Texas Football: 5 players whose stock is soaring ahead of 2019 season

Last season, the breakthrough along the defensive line for Texas football was then senior defensive end Charles Omenihu. Thanks to a double-digit sack season and leading the team in tackles for loss, Omenihu was a fifth round pick of the Houston Texans in the 2019 NFL Draft and earned himself Big 12 Defensive Lineman of the Year honors.

This year, a good candidate to be the breakout player in the trenches for the Longhorns is junior defensive end and former four-star recruit Ta’Quon Graham. A limited body of work in his third year under defensive coordinator Todd Orlando did see Graham rack up four tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks in his previous two seasons.

The towering 6-foot-3 and 300 pound defensive end is a handful for opposing offensive linemen and he can thrive in stopping the run and collapsing the pocket on the quarterback. His size and skill set should compliment senior edge rusher Malcolm Roach perfectly on the opposite side of the line.

This will be a much more athletic defensive line that the Longhorns bring to the table this fall than it was for the past two or three seasons. The combination of Roach and Graham will be much stronger and more athletic than Omenihu and fellow former senior starter Breckyn Hager were last season.