Texas' O-line must mature -- and fast -- for the run game to be there in SEC play

Maybe it does all start up front.

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During the 2023 season, Texas started the same offensive line combination for 13 of 14 games. Kelvin Banks, Hayden Conner, Jake Majors, DJ Campbell, and Christian Jones were the starting five for all but the Kansas State game. In that contest, Cameron Williams stood in.

Then in 2024, Banks, Conner, Majors, Campbell, and Williams started 14 of 16 games. In the two contests where there was a different starting lineup, Trevor Goosby stepped in. Veteran Cole Hutson also saw regular action on the interior in both 2023 and 2024 after starting 13 games at right guard in 2022.

Banks, Conner, and Williams were all picked in the 2025 NFL Draft. Majors was an undrafted free agent. Over 100 starts were lost.

Texas did have what was thought to be as good of a scenario entering the 2025 season as a team could have after losing four starters. At the all-important left tackle spot, Goosby was next man up. Though he only had a couple of starts under his belt, those starts were magnificent.

Goosby, like several others, entered 2025 as a third year player. In fact, every realistic option available to Steve Sarkisian and offensive line coach Kyle Flood was at least a third year player with one exception: second-year tackle Brandon Baker. Even Baker came to Texas with some fanfare as the 2024 Rivals Industry Ranking’s No. 34 overall prospect and No. 2 offensive tackle. Plus, he made a few appearances in his freshman year.

Experience leaving does present the possibility for a step down at every college football program, especially as teams try to keep their valued players from entering the portal and as the COVID seniors filter out of the sport.

But for Texas in 2025, the loss of so many banked game reps at multiple spots, namely offensive line, has caused a jarring step down in offensive potency.

Texas is average to below average in a number of counting stats. The Longhorns are No. 51 in rushing yards per game, No. 88 in passing yards per game, and No. 77 in total yards per game. For a team with College Football Playoff aspirations, average isn’t going to cut it.

Advanced stats don’t paint much of a better picture. Among starting O-linemen, Pro Football Focus sees…

Player	Offensive grade	Run block grade	Pass block grade	Snaps
Trevor Goosby, LT	81.5	80.6	75.6	210
Connor Stroh, LG	51.7	45.9	72.6	174
Cole Hutson, OC	55.5	56.7	55.8	192
DJ Campbell, RG	67.2	68.3	76.7	210
Brandon Baker, RT	53.4	57.6	64.5	221
Neto Umeozulu, LG	64.9	63.9	67.3	48
Average	64.2	62.2	68.8

Last year? No regular O-lineman graded lower than 59.6 in any category across the entire season.

More advanced stats paint bleaker pictures.

• Line yards per rush: 38th-39th
• Offensive SP+: 49th
• Offensive FEI: 31st

Sure, they’re top 50. Is top 50 CFP good?

After all, Texas was No. 13 in offensive SP+ and No. 18 in offensive FEI at the end of last season, and Sarkisian had to play Texas A&M, Georgia, Clemson, Arizona State, and Ohio State in succession on the way to the semifinals.

Not every offensive woe can be blamed on the lack of continuity. Arch Manning has not lived up to expectations, especially considering the pass blocking has been up to standard more often than not in the first three games. Some of those missed connections with players like Ryan Wingo and Parker Livingstone have cost Texas yardage that would paint brighter pictures, but Manning had time to miss those connections.

The run game has missed its top two running backs in CJ Baxter and Quintrevion Wisner for large chunks of the previous two games.

But the position that starts every play and allows for the six others on the field to do their job is the O-line. Texas’ has not shown up against Ohio State, San Jose State, and UTEP in a way that inspires confidence for Southeastern Conference action especially as it pertains to running the football.

Stroh has become an easy target considering his numbers and some of the substandard plays that have become popular on social media. But instead of piling on Stroh when asked about him on Monday, Sarkisian stressed the need for continuity for his O-linemen as they learn how to play in-game and next to each other.

“For so many years, we had so much continuity up front,” Sarkisian said. “We had so much trust in a lot of those guys, even maybe when we weren’t at our best. They could work well together. Striving for that continuity right now, I think, is important. We just felt like going into the week, now we’re gauging it on a week to week basis. I thought Connor had a really good week of practice. I felt comfortable with him in there.”

Sarkisian even detailed why the run game has struggled against teams like SJSU and UTEP.

“A lot of times when you’re facing defenses like we played Saturday, there was so much twisting, stunting, slanting, we had a lot of time we had guys pulling and there wasn’t even anyone there to block at times,” Sarkisian said. “How do you continue to play? That’s where we have to strain differently.”

So how does Sarkisian try to get one past these defenses with his O-line considering he admitted they give his team trouble? And also considering his main course of action against them during his Texas tenure has just been to try to run them over?

“What we tried to do Saturday is repeat some calls so that we could find a little bit of a rhythm in blocking the multitude of looks we were getting rather than just to keep running new plays where every time we ran it was the first time that we were getting it versus the defense we were getting,” Sarkisian said. “Now it’s banking those reps with anticipation of we could see more stuff like that. Then they carry it over into practice and they carry it over into the next week of work. I think there was a lot to gain from last week’s game.”

That’s just one example Sarkisian gave on Monday. Of course, there are a lot of new faces at different spots on the offense and Sarkisian even said “I’m not naïve to think we wouldn’t have some growing pains. I just want to get tall as fast as we can, feel good, and start playing.”

And even with the level of experience in the program, there is something to be said about experience in-game. The six O-linemen in the table above entered the year with 45 combined starts. Thirty of them belonged to Campbell, and 13 were from Hutson during the 2022 season. Umeozulu, Stroh, and Baker had no starts entering 2024.

Texas is now left to hope that there’s more development to come within the O-line room in the run game, but after SHSU the schedule quickly increases in difficulty and problem-solving becomes a greater chore for a unit that has to problem solve with cohesion down after down.

There are growing pains everywhere, but the ones on the O-line have downstream effects that currently are plaguing other positions on offense. For Sarkisian, the quickest way to “get tall” is to give those players the opportunity to all grow together over the next two weeks with SEC play on the horizon.