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With Jackson Christian's commitment to Texas, the Longhorns have added their first piece in what we should expect to be a five-man offensive line class in 2025 among traditional high school prospects. And while Christian's recruiting profile doesn't contain offers from a laundry list of heavy-hitting competitor offers, you can certainly see why Kyle Flood wanted him on board.
Christian is a mean son of a gun in the run game who plays tackle at the high school level but eventually looks like he'll probably bump inside to guard. He's excellent at helping secure double-teams and then getting to the second level of the defense in his highlight reel. Good understanding of leverage to the play-side, good inside hand placement/aim point/initial punch and a great finisher. He's the kind of player that a championship-level program like Groves can make a game plan to run behind against the best high school competition that they face.
We hardly see any passes in the highlight reel that so it's tough to know how Christian looks in his pass set at this point in his development. However, in the full-game cut-up above from Port Neches Groves 2023 state championship game against South Oak Cliff, we get a smattering of pass-play reps, and Christian's feet and balance are just fine. In fact, some of the reps from that game should probably be added to his highlight reel (not that it matters much now, considering his recruitment is now technically over with his pledge to Texas, hence no more need to market himself). No one is going to call him an effortless glider that looks like he's walking on air, but I don't think anyone is going to have any major problems with his feet, balance, or mechanics, either -- outside of understanding that some things will need to be honed and developed. I don't see anything hindering that opportunity that is inherent to his style of play. The generally athletic, balanced, buttoned-up and overall -- just pretty athletic -- way that he moves in climbing second-level as a run-blocker is not as pronounced in pass-pro, but he doesn't look like a different person in pass-pro, either.
Furthermore, they're going to have to play him at guard, and at interior OL positions, the worries about the passing game stuff really start to dissipate even further, of course. Why are we so sure he'll play guard? Well, it has less to do with the prospect Christian is than it does with the makeup of the Texas OL room.
In a sorta crazy turn of events, Texas seems much more set at the tackle positions than it is moving into the immediate future at the OL's interior. I say "crazy" because it's the true tackles that are the more valuable assets to a football team and more elusive in recruiting. Looking to 2025, Hayden Conner will be gone. That's your starting LG. Jake Majors (who has turned into an actually good player) will be gone; he's your starting C. RG DJ Campbell, the second-best player on the Texas OL coming off of a jet-pack-style sophomore rise could reasonably find himself testing the NFL draft waters for the 2025 cycle. If that happens, what is left behind them as far as interior line guys?
Well, you have (from oldest to youngest): Cole Hutson (who would in 2025 be a senior) is probably your top player. Max Merrill would be a RS SR and could very well be talked into riding off into the sunset as he hasn't played and has been eating up a scholarship the whole time. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I would do the same if I was him getting a free ride to Texas to get an MIS degree from the McCombs School of Business.
Neto Umeozulu will be a RS junior by then and is a fan favorite, but he's yet to live up to expectations. Despite getting some run at starting LG this spring while Conner was working with the twos at center, Umeozulu did not look like a much-improved player in the Orange-White game from a 2023 version of himself that struggled greatly in garbage-time situations where he got to play in real football games. He allowed 4 run-stuffs and committed one penalty on 47 offensive snaps last season (disruption caused once every 9.4 snaps, which would be the worst of any player the Deep Dig has ever graded if that sample were large enough to get him on the list). In the Spring Game, over 24 snaps, he allowed 2 TFLs, a run-stuff, a sack and a would-be QB hit. Can he improve? Yes, and I believe it is in the cards, but automatically slotting him as the easy answer to any interior position would be premature until we see real, on-field improvement sustained for some length of time. You also have Malik Agbo who has flip-flopped from offensive line to tight end and doesn't seem too poised at this point to be a real starting threat in the immediate future. There's also Conner Robertson, who the staff seems worried enough about having to play in 2024 that Hayden Conner has been cross-training at center, presumably as an insurance plan if something were to happen to Jake Majors.
Then you have the 2023 "large humans" realm of the depth chart where the two players who looked like they had a little more to their games than just pure size (Jayden Chatman and Trevor Goosby) looking like they'll end up fighting to replace Kelvin Banks -- leaving the two remaining players in the bucket we'll call ... "Yes, they don't seem like they can move well, but they are absolutely massive and if Kyle Flood wants them, who am I to disagree?"-bucket: Connor Stroh and Andre Cojoe. One member of that 2023 bucket, Payton Kirkland, has already transferred out. Cojoe played some at right tackle in the spring, but by the spring game it looked pretty clear that freshman Brandon Baker was the superior option to back up Cam Williams next season directly.
Among true freshmen, you have center Daniel Cruz who looks like a future player for sure, and Nate Kibble, a guard prospect who will be arriving this summer and remains a mystery.
Now compare that to how Texas looks at tackle: Trevor Goosby only played 9 snaps at LT last season, but had a bodily transformation coming into spring that now sees his 6-6 or 6-7 frame (size 16 shoes and massive hands) holding 313 pounds with room for growth from there while not sacrificing anything in his movement ability in all directions. Jayden Chatman played 22 snaps at LT last year, and basically opposite of Umeozulu, kept his side of the line relatively quiet, allowing no disruption on this very small sample. Cam Williams is a good enough player at right tackle that we could actually see him leave post-2024 with a great season, but it is most likely he returns to rack up two starting years of film at UT before leaving for the NFL barring a mega-breakout. Then, there is Brandon Baker waiting in the wings -- one of the real jewels of the Texas OL room if we're basing things on recruiting pedigree. This is before we even talk about Jackson Christian's 2025 classmates that Texas feels good about as true tackle prospects like Michael Fasusi.
Jackson Christian has hudl highlights and tape from his state championship game that remind you more of the highlights and film we saw from guys like Cole Hutson and Daniel Cruz much more so than the stuff we saw from players like Stroh, Cojoe, Kirkland and Kibble. And that's how Jackson Christian fits in. Texas will likely address some interior OL stuff in the portal next season, but amongst the mix of depth already percolating at UT among the iOL in addition to the developmental giants and the hopeful late-bloomers, adding another good-old-fashioned ass-kicker to the recipe seems like a proper ingredient.
