On Texas Football’s Lunch with the Coach: Defensive line, secondary, explosive plays all positives
On the latest video edition of the season of On Texas Football’s Lunch with the Coach, Inside Texas’ Bobby Burton and former state championship-winning coach Bryan Erwin discuss the Longhorns’ decisive victory over Baylor in their Big 12 Conference opener and the campaign as a whole with one-third of the regular season in the books.
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Erwin, who coached La Marque to two titles after being a graduate assistant for Texas in the 1980s, listed his positives from the win over the Bears and things to work for Kansas and the rest of the season.
Erwin lauded the defensive line for its dominance over an inexperienced Baylor offensive line.
“The defensive line is really playing well,” Erwin said. “We have a lot of depth and those guys are active, and it’s a tremendous rotation the way we get those guys in and off the field. Now they’re compressing space in the run game, and in the pass game our defensive tackles are pushing and our ends are coming off the edge. It’s not like they’re flying up the field. They’re getting into that shoulder, getting into that neck of that offensive tackle just compressing that pocket.”
Erwin said defensive tackle Byron Murphy’s bull rush reminds him of Longhorns’ defensive line legend Roy Miller III.
“I just loved Roy Miller back in the day, and I liked those shorter D-tackles,” Erwin explained. “You can’t move them and they’ve got such a low center of gravity. They compress space and can bull rush and they’re great against inside zone. They’re great against double zones and gap schemes.
“My hat’s off to all of them right now. They’re active. They’re playing hard. They’re not standing around. They’ve got a high motor.”
Erwin also likes the way the secondary is working together as a unit.
“One thing you can really see at the game is the way the secondary is communicating and using both verbal and nonverbal signals and doing a great job,” he said. “They’re all on the same page. They know what they’re doing and they’re confident in the scheme, they know that scheme inside and out. Now they’re a year or two older or they’re athletic, bigger, faster and they’re stronger.”
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Burton pointed out that Texas is an experienced team that’s led by juniors, seniors and sophomore quarterback Quinn Ewers. But there are also a handful of young players that are making huge contributions, like linebacker Anthony Hill, running back CJ Baxter and defensive back Derek Williams Jr.
“How do these young players being so good so early push that envelope to the betterment of the team?” Burton asked Erwin.
“It means we’ve got a ton of depth and good young talent,” Erwin answered. “Our juniors and seniors and what they’re doing with the program makes you feel really good about the next year and the next year because those same leadership qualities communication skills, the tradition, the expectations of the standard, the process is carried forward.”
Go check out the rest of the video for more detailed info and plenty of additional insights from Bobby and the coach.
