Does T'Vondre Sweat have championship gravity?

While watching Northwestern and Oklahoma run roughshod over Nebraska early in 2022 a thought occurred to me regarding Texas’ difficult stretch post-Colt McCoy. As bad as it’s been for Longhorn football, they’ve never had a season where the program couldn’t put high level defensive tackles on the field to help control the line of scrimmage.

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The ability to take advantage of Bill Parcell’s “planet theory,” the idea that the planet’s supply of 300+ pound athletes was extremely limited, is the truest blue blood privilege in college football. While Texas hasn’t always had NFL draft picks anchoring the middle of their defenses over the years, they’ve certainly had more than a few and they’ve never lacked for guys who could give them a chance in the trenches.

Since Mack Brown was replaced by Charlie Strong for the 2014 season, the only years Texas didn’t have a future NFL draft pick starting at defensive tackle were 2015-2018. The first three years featured Poona Ford at nose tackle who has since been a multi-year starter in the NFL after being an undrafted free agent. The fourth year included Chris Nelson as the starting nose with future NFL pick Charles Omenihu at defensive end and future NFL tackle Malcolm Roach sliding across multiple positions.

Those guys are the difference between a skid like Texas has had and an absolute implosion like we’ve seen from Nebraska.

Big time, “planetary” defensive tackles have tremendous gravity in the college game. They’re rare, difficult for offensive lines to account for, and are thus essential to a championship effort. In 2023 Texas has a number of guys who could qualify for this distinction but the leading candidate is 6-foot-4, 355 pound super-senior T’Vondre Sweat.

Sweat up till this point

Up until last season Sweat was a role player picking up rotational snaps in every season for which he was at Texas, then in 2022 he ended up in the starting lineup in nine games as the 3-technique playing next to Keondre Coburn at nose.

Moro Ojomo was the more notable 3-technique on the team and would be drafted for his efforts, but Sweat was arguably the team’s best interior pass-rusher and they seemed to like pairing him with Coburn while Ojomo played with Murphy to create a “thunder and lightning” effect with a massive 1st line and then a smaller, faster 2nd tandem.

You’d think a colossal person like Sweat would be the nose tackle but that’s not where his skill set has been deployed up till now, nor will it be his main role in 2023. In fact he’s pretty good at using his hands to keep blockers off his body and get into the backfield, both in the run game…

T'Vondre Sweat crosses the center's face on a counter run to stuff the play.

Really poor decision by the RB here. pic.twitter.com/WtE8nTWd8H

— Unsolicited special assistant to the head coach (@Ian_A_Boyd) June 13, 2023

…and as a pass rusher.

The guard comes off T'Vondre Sweat to pick up the Edge and he walks the center back and works off him to the QB but Barryn Sorrell takes the sack. pic.twitter.com/AWggFIdQPi

— Unsolicited special assistant to the head coach (@Ian_A_Boyd) June 13, 2023

He’s powerful enough to eat double teams but where he really thrives is driving guards into the backfield when he has a 1-on-1 in the run game or in winning past them with his hands. Watching his 2022 film makes clear that he’s better conditioning away from potential breakthrough.

On the year he had seven quarterback hurries, four pass break-ups, 2.5 tackles for loss, and was credited with zero sacks (should have gotten a half sack against K-State, in my opinion). You could routinely see him causing problems with penetration or pass-rush but it wasn’t common for him to finish plays and get ballcarriers on the ground himself. As the alternate 3-technique Ojomo had 5.5 tackles for loss and three sacks thanks to his ability to chase down ballcarriers consistently.

The significance of Sweat as a 3-technique in 2023

Texas played the 3-technique to the strongside in 2022, so wherever the tight end or fullback was, that’s where you’d find Sweat unless he was playing nose tackle to protect a weaker tackle playing opposite him such as Vernon Broughton or Alfred Collins.

If the back aligned to the same side of the formation as the tight end then the ball was aiming for Coburn’s side, which was generally unproductive for offenses but it also meant Sweat was a backside defender. As a point of attack man he was very sturdy and hard to move but if the ball went elsewhere he wasn’t much of a threat to run it down from behind.

The most likely rotations in 2023 will pair him with Byron Murphy as the nose tackle while Alfred Collins plays 3-technique with Trill Carter as the back-up nose.

If Texas simply played Sweat as the nose tackle, his fit would be straightforward as he’s quite capable of eating space like Coburn did and freeing up the linebackers to make all the plays. Murphy was a more energetic player in 2022 and gets into the backfield pretty regularly, so having him work the backside would make sense as well.

However as a 3-technique in Texas’ Over fronts, Sweat really mucks up the works for offenses trying to get physical and run the ball strong. When the offense has to double the 3-technique to get anywhere and it leaves the tight end 1-on-1 with the Edge, it makes for tough sledding for any run scheme and will actually tend to lead to 1-on-1s for Murphy or else a linebacker is coming unblocked.

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Here’s a hypothetical of a powerful running squad like Oklahoma trying to isolate Texas’ box on a downhill scheme with perimeter RPOs.

The angles of the play are vulnerable to the Jack blowing up the tight end on the edge and turning the ball inside to a narrower track while the double teams HAVE to get real and quick movement on Sweat and Murphy or the linebackers are shutting this down before it can get started. Notice how the offense’s ability to get to Jaylan Ford (M) hinges on executing an effective combination block on Sweat?

As a 3-tech aligned to the strongside of a formation, Sweat can almost function like a nose tackle in this scheme, so long as he causes problems when he does draw a guard mano a mano rather than a double team.

Then for upside, if Sweat can continue to grow in using his length and hands effectively to get off blocks while accessing more of his suddenness through better strength and conditioning, he could end up translating his ability to break into the backfield into actual tackles for loss and sacks. Alternatively, if teams feel more pressure to get a lineman to Ford then Sweat will also have opportunities to wreak havoc behind the line of scrimmage.

Texas knows they can build brick walls again this season with Sweat and Murphy back, but both of these guys have the ability to live in opposing backfields and not simply be space eaters. If they can grow together we should see a real increase in tackles for loss both from the tackle position and from the Edges and linebackers as runners get chased into their paths.

There’s few better ways to consistently dominate matchups every week and make a postseason run than to field elite defensive tackles. Now the rest of the defense has been built up, tackles like T’Vondre Sweat could set up Texas to feed what would be an elite SEC defense some Big 12 appetizers in 2023.