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Find Your Perfect Franchise at MyPerfectFranchise.Net
Orangebloods Owned! Contact Andy Luedecke (aka @MyPerfectFranchise.Net) anytime at:
aluedecke@myperfectfranchise.net
(404) 973-9901
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Preview of the Biggest Spring Football Position Battles and Storylines: Defensive Front Seven
That wide-open edge/buck end spot
As you can see in the chart above, the EDGE/BUCK spot still remains wide-open heading into 2023 and the spring will be the time we get our first peek into how it will be addressed in the near term. We know two things for sure:
1) It will be nearly impossible NOT to get improvement out of this position in 2023 from what we have seen in 2021 and 2022 in Coach Pete Kwiatkowski's first two seasons as DC. In 2021, Ray Thornton (498 total snaps) was not only the least efficient player on a per-snap basis of 39 total players that took a snap in that season. He was the worst in the history of the Deep Dig dating back to 2013 (production generated once every 52.42 snaps). In 2022, Ovie Oghuofo (657 total snaps) was over 3 TIMES more efficient than Thornton (production generated once every 17.29 snaps) and was still pretty terrible. Out of 40 players who took a snap on defense for the Horns in 2022, only six were less efficient on a per-snap basis.
2) The answer to how this problem is to be solved is on the spring 2023 roster. There is -- thankfully, given recent edge-rush portal help -- no transfer set to join the team this summer or incoming freshman summer enrollee hiding in plain sight, waiting to take the reins. The guys you see on the chart above: Guys like Ethan Burke, J'Mond Tapp, Colton Vasek, etc. among others have wide-open runways to establish themselves as the true alphas at this critical position. The bad news is that they're all inexperienced, but the good news is that many of these young players are stud prospects. It will also be interesting to see if the staff messes around with Justice Finkley at the buck end spot after Fiinkley spent the 2022 season backing up Barryn Sorrell at the SDE/jack end. Wouldn't it have made sense to at least try to let Finkley take on some of those reps in 2022 if the staff had interest in playing him there?
For all of these reasons, it is the biggest storyline of all on defense as we prepare for our first glimpses of what we might expect from the final season of Big 12 play at Texas.
(Gosh, it feels so good to write that last sentence).
Will Anthony Hill be given a shot to start immediately?
It feels like true freshman Anthony Hill will be elevated to a starting role at some point in spring practices, but what I'm most curious to see is if he's standing out there next to Jaylon Ford as the will ILB from the first drills of camp. With the way that coaches operate, it would not at all be surprising to see a senior like David Gbenda sort of serving as a placeholder in this role just to start things off and to not give the new guy the idea that he is being bequeathed a job just for showing up. Perhaps even more likely would be seeing Morice Blackwell -- the linebacker to safety-now back to linebacker? -- convert getting work as the Demarvion Overshown replacement for 2023. As Overshown told me at the Senior Bowl, Blackwell's skillset and background is similar to Overshown's and Blackwell has seen playing time and has reasonable skins on the wall. In the end, though, Blackwell just seems like more of a sub-package and specialty player from what we have seen of him thus far. It requires some mental gymnastics to envision a world where Blackwell gains and holds onto a starting job long-term over a 5-star stud of Hill's pedigree.
Time to step up for both Alfred Collins and Vernon Broughton
Both of these guys were supposed to be really good defensive linemen for Texas (certainly by now in their careers) and they simply haven't been. Although everyone expects Byron Murphy and T'Vondre Sweat to be the two main starters along the defensive line's interior, the fact of the matter is that "starters" along the interior DL sometimes don't even play as much as the "backups." This was the case last season when T'Vondre Sweat (408 snaps) actually played more than Keondre Coburn (369 snaps). Other backups like Byron Murphy (327) and Moro Ojomo (316) were right there in that neighborhood as well. All these guys have to play. Broughton and Collins, on the bright side, are both versatile athletes. Each one lined up and played snaps at the nose tackle, defensive tackle and even strong-side defensive end positions in heavy packages during the 2022 season. On the not-so-bright-side, they weren't effective in 2022, each generating production only once per more than 11 total defensive snaps and they were both worse versus the run than in passing-down situations. Broughton and Collins had five (5!) run-stuffs between the two of them in 2022. To put that number in context, Broughton played 210 total defensive snaps while Collins played 222. So, 432 total snaps. 5 run-stuffs. Byron Murphy played 100 fewer total snaps (327) and generated 15 run-stuffs completely on his own. Both Collins and Broughton need to improve for Texas to improve defensively up front from 2022.
Find Your Perfect Franchise at MyPerfectFranchise.Net
Orangebloods Owned! Contact Andy Luedecke (aka @MyPerfectFranchise.Net) anytime at:
aluedecke@myperfectfranchise.net
(404) 973-9901
www.myperfectfranchise.net
Preview of the Biggest Spring Football Position Battles and Storylines: Defensive Front Seven
Click Image to Enlarge
That wide-open edge/buck end spot
As you can see in the chart above, the EDGE/BUCK spot still remains wide-open heading into 2023 and the spring will be the time we get our first peek into how it will be addressed in the near term. We know two things for sure:
1) It will be nearly impossible NOT to get improvement out of this position in 2023 from what we have seen in 2021 and 2022 in Coach Pete Kwiatkowski's first two seasons as DC. In 2021, Ray Thornton (498 total snaps) was not only the least efficient player on a per-snap basis of 39 total players that took a snap in that season. He was the worst in the history of the Deep Dig dating back to 2013 (production generated once every 52.42 snaps). In 2022, Ovie Oghuofo (657 total snaps) was over 3 TIMES more efficient than Thornton (production generated once every 17.29 snaps) and was still pretty terrible. Out of 40 players who took a snap on defense for the Horns in 2022, only six were less efficient on a per-snap basis.
2) The answer to how this problem is to be solved is on the spring 2023 roster. There is -- thankfully, given recent edge-rush portal help -- no transfer set to join the team this summer or incoming freshman summer enrollee hiding in plain sight, waiting to take the reins. The guys you see on the chart above: Guys like Ethan Burke, J'Mond Tapp, Colton Vasek, etc. among others have wide-open runways to establish themselves as the true alphas at this critical position. The bad news is that they're all inexperienced, but the good news is that many of these young players are stud prospects. It will also be interesting to see if the staff messes around with Justice Finkley at the buck end spot after Fiinkley spent the 2022 season backing up Barryn Sorrell at the SDE/jack end. Wouldn't it have made sense to at least try to let Finkley take on some of those reps in 2022 if the staff had interest in playing him there?
For all of these reasons, it is the biggest storyline of all on defense as we prepare for our first glimpses of what we might expect from the final season of Big 12 play at Texas.
(Gosh, it feels so good to write that last sentence).
Will Anthony Hill be given a shot to start immediately?
It feels like true freshman Anthony Hill will be elevated to a starting role at some point in spring practices, but what I'm most curious to see is if he's standing out there next to Jaylon Ford as the will ILB from the first drills of camp. With the way that coaches operate, it would not at all be surprising to see a senior like David Gbenda sort of serving as a placeholder in this role just to start things off and to not give the new guy the idea that he is being bequeathed a job just for showing up. Perhaps even more likely would be seeing Morice Blackwell -- the linebacker to safety-now back to linebacker? -- convert getting work as the Demarvion Overshown replacement for 2023. As Overshown told me at the Senior Bowl, Blackwell's skillset and background is similar to Overshown's and Blackwell has seen playing time and has reasonable skins on the wall. In the end, though, Blackwell just seems like more of a sub-package and specialty player from what we have seen of him thus far. It requires some mental gymnastics to envision a world where Blackwell gains and holds onto a starting job long-term over a 5-star stud of Hill's pedigree.
Time to step up for both Alfred Collins and Vernon Broughton
Both of these guys were supposed to be really good defensive linemen for Texas (certainly by now in their careers) and they simply haven't been. Although everyone expects Byron Murphy and T'Vondre Sweat to be the two main starters along the defensive line's interior, the fact of the matter is that "starters" along the interior DL sometimes don't even play as much as the "backups." This was the case last season when T'Vondre Sweat (408 snaps) actually played more than Keondre Coburn (369 snaps). Other backups like Byron Murphy (327) and Moro Ojomo (316) were right there in that neighborhood as well. All these guys have to play. Broughton and Collins, on the bright side, are both versatile athletes. Each one lined up and played snaps at the nose tackle, defensive tackle and even strong-side defensive end positions in heavy packages during the 2022 season. On the not-so-bright-side, they weren't effective in 2022, each generating production only once per more than 11 total defensive snaps and they were both worse versus the run than in passing-down situations. Broughton and Collins had five (5!) run-stuffs between the two of them in 2022. To put that number in context, Broughton played 210 total defensive snaps while Collins played 222. So, 432 total snaps. 5 run-stuffs. Byron Murphy played 100 fewer total snaps (327) and generated 15 run-stuffs completely on his own. Both Collins and Broughton need to improve for Texas to improve defensively up front from 2022.
