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Inside Texas Football
IT Roundtable: Texas Football Spring Game Preview
Hi guys, we say at the top of this video that we're going to release it on Friday, but today is obviously not Friday and we wanted to get you this information as quick as we possibly could because of this stuff. You guys see that? That's the weather. We don't know what Saturday is going to bring, but this became a really fun discussion for us about a lot of different factors I can present themselves in the spring game and we wanted to share them with you. So we hope you enjoy. Welcome everybody. This is the Saturday roundtable arriving to you a day early because we are, well, we're hedging against central Texas weather and we wanted to give you the opportunity to get all the information that you might need in advance of the spring game. So again, we don't know whether it's going to happen or not, but this is important information that we want to give you. We're going to break down some of the elements that the defense is showing us in terms of maybe some things that we want to correct. We're obviously going to talk about the offense that's going on, that high-powered SARC offense and obviously the recruits that are coming in. This is a massive weekend for recruits, but before we get started with any of that, I'd love to talk to Eric because this is a really unique thing that happens. It's a team-on-team game. So if the offense is doing really well, that may not suggest that the defense is doing really well. It's really hard to evaluate these types of things. So Eric, you've talked a lot about this, the unique aspect of team-on-team, and I'd love to hear your thoughts about it. Yeah, zero sum back when Texas was pretty much bad across the board. You really didn't have any idea of what to expect. Now we at least know that, say for instance, the run game is pretty good. We know the offensive line at a minimum is pretty good. So if they're having their way with the defense, yes, there's a lot the defense needs to work on, but it's not a concern as far as whether or not the offense is proficient enough. But one aspect that's kind of interesting in that regard is the pass rush. The pass rush has actually been pretty good throughout the spring to the point where I think Sarkis had a bit concerns about it, the offensive line in pass protection. Now we all think that the pass protection is at least decent. So hopefully that provides genuine optimism for Ethan Berg, Baron Sorrell, Trey Moore, Colin Simmons. But we don't know for sure, especially based on what we're hearing in practice. So the spring game gives us an idea to see with our own eyes and make our own decisions, make our own, inform ourselves where Texas is actually strong or where maybe there is some zero sum that's kind of leading us astray. What Ian and I did a little bit, we looked at some of the linebacker play from last year to give us an idea of some elements that we should be looking for in this spring game. And I would love for us to go over that right now. Okay, so specifically we're going to look at some linebacker play with Ian here. Now we're set up in a too deep. What I really want to focus on is the subtle differences that a linebacker can make by by moving very, very minimally. And in this instance, we're going to see when one of those subtle movements can create a massive problem for our own defense. So Ian, if you wouldn't mind, let's talk about this one. Yeah, we have a few examples today and a couple of them are going to be from the Houston game early on because that was an enormous problem. And why Texas blew a 21 zero lead against Houston is that the safeties and the linebackers play on a string together. They have to, linebackers have to help the safeties and then the safeties have to bail out the linebackers. We're going to focus on Anthony Hill right here. He's got to cover this receiver. And he needs to make sure that this receiver does not get a free run at this safety who's way back in space. He needs to carry him up in a way where the safety can actually pick him up and cover him. And as we will see, that is not really what happens here. So the play gets going, they send out the running back and Jalen Ford covers him. So now the quarterback knows he's got man coverage and he knows also that if this area of this field is vacated, that this is a one-on-one that's going to be pretty favorable. Anthony Hill goes wide and he lets the receiver cross his face, which is a big, big no-no. You need to be funneling him up to the safety and only giving him one direction to go. Instead, he let him go up and then just right across both of their faces and then it's in everybody's face over the middle. In your estimation, is that just a total breakdown by Anthony? Because he's got a specific assignment there. What would cause the linebacker to bite that hard to the outside? Most likely a misunderstanding of the call and his alignment on that play, right? He looks like, and we're going to see this a few more times with Hill and with Texas' linebackers in general, where they seem to be dropping to a spot on the field that they think they're responsible for, rather than playing a leverage on receivers. That makes sense? Absolutely. Let's look at a few more examples. Our next example is going to be very similar, but this time, Texas is going to blitz. They're going to bring the nickel, Jade Baron off the edge, and then they're going to drop Anthony Hill, who's on the opposite edge into coverage, into zone coverage. The problem here is going to materialize very quickly, is that once again, Anthony Hill is more dropping to a spot on the field and trying to play an overly simple coverage, rather than being aware of his surroundings. The same is really true of the other linebackers as well. The plan falls, the blitz comes. You see Anthony Hill's sprints out to a spot on the field. He gets there. The quarterback moves just a little bit, and then just no one is aware of this receiver, who's wide open. It's not just Anthony Hill that's struggled sometimes on awareness and his place and leverage on the field, especially when Texas blitzed. Here's another example where Texas blitz brings a blitz, but they still have two deep safeties, and they're going to switch around the rolls of some of the linebackers in the middle of the field. They're going to bring Jade Baron on a blitz off the edge again. They're going to drop Baron Cerrell back into coverage, and then these linebackers have to be very precise in how they match the receivers so that guys don't get afraid of those safeties that are hanging back deep. Now, play is going to unfold. They have five receivers going out into patterns for Kansas State. The problem happens immediately, where David Binda starts to get wide out here, going this way, and this tight end is immediately inside of him and able to cross his face like a night example against Houston, and bad things are going to happen because of that. Play unfolds. He's getting a free run up at the safety. David Binda is trailing him and trying to get back in position. Baron Cerrell is dropping. He's doing a decent job, but now you have this other receiver who's also getting a free run up the middle of the field. Binda is already in trail mode and not in position to try to play two guys at the same time. He trails. He follows. Next guy gets underneath him, gets the ball wide open over the middle of the field, and Kansas State is down to the goal line. All right, Ian, we're going to bring in the other guys here in a minute, but I want to focus on this. What given that information, given that breakdown, that commentary on those three specific linebacker play examples, what should fans at home be looking for? What should they be watching in this spring game to see if there's improvement or that those things aren't a problem anymore? You really want to see receivers getting carried from the linebackers to the safeties. If you see receivers kind of running around in open space underneath, but usually the problem is that a linebacker missed the leverage a little bit. If you see a linebacker who's trying to change direction and maybe stumbling to get back in position, that's another good indicator that something is not happening. What you want to see is the linebackers showing awareness of the receivers, dropping into positions that frustrate the direction the receiver is trying to go, and then receivers struggling to find open windows underneath, and then just getting passed from one defender to the next without any long lapses where they're open. It can be kind of hard to watch. Yeah, that's better. It's at least you know when it's happening, when it's going wrong, you can see it. And if you see it, then you'll know, hey, this is not quite being resolved yet. Absolutely. Okay. And again, we did have some, let's be fair. This some youth we're talking about there, not necessarily in bend of it, certainly in Hill, and Hill's going to be moving to that inside linebacker position, which is, which is a completely different ballgame for him, where his athleticism is absolutely going to come into play. It never won't, but those reads are going to be slightly different for him. And what's going to be asked of him in a mental capacity is much greater. I really thank you for that. And we're going to go back to the boys now and talk about the rest of the elements of this spring game that we should be looking for. We're going to thank Ian for that. I want to throw this over to Paul now. What are some elements that the fan at home should be watching for on the defense in a game like this? So Ian covered the linebackers expertly, as always. So let's talk a little bit about the secondary and the defensive line. So the secondary, I think, has been a source of interest and probably some concern in equal measure. When Texas played higher level passing attacks last year, the secondary didn't always do very well. And in fact, even a couple of marginal passing attacks kind of gave them problems. And I'm talking about Houston in that instance, or even second half of the K-State game. The good thing about this Texas team, and we're going to see some of it in the game, is that the secondary has options. There is talent there. The question is, develop talent and also getting them to play together. So it's not just going to be a question of individual positional competitions and battles, of them trying to find the best five. And it's hard for old school football people to say best five when you're talking about the secondary, because it used to be best four. But the base now is, you know, you're going to have that nickel and you're going to have two cornerbacks, two safety. So the question is not just who's the best weak side safety. The question is, who's the best weak side safety, but also plays the best as a whole and communicates the best and doesn't blow coverages. But also, if you're the best weak side safety, might you be the best nickel and might that allow Jadae Barron to play quarterback? I think we know that Jadae Barron struggled with some injuries last year that were sort of recurrent and he couldn't really shake. And I think they've given him a pretty soft pitch count in this spring practice. The whole idea is to get him going fully in the fall and having a healthy 2024. So I even know the degree to which we'll see Jadae trying different stuff. But the point is, look for Andrew Makuba. Where's he going to play? Is he purely a safety? Because we've got guys like TAP, we have guys like Williams that are obviously capable. So the question is, are they good enough to allow Makuba to play elsewhere? Or if we move out in Makuba, are we going to play a rotation last year? They did play quite a few guys in the secondary. The great news about that is you get a lot of experience. You get game experience when guys graduate, it's not a big deal at all. However, the downside is you lose cohesion and you lose that sort of, first of all, them all playing together and understanding where the other guys are going to be. But also you just lose game reps, right? If you're only playing 30 reps versus 55, you're not going to develop quite as quickly for a young secondary, particularly at some spot. So that's kind of how I feel about the secondary. And before I talk about the defensive line, is there anyone that wants to chip in on that? Yeah, I think Jalen Gilbo probably deserves to mention at Star. With Baron on that pitch count that Paul mentioned, he's played a lot. And our sources have indicated he's been locked in ever since they came back in January. So I think he's definitely a person of interest. And I tend to think that he's going to keep Makuba at safety. Again, they don't want to lose any of these guys. And so I think the part of Baron playing is, yes, resting. They know what he can do. But part of it is building everybody else's cohesion up and ensuring that they understand they're going to play a lot next year, no matter who's all in the secondary. I would like to also see a dose of Jelani McDonald back there at safety. I think he's got a home now. I want to see how he's getting adapted to that. I think one thing when it comes to cohesion, that maybe we're kind of speaking over is why that's so important. And Paul, you did kind of mention that used to it would be four defensive backs and they'd play zone, which means this is my area. And this is if a guy comes here, I got it. And Texas, the quarters that they seem to play a lot more often, and Ian jump in if I'm wrong here, it's not like cover four. It's got aspects of that, but there's pattern matching and a lot of communication and trade-offs. And if you see an in-route, you call that and a lot of different things going on to where it's not just here I am in my zone guarding a person who comes here. You've got to be able to communicate and you've got to be able to talk to a lot of different people, no matter what position you're at, whether you're at corner, whether you're at star, whether you're at safety. And if you see a guy running wide open, yeah, you can give some credit to Steve Sarkeesian's offense, but that's probably a little bit of a lapse of communication and a sign of a lapse in cohesion, at least on that play. Yeah, it really is kind of like an offensive line. You need five guys that really work well together, which is what Paul's getting at. And they have so many different options for who those five might be. So I think probably we won't be able to help ourselves, but try to evaluate all the young guys and see who looks good and who can do what and try to figure out who the best five might be in anticipation of the staff telling us their own verdict in the fall with the depth chart. It's a great breakdown of the secondary. I know Paul wanted to talk specifically about the D-line and fitting the scheme to the new D-line. Yeah, new D-line, new personnel, possibly a new scheme, possibly a new approach is called for. Texas is going to see a significant upgrade at defensive end and edge. And they've got multiple bodies there. You're probably, if you're an inside Texas member, you've been apprised of what's going on in the transfer portal. And you're noticing that some edge players, some very promising edge players, are transferring out from Texas. That's unfortunately part and parcel of Texas having substantially upgraded this room. And if you reflect back on 2021, you know that that upgrade was sorely needed. And they've come through on that. Now, the nature of college football is, you plug one hole in the dam, and then another one pops open over there, and you're reaching over here with this arm to try to fill it. And that is the defensive tackle group. This group has talent. They have abilities. However, their abilities are pretty specific. All of these guys profile best as penetrators and as movement guys. These are more, for lack of a better term, more finesse players on the inside. Alfred Collins, Vernon Broughton, even the transfer they brought in from Arizona, Savannah. These are guys that are more comfortable on the move. They're more comfortable, stunting, moving around, not just anchoring and dominating the person in front of them. In fact, Texas had the best defensive tackle duo in the United States. And you're going to see that in the draft very soon. And both of those guys could do either one. They could penetrate or they could anchor. And most often, Pete Quikowski used them as immovable anchors who also got displacement on the guard across from them. Meaning that guard in that center are moving backwards at the snap of the ball in addition to getting man handled. And what that does is just destroy both man and zone blocking schemes. So it's kind of a cheat code. And it was something that the Texas defense really relied upon. They're not going to be able to rely upon that this year. That doesn't mean these guys are without talent or that they're not very capable, but they're going to have to change some schemes. And when you add the edge talent, you now have the ability to run some more T&E stunts to time up your blitzes and your packages a little better, which is something I've been critical of with Pete Quikowski. And I think rightfully, I think the evidence has borne that out. But they're bringing a guy from Arizona and Johnny Nansen who excelled at just that. So if you watched college football last year, Arizona was one of the most interesting defenses in college football. They were really good on the critical downs that stats people and efficiency people love. And that's what made them effective. They weren't overwhelmingly talented, but they were very well coordinated. And they did a lot of stuff on their defensive line. They did a lot of stuff in their secondary switching coverages, showing one thing, switching into another. Poor Jackson Arnold for Oklahoma and the bowl game got more than enough experience with that sort of thing where he'd see one thing, read one thing, and it was a very different thing when he released the ball. They did similar stuff up front. In fact, Nansen not only was a devotee of the dime, which Ian and I have used about many times and talked about how there's a fit for it for Texas, even though Pete likes to stay in his nickel. Nansen ran a 3-1-7 at times, three defensive linemen, one linebacker, seven DBs. So Nansen is an idea guy. He's here not only to coach our linebackers, which I think he's going to do very well, but he is here to invigorate Pete Kwikowski and to throw out ideas in the room and to frankly push him a little bit, maybe out of his comfort zone. Because if at the end of the season, we talk about the fact that we weren't effective in the run defense because guys got pushed around and they weren't able to anchor. Well, it's a little bit like installing the wishbone and complaining that Quinn Ewers didn't run the option very effectively. You've got to match scheme to skill. Alfred Collins and Vernon Broughton are quick guys. They can penetrate. Dre Bledso is as quick a guy you'll find at 290 pounds and he's got get off. You've got to find ways to highlight that skill set and complement to the edge upgrade, but then also understand that of course there are downs where you got to anchor. And I know your strength may be penetrating, but sometimes you got to suck it up. You got to take the double team. You got to cause a little car collision and see if you can get the other offense off the field on short yardage. So that's my short synopsis of the defensive line. I'm very curious to hear what you guys have to add. I think one one challenge is that the nature of Pete Kwikowski's 245 to really get the most of the edges, which are getting better and better every year talent level wise. It's easiest when the two guys inside of them are reliable anchors. If all four guys up front are movement guys, then you run into problems. Now you pointed out that Nancy could help them. You know, Pete Kwikowski likes to just play great base defense every down, right? I think Nancy, maybe where he helps him is what you're getting at is like, hey, what if we're like, okay, on first and 10, but we're great at third and 10 and third and three, because we have some calls up our sleeve that take advantage of athleticism. Rather than just sweat and Murphy, we're going to dominate you every play. The extent to which we'll see any of this in the spring game, I don't know, but maybe we'll see hints. If we do see hints, what would we be looking for? Do we want to see pre snap movement? What are the things that we should be looking for to see if these things are starting to come into play? I mean, if they show any twists or stunts like Paul's talking about, then there you go. If they have the post snap movement really, if they have defensive linemen moving gaps after the snap, then you can see that, hey, they're working on it and here's how they look at it so far. Other than that, I mean, you'd have to get really into spycraft to try to suss out if different techniques indicate one thing or another. And it's, I might try personally, but it's probably a task beyond any of us. I know, Eric, specifically, you were concerned or wanted to focus on run fits specifically. Yeah, run fits have been a bit of an issue throughout practice. On the recent Saturday scrimmage, they struggled to some degree. There's been some other practices where they flat out got ran over. A lot of it has to do with guys being out of the wrong gaps. So I'm a little concerned about them. If they start introducing stunts, what happens to the integrity of the run game? Although Paul and Ian are exactly right, you've got to match the talent to the scheme. That's the whole point of evaluation when you recruit. Right now, I think that they're in the stage where they want to crawl before they can walk and they're trying to get guys more consistent. Dre Blood, so somebody that's been mentioned in recent practices is somebody that's becoming more consistent. That's exactly what they have to get. Alfred Collins has been OK as a runstopper, but obviously, there's going to be a big drop off. But runstopping is going to be something to watch because you know, the Texas offensive line is going to be able to run the ball. They've proven that there's a good stable of running back. So we should get a good idea of where they are with their basic run concepts on defense based on Saturday. One thing I think that's worth checking out is I think Paul and Ian and Eric, you mentioned it. Yeah, we want to see how this looks with Vernon Bratton and Alfred Collins, but it's definitely worth noting when those guys aren't on the field. And when it's guys like Aaron Bryant, Tia Savaya, Dre Blood, so everybody else, because we know that Texas, if they can, you know, if you're you've got a 65 snap game, they like playing guys 30 snaps and 35 snaps, something like that. So you want to see what your your frontline guys can do. You want to see what what 45 and 95 are capable of, but you want to see what 53 can do. That's Aaron Bryant. Dre Blood, so is 97, I think, 94. And then Tia Savaya is 98. So seeing if those other guys further down the depth chart are able to also fulfill fulfill those responsibilities that this defense asked for is just as important. I feel like because of the way they rotate those defensive tackles. Before we move on to the offense, let's get into recruiting. We've got Justin Wells here. He's going to tell us about all the the recruits that we have in for this massive weekend. Justin, what should we be looking for? Well, first thing you need to look for is inside Texas.com. That's where we're updating the visitor list every day. That's where we're posting new and updates. Second thing you got to look for is there, you know, Texas has hosted the last two or three weekends, you know, really high profile priority prospects that may not, you know, they were there before, so they may not make it, you know, this Saturday. But this list is still nice and strong and there's still some intrigue to it. Let's start with Keelan Russell, quarterback out of Duncanville committed to SMU to people, you know, there's talk that this could be a two quarterback cycle. Texas, Sark and Millwee have been in touch with Russell numerous times. Millwee's supposed to go by and see him in May to watch him throw it at practice. I think that's noteworthy because, you know, if, you know, Lacey's being courted by other players as well, the quarterback commit for 2025, you know, Ole Miss, Alabama, Auburn. So I think that's worth watching because Keelan Russell may actually have more upside. And so I think that's just Sark being thorough with his quarterback emails. James Simon running back out of Shreveport, Calvary Baptist, you know, kind of the domino effect in the running back room happened over the weekend when LSU added another running back in Lindsey out of Alexandria. Now James Simon, who was kind of a professed LSU lifelong dream school kind of guy, has amped up the contact with Texas and vice versa. You know, him and coach choice are talking on a daily basis now. He's coming in with his father. I called up with him last night. He's coming in with his father on Saturday. You know, that's a guy that I think Texas fans should be on watch for because I think that's a big one to pay attention to also noteworthy. He has one official visit scheduled right now. And that's to Texas on June 21st of the 23rd. He doesn't have any coming up. And I think that is a strong data point. Let's look at the defensive side or one more offensive lineman, John Turnheim. He might be 2026, but he's probably one of the top offensive tackles in the country already. Amazing upside, offer list is already ridiculous. He was at A&M last weekend. He'll be coming back. He was at junior day back in January. John Turnheim is a guy that you need to pay attention to even though he's 2026 on the defensive side. There's two big names that I love that they're coming back. And that's a good vibe. And that's Riley Pedagion, the linebacker out of McKinney. And that's defensive tackles Zion Williams out of Lufkin with Pedagion, Elijah Barnes just jumped in the boat. You know, there's two main priority linebackers in that DFW area, Pedagion and Barnes. Barnes went ahead and said, "I'm a horn. Pedagion's expected to be the next one. When?" That remains to be seen. He wants to take his official visits, but then again, Barnes did too. Let's see what the atmosphere is there in his feedback. Then with Zion Williams, he was in Austin two weeks ago. Spent two hours one-on-one with Kinney Baker, eight, six thousand calories in one setting. He could not have had a better trip. He could not have had a better experience just being around the program. He was supposed to be at LSU last weekend. He didn't make it. What was more important, prom. So now he's decided he's got his priorities in order, guys. You got to skip LSU when you got to take the girl to prom. He ain't skipping the Texas spring game. He'll be there on Saturday. His mother's supposed to be with him. I think this is just another opportunity for Texas for the staff to really build on that momentum that they had a few weeks ago. He's got an array of official visits scheduled. Interesting enough, the LSU one is in early mid-May. And the Texas one is his last one on June 21st of the 24th. And as Eric and I always talk about getting that last official visit, that last sale is crucial sometimes in these big recruitments. And so the list is growing. Come to InsideTexas.com. You have to check it. You got to refresh about every five to 10 minutes up until the spring game. That's the only way to keep yourself updated. The list is growing, but right now there's some really neat storylines in the group that's already come. Well, Justin just talked about some of the elite recruits that are coming to Texas. And some of these folks are probably going to be getting an NIL bag. And one of the most important financial decisions that these young men or any person can make in their life is the purchase of their house. It is the single biggest financial decision for 99% of us. And we have a member of the family that we recommend you should call. Her name is Laura Baker. She is an outstanding syntax real estate agent. You can reach her at 512-7840505. She's an award-winning member of the Andy Allen team with Keller Williams. And our own Ian Boyd worked with Laura and was able to secure a house and syntax. And I think the process was fairly painless. And she was able to help you out and get exactly what you needed. And that's what she can do for you, the dear and beloved IT viewer or listener. Give Laura a call 512-7840505. There's an old wisdom in real estate, which I think is borne out to be true, which is you only need one good realtor in a deal between two realtors to make it go through. So make sure you're the one with the good realtor. If there's two good realtors, the deal will happen. If there's two bad realtors, you're in for a lot of trouble. And the horror stories, I won't share them all here. But there are many and sundry. And make sure you get a realtor who's high volume, who's engaged and who gets after it. This isn't a part-time job, folks. And you need to hire someone who takes this seriously, because it is the most important decision to ever make in your life financially. Ian, any thoughts? Buying a house is a very complicated thing. Laura has a ton of experience. She was able to walk us through endless options, searching for a syntax home across the country. So I have only the best things to say. All right. Well, you heard it there from Ian Boyd, the most important, most ethical recommender on the entire inside Texas staff. Someone like Joe Cook can be easily bought. Ian, there is no price for this man. That came from the heart. Give Laura Baker a call and find out why she's so good at what she does. 512-784-0505. All right, guys. Now, the moment you may have been waiting for, we're going to talk about this offense. Now, this is one of our more seasoned sides of the ball, obviously. But we struggled mightily last year in the red zone. And I know that Eric has seen, and we've reported this on inside Texas, some massive improvement, at least in the scrimmage side of these things. And I'd love to hear Eric tell us about that. Well, it's definitely been a point of emphasis throughout spring ball, including the last scrimmage on Saturday, where the offense was tremendously successful. They went three for three on red zone opportunities, actually starting at the 25 and going in, rather than the 20. They were able to complete touchdown passes. They were able to run the ball effectively. Now, some of that could be tied to zero some. I don't know, but we do know that the offense is doing much better in the short area. In the most recent practice, they ran a bunch of two-point conversion plays. And again, the offense, they brought in a little trickeration. I think Sartin might have missed some calls last year in the inside of the two, four or five yard line. I think it's definitely something that he's thought a lot about this offseason. It's definitely bearing out in spring practice. No, it's interesting that you bring up red zone because that's a lot of talk about tight and constricted spaces and running the ball. But we all know that this offense also thrives in not having to work inside the 25 and trying to reduce the number of those opportunities. And Sartin was also asked about that the other day. He's asked, why is deep passing part of your offense? And why do you go to that well, even if it's not always successful? And he gave a big answer about how it creates space in different areas for safeties to have to back off? Well, then there's space in front of them. And that could be in the form of Isaiah Bond running an in-route at 12 yards. And boom, there's 15 yards for a pitch and catch that Quinn Ewers is at depth at completing. Or if everybody clears out, then you've got the dump down to Jaden Blue or even Cedric Baxter. And you get 15 yards that way. So I like the fact that you bring up all these improvements in the red zone, because then that just makes Texas offense a little bit more complete, I feel like. We saw them be able to go up and down the field, and sometimes complete the long bomb and get that 30, 40, 50 yard pass in to drive right away. Well, if that 30, 40, 50 yard pass only got them to the 10, we saw some issues. But now that they're having a little bit more success in the 10, inside the 10, inside the 20, it seems like it's marrying the best parts of Sarkeesian's offense in a way that we haven't quite seen at full bore since he got to Texas. Part of Texas is red zone problems last year. We're just not quite being there yet in run defense or at quarterback. The last play against Washington is an example. It couldn't quite nail that throw. And Quinn, obviously taking some leaps in the passing game and being able to hit those quick throws, and maybe get to a second read in the red zone is a big theme for this coming season. So Ian raises some excellent points about quarterback play being absolutely critical and integral in the red zone, both decision making and also execution. Hitting that gimme throw that Sarkees schemes up with his trickerations and schemerations, we are actually going to be digging in on that. If you go back and click on this inside Texas YouTube channel, which you should already be subscribed to if you're an avid Texas supporter, you'll see a deep dive in which we spend over half an hour breaking down film. So it's me, Ian, and Justin just looking at some of Mr. Ewer's footwork, his release, his vision, his sightlines, how his feeder set, and how some of that might be compromising his consistency as a thrower. And he is hitting that integral big third year for Sark, which if you examine Sark's history with quarterbacks, whether Matt Linert or Matt Jones, this is typically the year where in that system, Sark is able to take the quarterback and move them from good to very good or even great. And if Texas can do that and Sark can do that with Quinn Ewer's and possibly cleaning up some of these mechanical things, I think you're going to see a very interesting catalyzed offense for Texas. So make sure you're subscribed to this channel and make sure you go back and click on the deep dive. You're going to get a fun X as a nose film breakdown of Mr. Ewer's. All right, before we close that and look at some of the major issues, the bigger picture things, I would love to know from each of you, who's one player that you're really looking to see? And what do you hope to see out of that player? We'll start with you, Cookie. I'm looking forward to seeing Colin Simmons. That edge position has been recruited well. He's kind of the crown jewel of the positive recruiting efforts over the past couple classes. And then he's a five star. That always brings some intrigue. I want to see how he fares pass rushing against Cam Williams. If he gets a chance, maybe against some of the other guys like Trevor Goosby, who's had a good camp, Andre Kojo. I'm looking for number 11 on defense to not only show his pass rush ability, but also see how he plays to run and see what he can do there, utilize his quickness, but also use his strength and see if we see some of those five star traits come to life on the field. Yeah, I'll stick at the same position. I'll go with Trey Moore, number 31. Last year, not having a pass rush hurt Texas at times, most notably in the sugar bowl against Washington, where the corners couldn't hold up quite long enough. The pass rush was doing them no favors, but bringing in Trey Moore, a guy who had 14 sacks last year at UTSA, that's quite the intriguing development. Now, here's the thing. The questions about him going to the NFL at the same questions he might have on Saturday going up against Texas. Texas is offensive lines. And some of the players you'll see in the SEC is, is his lack of length, the detriment, or can he overcome it? I've heard very good things about his quickness, his ability to bend, get around the corner, his technique, his doggedness, his physicality, his ability to play in space. They like to drop that position in space at times. Basically, he's a complete football player. I just want to see with my own eyes. Yeah, for me, it's going to be number five wide receiver Ryan Wingo, true freshman. You know, if Colin Simmons is the big guy on that offensive side, or defensive side, rather from 2024, I like to think Wingo might be the guy on offense. You know, I can't remember a time, and it's only been what four years for soccer, what went into his fourth that he'd mentioned a true freshman early in Rollie this many times in press conferences. I feel like it took him months before he even talked about Anthony Hill last year, and obviously the impact he made. And so with a wide receiver room that's restocked, with a lot of transfers and a lot of young talented guys, guys coming back, John Tae Kug, DeAndre Moore, Ryan Wingo is making a strong impression on getting rotation reps this fall. I want to see what it looks like, you know, on Saturday. I want to see what it looks like when it's all put together in a game situation. Well, me, I'm watching 007 Bond, Isaiah Bond. This is replacing two NFL receivers. Bond probably needs to be one of the guys that does it. And even if they play like ones versus twos, they're so deep now at corner that you can't really get away from facing a legitimate SEC caliber corner in this scrimmage, unless they really game it up. So I'm very curious to see how Bond translates being thrown to by viewers and working against the secondary. Yeah, Bond is going to be competing to replace Daniel Craig and Sean Connery as my favorite bonds. Ian's favorite bond is George Lazenby, oddly enough, but that's an odd choice by Ian. But he is a contrarian for a reason. I'm going to be watching number 16. And I don't mean Ian's spirit animal, Michael Taft. I mean, arch manning. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of this guy, but he's a member of the Manning family. And he's a red shirt freshman, and he's going to be Quinn Ewer's backup. So, arch didn't get a lot of game time or our live action last year for a number of reasons. But I think this is going to be an interesting opportunity to see arch after he spent some time in this offense, after he spent some time under the tutelage of Steve Sarkeesian and AJ Millwee. I'm going to be watching a lot of arch manning. I want to see how much he's progressed, because I'm obviously very excited to see what the future of Texas football is going to look like with him holding the reins. And then I think more broadly, guys, I think all of us are going to be reflecting on the program as a whole, which is how far have we come? Steve Sarkeesian takes over in 2021, and Sark mentioned this in his spring press conference. I think it's important to bring the bear and remind everyone in the big picture. That first year, Texas wins five games, zero guys drafted, goose egged. The next year, Texas wins eight games. And frankly, if you look at advanced statistics and game situations, that could have been a 10 win team if things had broken a little bit better for them. They have five guys drafted to the NFL. Last year, Texas breaks out. They win the big 12. They go to the 14 playoff. They win 12 games. And how many guys are we expected to have drafted the NFL draft very soon? At least eight, possibly as many as 10, if things cut the right way. I think the big picture is that Texas is recruiting guys, Texas is developing guys, Texas is getting the right guys in the portal, and Texas is protecting themselves pretty well in the portal. I think the program is in pretty good shape. And I think if you talk about depth, which is something that I wrote about last week on Inside Texas, if you're not a member, you're missing out, Steve Sarkeesian right on cue, I think probably prompted by my article, cited depth as this biggest team strength in this team specifically. He didn't mention stars. He didn't mention individuals. He just said, "Hey, we go 3D, but pretty much every position." And there's not a lot of teams in college football can say that. So what are we going to be looking for in the spring game? A bunch of individual players, obviously. But I think we also need to reflect on where the program has gone from 2021, where we're recruiting third string guys from Alabama to possibly come in and start for us to where we are now. It's good time to be a Texas Longhorn. It's good time to be an Inside Texas member. And that brings to conclusion the well, the first major round table of the year. This is what we're going to be developing over the season. So these are the types of insights you're going to get as the season progresses. We want you to, again, follow us at InsideTexas.com. If you use the promo code IT1, we're going to give you two months of Inside Texas for $1. It's a deal that's really hard to beat. After the game, rain or shine, game or not, we are going to be at Posse East for a live stream. We would love for you to come check us out, meet the team that's going to be there, maybe have a beer or two. And other than that, we really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being here on behalf of Joe Cook, Eric Nalene, Paul Waddlington, Ian Boyd, and Mr. Justin Wells. We thank you very much for joining our round table.