Texas Football: Mid-season report card for every position
Defensive Line
Much like the linebacking corps, the defensive line picked up its play of late to help this huge surge past three ranked teams since the win over the USC Trojans in Week 3. It took a while, but the emergence of the pair of senior defensive ends in Breckyn Hager and Charles Omenihu in the past two weeks proved to be a factor in the success of this defensive altogether.
The best game for Omenihu came in last week’s win over Oklahoma, where is was one of the catalysts with two sacks. Meanwhile, Hager’s best game came in the narrow road victory over the Kansas State Wildcats when he racked up his first sack of the season. Omenihu and Hager look to finally be realizing their potential this fall and that’s a good sign for the Texas defensive line moving forward.
But, the contributions of senior defensive tackle Chris Nelson cannot be overstated. He replaced former Texas defensive tackle Poona Ford without skipping a beat which as a very impressive feat. Although, we are still waiting for the first sack of the season from Nelson. He does have four tackles for loss, though.
The pass rush has come and gone this season, but the run stopping is pretty consistent. Texas still has one of the best defensive lines in the Big 12. But the expectations for the production in the second half of the season should be higher than what was shown so far. This group is at least trending in the right direction.