Texas Football: Position-by-position report card from non-conference play
Safety/Nickelback
Texas football was hampered by injury in this portion of the secondary in the last two weeks. Suspension also hurt for the cornerbacks, but hopefully sophomore nickelback B.J. Foster will be back before too long. He was the breakthrough player for the Longhorns on the defensive side of the ball in the first two weeks of the season.
The rocks of the secondary were anticipated to be the two safeties that included senior Brandon Jones and sophomore Caden Sterns along with Foster at nickelback. No interceptions from any safety or nickelback for the Longhorns is obviously a problem through three games so far.
A big problem with the safeties and nickelback for the Longhorns thus far is the lack of help in the passing game at times. It was difficult to judge how Jones and Sterns were helping out the young cornerbacks in defending the pass against Rice, but they struggled most of the way against LSU and Louisiana Tech.
What is good for the Texas safeties thus far is the help they’re getting from Chris Brown and Josh Thompson. Two of the top 10 leading tackles for the Longhorns so far are Brown and Thompson. At times when they were on the field, they were all over the place including stopping opposing rushers at the line of scrimmage.