty of having an NFL career. It's time to start thinking of Vahe as possibly the best player on the offensive line.
RT 76 Kent Perkins - 52 snaps
1 QB hit allowed
DEEP DIG GRADE: 75
- This isn’t good enough for Perkins. As usual, a few flash plays and not much else. Perkins needs to be better than completely average versus the Quincy Vassers of the world.
SECOND UNIT
LT 72 Elijah Rodriguez - 55 snaps
3 QB pressures, 1 run stuff, 1 TFL allowed
DEEP DIG GRADE: 72.28
LG 64 Jake McMillon - 55 snaps
2 run stuffs, 1 TFL, 1 QB pressure allowed
1 knockdown, 1 pin
DEEP DIG GRADE: 72.64
C 54 Garrett Graf (walk-on) - 55 snaps
4 run stuffs allowed
DEEP DIG GRADE: 69.91
RG Alex Anderson - 30 snaps
3 QB pressures, 1 run stuff allowed
1 knockdown
DEEP DIG GRADE: 71.67
RG Terrell Cuney - 25 snaps
3 QB pressures, 1 run stuff allowed
DEEP DIG GRADE: 69.8
RT Tristan Nickelson - 55 snaps
2 sacks, 2 QB hits, 2 run stuffs and 1 QB pressure allowed
DEEP DIG GRADE: 70.14
Scholarship non-participants: Buck Major (healthy DNP), Garrett Thomas (healthy DNP)
- Not pretty.
- Not a single player on Texas’ second unit represents anything but a liability if they had to play against Notre Dame next week.
- Tristan Nickelson gets a pass as his ankle was on the brink of not allowing him to play, but in retrospect, he should’ve just sat out.
- What does it say about Terrell Cuney that an untalented walk-on played all the snaps at the position he’s trained at for two seasons (center) while he split LG reps with Alex Anderson?
- What does that say about Alex Anderson?
- What does Texas do in-season if Shackelford (an unproven commodity himself) gets hurt?
- Jake McMillon has made his annual move from one side of the ball to another and looks about like a guy who hasn’t played OL in over a year.
In short, the “depth” issue at OL the Texas coaches openly worry about is a real thing. No two freshman All-America starters, no returning leader in Kent Perkins and no surprise Shackelford contributions change that.
It can’t be all sunshine, right? The good news is Texas has two runners who can make lemonade out of this deal and a future QB who is seemingly cool under pressure.
Finally.
As we turn our attention to Part II: Defense, we thank you, once again, for reading.
What a nice respite it’s been from the Shawn Wickvell offense.
Since we last convened, you’ll notice we’ve taken the time to clean some things up around the old basement. For one, the easement window in the far corner has been replaced - taking with it a years-old film of grit and grime that had largely filtered out most natural sunlight.
Descending the steps, you’ll also surely notice a much more organized set of workspaces and more cleanly run electrical wiring. “Clean lines, clean hearts,” one of our regulars says.
And still, we won’t be winning any ‘Workplace of the Year’ awards just yet. Leaks caused by shoddy patching where the furnace meets the foundation remain a huge pain in the ass. It’s been flooding in recent weeks, and let’s just say it hasn’t been the best time for dealing with such matters.
Our greatest hope is that you’ll recognize at least some improvement.
We welcome you back to …
. . .
The Deep Dig
Spring Game 2016 Part I: Offense
presented by Hat Creek Burger Company
QUARTERBACKS
16 Shane Buechele - 62 snaps on offense
27 at QB (1st team)
35 at QB (2nd team)
Average time elapsed between snaps: 16.07 seconds
18 Tyrone Swoopes - 45 snaps on offense
25 at QB (1st team)
20 at QB (2nd team)
Average time elapsed between snaps: 14.44 seconds
Scholarship non-participants - Jerrod Heard (shoulder), Kai Locksley (healthy DNP), Matthew Merrick (back)
Eagles GM Howie Roseman summed it up well in his Wednesday availability after having traded up to the No.2 overall pick in the draft via a deal with the Browns.
“What are the keys to winning, what are the keys to being championship-caliber over a long period of time? And I don’t think I’m saying anything that anyone in this room doesn’t believe in … it’s quarterbacks.”
One of the things we liked best about Shane Buechele in the spring game was his command of the offense. Maybe more importantly, it was his command of the quarterback position.
He looked like a quarterback.
Whether he was stepping up in the pocket, eluding pressure and extending plays or dishing off unscripted shovel-passes, it was clear that Buechele has the gamer gene in him. That’s a competitive, alpha-gene and it’s desirable in quarterbacks and locker-room presences alike.
Buechele also showed he was smart about getting the football out of bounds when protection broke down and being selective about when to take play-extending risks. … and Lord knows the protection broke down, which we’ll get to shortly.
. . .
RUNNING BACKS
27 Roderick Bernard - 30 snaps on offense
10 at RB (1st team)
20 at RB (2nd team)
41 Tristian Houston - 27 snaps on offense
27 at RB (2nd team)
33 D’Onta Formean - 25 snaps on offense
25 at RB (1st team)
25 Chris Warren - 17 snaps on offense
17 at RB (1st team)
40 Trenton Hafley (walk-on) - 8 snaps on offense
8 at RB (2nd team)
Scholarship non-participants: Kirk Johnson (knee)
D’Onta Foreman and Chris Warren will be the team’s most valuable players in 2016 and if the two are not fighting for the title coming into the end of the season, it will mean that an injury has occurred or something has gone terribly sideways in the plans.
Texas only played one half in the 2016 spring game and one thing we’ve already braced for around here is the sheer number of plays run. It’s not cockamamie to say that Texas may run 100 plays a game in Sterlin Gilbert’s first year as offensive coordinator. If we chalk half of those plays up to being runs, that leaves us 50 opportunities to tote the rock.
So, an issue shouldn’t exist with whether Foreman or Warren are getting adequate touches to get rolling. Each could receives 20-plus carries with the the ten-or-so remaining to be doled out among ancillary options such as Kirk Johnson or Roderick Bernard.
Bernard flashed some of the speed he’s known for, but did not live up to a lot of spring-football hype that had been built up about him as a home-run threat. Tristian Houston will not be a factor in 2016 as the depth chart barring disaster ahead of him is loaded and he still has some coming along to do.
. . .
WIDE RECEIVERS
Scholarship non-participants: Ty Templin (knee)
3 Armanti Foreman - 54 snaps on offense
37 at LWR (1st team)
17 at LWR (2nd team)
Armanti Foreman led the WR group in snaps and had a terrific game in the process. Most importantly, he showed he still has the potential to possibly be the Ferrari we’ve all dreamed of. Foreman did have one drop and another play where he was led out of bounds which resulted in an incompletion, but seemed to look a whole lot more like the player Texas fans hoped he’d become than what they saw in 2015. Don't forget Foreman still has a ton of twitch to him and his hands are soft enough.
We found it interesting that Foreman didn’t take any reps inside (at either the slot or WR4 positions) and played exclusively on the outside — primarily with the first group. It’s been a reasonable line of thought that Foreman would contend for primary slot duties while leaving the outside positions to John Burt and …
85 Collin Johnson - 53 snaps on offense
15 at LWR (1st team)
38 at LWR (2nd team)
We didn’t see the throbbing, three-touchdown mega-monster of a spring game we had dreamed about for Collin Johnson, but we noticed some interesting things.
For one, he hardly got any first-team work over at the left wide receiver, usually heeding duties opposite John Burt to Armanti Foreman.
It’s easy to see how Johnson will be used in the new offense and it matches up perfectly from everything we’ve seen and heard from practices. These quarterbacks are comfortable throwing the football to him at basically any time as he can separate on size and length alone in a few different ways.
1 John Burt - 53 snaps on offense
36 at RWR (1st team)
17 at RWR (2nd team)
For all the buzz over Collin Johnson this spring, John Burt reminded us that he’s still around and pretty sick himself. Burt dropped one ball that he’ll catch 9 out of 10 times and will likely never forget. He made up for it with a highlight grabbed where he plucked the ball out of the air on the deep bomb down the East sideline from Buechele.
8 Dorian Leonard - 53 snaps on offense
16 at RWR (1st team)
37 at RWR (2nd team)
All these snaps at RWR, it’s clear that Dorian Leonard has been passed up on the depth chart by a younger player in Burt. If the spring game is any indication, fans should expect to see Leonard in the type of role where he gets snaps every few series’ at most.
The good news for Leonard is that he at least looks in for expanded snaps over his very limited 2015 duty where he handled exclusively 18-wheeler package snaps. These had no hope of getting the ball in anyone’s hands other than one Tyrone Swoopes as a runner.
5 Lorenzo Joe - 37 snaps on offense
19 at slot (1st team)
1 at RWR (2nd team)
17 at slot (2nd team)
Lorenzo Joe lined up mainly at the inside-receiver position and was tied for the player who took the most “slot” reps with the first team at 19. Joe is another player who, like Shane Buechele, has benefitted this spring from having previously been a QB in a high school system with similar philosophies to Gilbert’s new one at Texas.
On top of this, Joe remains an excellent route-runner with (until proven otherwise) the most dependable hands on the team if nothing else. Joe should be a big part of the equation in 2016, but his reasonable snap percentage upside should be expected to be capped around 40 percent barring injuries to other key contributors due to numbers at the position.
6 Deandre McNeal - 38 snaps on offense
14 at slot (1st team)
24 at slot (2nd team)
McNeal is going to work his way into the equation somehow in 2016 but he’s a frustrating player to monitor progress with as he drew rave reviews as a freak coming into his freshman season where he didn’t get much run. This season, he’s reportedly been much more inconsistent in practice with drops and that showed up in the spring game with one wide open ball over the middle. In total, McNeal had two drops in the game, but to be fair, one came right as the harder rain started when the ball was the slickest and the other came on a Houdini interception from Antwuan Davis that Davis may still not believe he pulled off.
11 Jacorey Warrick - 31 snaps on offense
19 at slot (1st team)
12 at slot (2nd team)
Warrick and Lorenzo Joe appear to be the primary options in the slots when the team goes four WRs if the season were to start today based on spring game usage.
86 Jake Oliver - 24 snaps on offense
5 at slot (1st team)
19 at slot (2nd team)
So much for the Jake Oliver spring game breakout. Oliver was only used five times with the first team and got most of his work with the second group. If spring game usage is any indication, Oliver is behind McNeal, Warrick and Joe on the inside WR pecking order. The only “slot guy” who played less snaps on offense was …
17 Ryan Newsome - 8 snaps on offense
8 at slot (2nd team)
Ryan Newsome may be destined for a role in 2016 that involves kick and punt return duties mostly with just dashes of offensive usage as a likely speed-option and jet-sweep threat out of four-WR sets.
Speaking of four WR sets, we’re going to see them more often, right?
. . .
TIGHT ENDS
42 Caleb Bluiett - 32 snaps on offense
13 at TE (1st team)
10 at H-Back (1st team)
4 at TE (2nd team)
5 at H-Back (2nd team)
47 Andrew Beck - 31 snaps on offense
4 at TE (1st team)
17 at H-Back (1st team)
8 at TE (2nd team)
2 at H-Back (2nd team)
82 Michael Wilson (walk-on) - 5 snaps on offense
1 at TE (2nd team)
4 at H-Back (2nd team)
83 Matt Center (walk-on) - 5 snaps on offense
5 at H-Back (2nd team)
Scholarship non-participants: Blake Whiteley (Knee)
Well, maybe we were a little premature in our ushering of the TE position at Texas the way of the dodo bird as the first-team offense utilized this player on almost 86 percent of snaps, but we weren’t incorrect in our initial assessment that the position will be relegated to that of a glorified fullback until a truly dynamic receiving threat shows up on campus.
The two problems we saw with this group were easy to identify: 1) there is no depth behind Bluiett and Beck and 2) both of these players are significant downgrades to graduated TE/FB Alex De La Torre as blockers, which is largely what the scheme will call for them to do.
As seemingly always, there’s a problem at the tight end position at Texas. The Longhorns will hope for immediate contributions from any incoming freshmen capable of getting their noses in a linebacker’s numbers with some leverage and power.
Any ability to actually catch the football on top of that is gravy.
. . .
OFFENSIVE LINE GRADES AND QUICK HITS
Grading scale
55 LT Connor Williams - 52 snaps
1 QB pressure, 2 QB hits allowed
1 knockdown
DEEP DIG GRADE: 74.81
- It would have been one of the worst games Connor Williams played all last season and it came against the likes of Breckyn Hager and Quincy Vasser on the edges. We’ll chalk it up to a bad day for Williams as the line’s best returning player, but we worry about a new motion to his initial punch that seems to get him overextended and vulnerable at times. Perhaps he is just adjusting to new technique being taught by Mattox.
LG 58 Brandon Hodges - 52 snaps
1 pressure allowed
1 holding penalty
DEEP DIG GRADE: 75.09
- Graded out better than we thought on the whole. He was playing against walk-ons, but doing this every week in-season against real opponents would represent an upgrade over Sedrick Flowers.
C 56 Zach Shackelford - 52 snaps
No disruption allowed
1 knockdown
2 false start penalties
DEEP DIG GRADE: 75.36
- Can't ignore the fact that Shack didn’t allow any disruption when everyone else on the line allowed at least some. One thing that was clear in the spring game is that Shackelford has been somewhat protected in spring drills by not going against many powerful players. Therefore, his ability to drive talented, anchoring nose-tackles and one-shades off of the football still remains a question mark. If he played like this every week in-season he would be an upgrade on Taylor Doyle.
RG 77 Patrick Vahe - 52 snaps
1 run-stuff allowed
1 knockdown, 1 pin
1 false start penalty
DEEP DIG GRADE: 78.36
- Had a simply awesome game that if he matched in-season consistently, through 2015 (no east task seeing as he faced a walk-on for the majority of snaps), Vahe would come into his junior year as a player with a near-certainty of having an NFL career. It's time to start thinking of Vahe as possibly the best player on the offensive line.
RT 76 Kent Perkins - 52 snaps
1 QB hit allowed
DEEP DIG GRADE: 75
- This isn’t good enough for Perkins. As usual, a few flash plays and not much else. Perkins needs to be better than completely average versus the Quincy Vassers of the world.
SECOND UNIT
LT 72 Elijah Rodriguez - 55 snaps
3 QB pressures, 1 run stuff, 1 TFL allowed
DEEP DIG GRADE: 72.28
LG 64 Jake McMillon - 55 snaps
2 run stuffs, 1 TFL, 1 QB pressure allowed
1 knockdown, 1 pin
DEEP DIG GRADE: 72.64
C 54 Garrett Graf (walk-on) - 55 snaps
4 run stuffs allowed
DEEP DIG GRADE: 69.91
RG Alex Anderson - 30 snaps
3 QB pressures, 1 run stuff allowed
1 knockdown
DEEP DIG GRADE: 71.67
RG Terrell Cuney - 25 snaps
3 QB pressures, 1 run stuff allowed
DEEP DIG GRADE: 69.8
RT Tristan Nickelson - 55 snaps
2 sacks, 2 QB hits, 2 run stuffs and 1 QB pressure allowed
DEEP DIG GRADE: 70.14
Scholarship non-participants: Buck Major (healthy DNP), Garrett Thomas (healthy DNP)
- Not pretty.
- Not a single player on Texas’ second unit represents anything but a liability if they had to play against Notre Dame next week.
- Tristan Nickelson gets a pass as his ankle was on the brink of not allowing him to play, but in retrospect, he should’ve just sat out.
- What does it say about Terrell Cuney that an untalented walk-on played all the snaps at the position he’s trained at for two seasons (center) while he split LG reps with Alex Anderson?
- What does that say about Alex Anderson?
- What does Texas do in-season if Shackelford (an unproven commodity himself) gets hurt?
- Jake McMillon has made his annual move from one side of the ball to another and looks about like a guy who hasn’t played OL in over a year.
In short, the “depth” issue at OL the Texas coaches openly worry about is a real thing. No two freshman All-America starters, no returning leader in Kent Perkins and no surprise Shackelford contributions change that.
It can’t be all sunshine, right? The good news is Texas has two runners who can make lemonade out of this deal and a future QB who is seemingly cool under pressure.
Finally.
. . .
As we turn our attention to Part II: Defense, we thank you, once again, for reading.
