Scouting Texas’ defensive tackle play from the spring

It appears the spring portal window will only bring one more addition to the Texas defensive tackle room in 6th-year senior Bill Norton of Arizona. The Longhorn staff looked to add both Jay Toia from UCLA and Damonic Williams of TCU but missed on both. Between the December and spring portals they collected a pair of former Wildcats in Norton and Tia Savea to add to the D-line room.

In the spring game we got a cursory look at how the various players emerging at the position, including Savea, are fitting into the concept. We got to see a few different pairings and techniques going up against a pretty light run game that was primarily just outside zone, Duo, and an instance or two of counter.

Here’s a breakdown of who played where, with whom, and how it looked for the defensive tackles Texas is looking to develop into a winning unit for the fall.

The starters

The first group to take the field was Alfred Collins and Sydir Mitchell. Where exactly would Vernon Broughton have fit had he been available for the spring game? Unclear, but we’ll make some guesses later based on how everyone who did play fit together.

Collins played very sparingly before finding the bench but he did manage to produce this gem of a play, which was a good summation of a career’s worth of occasional flashes of freakishness.

Collins is actually in a 2i-technique here while Mitchell is the 3-technique. This is counter-intuitive but Pete Kwiatkowski often likes to play his two-gapper as a 3-technique so they can create a pileup in the B-gap where the offense is likely to aim their runs. When T’Vondre Sweat and Byron Murphy shared the field, Sweat would normally two-gap as the 3-technique while Murphy played as a 2i nose.

Sydir at the point of attack was pretty tough for the offense in most settings, I’ve got two particular plays which show the two extremes of his performance in the spring game but it was more positive than negative.

Mitchell does tire, but in general he’s pretty darn hard to move for everyone save for Cameron Williams, who himself is a behemoth at 6-foot-5, 360 pounds. A typical Mitchell snap saw him doubled, slowly shoved perhaps half a yard off the ball, and generally creating traffic jams on main street.

Positions weren’t consistent in this game. Everyone played as both a 3-technique and a 2i nose in each pairing and the defense actually ran a fair amount of slanting where the 3-tech would slant inside into the A-gap and the 2i-tech would slant outside into the B-gap.

Collins flashed the power and athleticism briefly that has always made him a tantalizing prospect, but he probably does his best work as a 3-technique who can avoid double teams since he doesn’t consistently play low. Mitchell doesn’t consistently play low either but at 6-foot-6, 370 pounds he’s just hard to move all the same.

Promising pluggers

Based on who played against which units, the 2nd unit for the spring game appears to have been Aaron Bryant and freshman Alex January. Certainly they were the next most effective group. Both of these guys profile as the sort of big pluggers that make a 2-4-5 defense work properly. It’d have been interesting to see these two get more snaps with Savea and Jaray Bledsoe, but c’est la vie, it’s a spring game.

Here’s a sampling of their work together:

Their ability to slant and change gaps after the snap while still getting where they need to be and fighting through blocks is pretty impressive. January also had a tackle for loss slanting inside against Hayden Conner on a blitz. These guys are both big, physical dudes who may have better football inside of them ready to manifest this season than most are expecting.

January has quite a bit of quickness for a big guy (6-foot-5, 324 pounds) and Bryant plays with some of the best pad levels of the whole unit.

Looking for roles

The 3rd string pairing that got a lot of action was Bledsoe and Savea. They mostly lined up in the same counterintuitive fashion described above from Collins and Mitchell with Bledsoe as the nose and Savea the 3-technique.

This pairing was frankly a bit too small. Savea plays hard with consistent motor but at around 295 pounds he struggles to dominate guards and control the line of scrimmage. Bledsoe is similar but more explosive and bendy with a resulting greater ability to work his way into the right place with time.

Neither of them are proven anchors who can reliably hold their ground against a double team and both got rocked backwards a few times trying to do so. Since at least one defensive tackle tends to be double-teamed on any given running play, their ability to work in tandem is definitely a bit suspect. In both of the clips above they got to work with Mitchell, which allowed them to play to their strengths more effectively.

The big question is where Broughton and Norton fit into the rotations such as we saw in the spring game. In previous seasons Broughton offered essentially what we’ve seen from Bledsoe thus far, an explosive player who has yet to learn how to consistently get low and position himself to avoid giving up a lot of ground against double teams. Norton is more akin to Mitchell except instead of having an extra 50 pounds (Norton is 6-foot-6, 320) he has years of experience on how to position himself to fight double teams.

Norton will probably be one of the two primary, big body escorts for Collins and Broughton while the other will be whichever of Mitchell and Bryant has the best fall camp. I’m guessing Norton will work with Broughton since the latter would be better as a 3-technique than a nose and Norton is used to eating double teams in the A-gap and not as accustomed to two-gapping as a 3-technique. Collins could play at nose or tackle and will probably partner with someone who can do likewise, meaning Mitchell or Bryant.

January will probably get worked in during the season and be a big piece of the puzzle in 2025. I expect Bledsoe and Savea will find most of their snaps in 3-down base packages that play three interior D-lineman instead of the two you get in the 2-4-5 nickel package. In a 3-4 it’d be easy to play Norton flanked by two of Savea, Bledsoe, Collins, or Broughton without giving up ground.

Texas has a lot of depths and options which should result in solid results at defensive tackle even without further portal additions. Whether they get close to the exceptional play of 2023 will depend on Collins and who can develop between now and September, but PK should have enough to put together another strong unit.

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