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Coach V: Texas football Edges, opinions, and more opinions

Joe Cookby: Joe Cook06/28/23josephcook89

By Mike Venable: There is little doubt that edge recruiting and our depth chart quality at said position is the main concern for the majority of the board as we race into the backstretch for this cycle’s big name priorities and their college destinations. Many feel strongly that our present edge depth chart personnel is arguably the weakest position on our football team. I’m just not convinced it’s as bad as most seem to think. I just don’t believe we honor our starting OT’s enough when grading our current starting edges.

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I think I probably watch as much game film as most of our community. I believe the Alabama attack on our OT’s was my first clue that we had two pocket protectors that completely stone-walled the highly regarded Bama threesome for the most part, and those guys will be stars in the league. When one considers our twosome won a huge majority of the pass blocks against the highest quality available then our edge guys don’t look as slow and technically unprepared as our eyes seem to be telling us.

I love the Colin Simmons kid at Duncanville and strongly believe he will be a huge player for whoever gets him. Danny Okoye reminds of Derion Gullette (who I am super high on) as contact athletes that just need direction in order to wreck crap. Jordan Ross is a terrific edger. Zina Umeozulu comes from outstanding stock. Hopefully, we get three of them in this cycle. Then I asked myself just how effective would these four would be aligned against Kelvin Banks and Christian Jones at pressuring the passer a year from now cause that’s where Ethan Burke, Justice Finkley, and most of the rest were when we started judging them last fall (Barryn Sorrell has more experience and played like it).

I’m completely on board with the need for difference makers at the edge. I’m just not quite ready to judge our current young guys yet. They are not finished products but there are several that have the kind of talent that could be developed as they gain experience. Finkley reminds of Jackson Jeffcoat. J’Mond Tapp and Kristopher Ross were beasts in high school. Colton Vasek has definite potential. Burke is a future warrior. They had the misfortune to go against Banks and Jones (add Cameron Williams hopefully) this spring and were less than impressive for good reason. Neither were the Bama threesome in the same situation in my eyes.

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This isn’t a judgement on this year’s high school edges versus the current edge depth chart as much as just how damn good our starting OT’s and exactly how many edges have fared well against that competition. We should know more about the position as we play the schedule. I’m thinking we could see major improvement at the position as we face normal OT’s in real games instead of those two they face in practice. Which guys will turn the corner during the season? My bet is on the guy that starts giving those two OT’s a hard time in practice.

Damn off season.

Mike Venable is a retired coach who had a 30 year career coaching football at Lancaster, Duncanville, Gladewater, Pasadena Sam Rayburn, R.L Turner and The Colony.

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