Texas defense snap and stat trends through three weeks

Three weeks into the year, Texas has already shown that they are one of the best defenses in the nation.

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14 points allowed against a strong OSU offense, seven to San Jose State and 10 to UTEP. College football references scoring metric, which accounts for strength of opposition, says Texas has given up nearly 11 fewer points per game than expected from an average college football team against the units they’ve played. That’s the best in the nation.

Texas is almost flawless on the personnel side of things. A strongly built defensive line, elite linebackers, a cornerback room that keeps improving and two of the best safeties in the conference. Paired with solid game plans year in and year out from defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski, the Longhorns are set to have the best corps in the SEC.

After three weeks, we’ve gotten to see how the depth chart looks and what positions and players are being prioritized in snap counts.

Defensive Line

Against Ohio State, Texas sent out five interior defensive linemen throughout the game. The snap counts were as follows:

Hero Kanu: 37
Maraad Watson: 30
Alex January: 26
Cole Brevard: 24
Travis Shaw: 19

In the two ensuing games, January has been sidelined with injury, allowing for more snaps to trickle down for the rest of the group. Here’s how that has looked.

Kanu still leads, with Watson separating as the clear No. 2. Brevard and Shaw create another tier as the main interior ‘big guys’ on that line, playing the majority of the nose snaps so far. January probably slots back into that third slot, moving Brevard and Shaw down, once he’s healthy to play.

Melvin Hills and Josiah Sharma both received double-digit snaps, each playing in Week 2 and 3. Hills is clearly someone they like going forward in a similar role to Kanu, and Sharma is a long-term option at the nose tackle position. Still no Lavon Johnson, and not much from true freshmen Justus Terry and Myron Charles.

EDGE

This was a position of intrigue after Week 1, as we expected to see more snaps from the likes of Colton Vasek and Zina Umeozulu than we did.

Ethan Burke, Colin Simmons and Trey Moore are the clear starters here, but how about the four below them?

PK has made it clear that he wants at least one of these four to be a part of the rotation going forward, and it seems like most of them have a case. Vasek has been annoyingly unimpressive to start the year, but the trio of Umeozulu, Lance Jackson and Brad Spence all have cases.

Umeozulu has the sole sack of this group and has played the most snaps to the highest PFF grade, while Jackson and Spence have each generated more overall pressure numbers. Jackson and Umeozulu have also been getting work closer to the interior of the line, either over tackle or in the B Gap, while Spence has been a pure outside blitzer.

Our money is on Umeozulu to be the difference maker of this group in the future.

Linebackers

There’s really not much to talk about here.

Texas has three great players in Anthony Hill, Liona Lefau and Ty’Anthony Smith, with Moore getting off-ball snaps as well. The only other player with 40 ‘box’ snaps is safety Jelani McDonald, who tends to cheat down on obvious rush downs.

Hill is the only non-DB to eclipse 115 snaps on the year already, proving his worth as the true middle linebacker and captain of this defense. He’s also second on the team in pressures and first in hurries.

Lefau has the most tackles of the trio and is the best of the bunch in pass coverage. His battled ball near the goal line against SJSU saved a touchdown, and he’s always been known for being a strong zone defender.

Smith has already recorded a sack and is fourth on the team in stops, but it’s clear he has a bit to clean up before he can crack into the true starting core of this roster. He’s missed three tackles on the year and every credited target his way has been completed. Still, this feels like the best LB group in the nation.

Secondary

In the first game of the year, the only DBs to play in the slot were Graceson Littleton, Michael Taaffe and McDonald. In the two ensuing games, PK got a bit creative. Xavier Filsaime saw double-digit snaps there when healthy against SJSU, and Wardell Mack saw 16 against UTEP. It’s clear that they don’t want Littleton to be the only player getting meaningful snaps at that spot. Mack played a great game last Saturday and should see snaps this coming weekend.

Not much has changed at outside corner. Jaylon Guilbeau starts over Kobe Black, whose injury early against UTEP allowed for more snaps to Warren Roberson and Kade Phillips. They recorded 49 combined between the two games.

Taaffe and McDonald continue to dominate the safety position, having played 83% of possible snaps thus far on the field together. Still, there have been some positive developments behind them.

Derek Williams is slowly getting ramped up, playing 20 snaps against UTEP after combining for 18 in the previous two. He should be good-to-go against Florida. Then, the pair of Filsaime and Jordon Johnson-Rubell each had a strong game in the past two weeks. Filsaime was all over the field against SJSU, while Johnson-Rubell stepped up with Filsaime’s injury against UTEP and made multiple smart plays. That’s his calling card.

Texas has a very set starting lineup at the moment, but the depth in the secondary is starting to not only earn more snaps, but also flash in their limited sets.