Steve Sarkisian anticipates a more aggressive Texas defense

The Texas Longhorn defense has two big questions for the 2024 season. One of those questions is whether they can improve on pass defense a year after finishing 54th in the country in yards allowed per pass attempt (7.1). The other question is a more general, “what happens now that Byron Murphy and T’Vondre Sweat are gone?”

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Pete Kwiatkowski was very frank in his press conference in stating Texas was not going to be dominant in the same way inside without those two monstrous defenders. Steve Sarkisian made similar remarks after Texas’ fifth practice but he also gave some indicators about the sort of identity he sees the Longhorns developing up front on defense this season.

It won’t be built around the D-tackles in the same way.

“Stylistically I would say defensively we’re a little bit different. Murphy was such a penetrator, disruptor and Sweat kinda played off of him,” Sark said about his evolving defensive line. “I think we have guys now that are really kinda focused on the scheme and fitting things the right way schematically.”

That’s hardly glowing praise, it paints the picture of a D-tackle room filled with guys who are working hard to make sure they are effective cogs in the machine. But what will power this machine to enable a championship-caliber defense in 2024? Sark has some ideas there too.

A different solution to the problem

Fortunately for Texas, they have some other players across the D-line and overall defensive front who are expected to play a prominent role in the defensive strategy for this coming season.

“I think our presence off the edge is much different than we were a year ago,” Sark said of the changing defensive front. “I think Anthony Hill provides a different aspect for our defense in the middle of our defense as well. Jaylan Ford was a great player for three years, not taking anything away from him, he was opportunistic, (had) ball skills, but Anthony definitely has a little bit different mindset. Downhill mentality, he’s a striker, he’s going to enforce his will on people.”

Ford played more downhill in his final year at Texas, but overall his game was marked by effective fits behind the Sweat/Murphy tandem and his motor to make good drops and rack up tackles in pursuit. He had a very solid 20.5 tackles for loss and three sacks combined in 2022 and 2023 as the starting Mike linebacker.

Meanwhile Hill had eight tackles for loss and five sacks in 2023 as freshman serving part-time as the starting Will and part-time as a pass rusher off the edge. He has Ford’s motor and knack for making big tackles in pursuit but is also a very forceful player coming downhill either in his run fits or on the blitz.

The other player, unmentioned in this quote but prominent in Sarks’ other comments, is UTSA trasnfer Trey Moore. Here’s how Moore’s numbers over the past two years at UTSA as the Roadrunner’s boundary Edge look compared to what Texas had from their starting Buck Edges.

Year	Texas Buck	Stats	Trey Moore stats
2022	Ovie Oghoufo	54 tackles, 8.5 TFL, 2.5 sacks, 2 FF	59 tackles, 18 TFL, 8 sacks, 2 FF
2023	Ethan Burke	41 tackles, 9 TFL, 5 sacks, 1 FF	45 tackles, 17.5 TFL, 14 sacks, INT, 1 FF

Moore was doing his damage against a different level of competition, but clearly he’s a different sort of player than the Longhorns have had in the traditionally attacking weakside Edge role.

Sark put those changes together with this conclusion.

“And so where you’re hitting people and attacking people is a little different. Where it was internal last year with the two D-tackles, I think it’s coming from different angles now and that’s good for us. I think we’re probably a little bit more versatile.”

So what exactly does that look like?

Attacking from different angles

The formula for Texas in 2023, explained by Sark, was essentially the same on every defensive play. Murphy would wreck play designs with interior penetration and Sweat would devour whatever was fed to him as a consequence of Murphy’s movement. They had a “Casey Hampton and Shaun Rogers” partnership working for them which gave every opponent on the schedule absolute fits.

That’s great if you have big tackles who can consistently dominate everyone on the schedule, obviously such is not the case for the Longhorns this season and isn’t exactly an annual tradition. So how do you thwart offensive designs if your main impact players are an off-ball linebacker (Hill) and an Edge?

With movement and blitzing.

Here’s two common blitzes you’d see from either Texas a year ago or from Johnny Nansen’s Arizona team last season.

2) Disguised and late through the B-gap pic.twitter.com/GgyXK1EgCr

— Captain Bruisin, cruise director (@Ian_A_Boyd) August 6, 2024

Nansen’s Mike linebacker Jacob Manu had 116 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss, and 6.5 sacks as a true sophomore in this scheme a year ago, serving as one of their key attacking pieces.

There’s a lot of ways to draw up pressures with Moore and Hill working in concert or with one setting up the other. The presence of a pair of big, strong Jack Edges like Burke and Bruce Feldman-recognized “freak” Barryn Sorrell at the Field position is going to make it easier to turn Hill into a hybrid.

Lined up on opposites sides of the formation, the Mike or Buck can both either drop or “blitz” on any given snap. The three defensive linemen, including the “Jack” Sorrell, are all capable of slanting or moving around to fit interior OR exterior gaps, which enables Hill and Moore to show up in different gaps from snap to snap. They can loop or charge inside through interior gaps to replace slanting D-linemen or they can hit the perimeters while the D-linemen take interior gaps.

That versatility will make it hard for offenses to triangulate their positions and also makes it easy to blitz in groups of four or five and not overstress the secondary.

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Texas doesn’t have the dudes inside to just line up in basic fronts and wreck offensive designs with sheer power. However, they have some very explosive linebackers who can make plays, a deep D-line filled with good complementary players, and a secondary which should be able to play more tight, man coverage behind them.

With good coordination, this formula for defense might prove to be championship-caliber as well.