Texas Football: Trey Hopkins gives Joe Burrow better chance at stardom

The Cincinnati Bengals have a good foundation for their interior offensive line in front of Joe Burrow now with former Texas football OG Trey Hopkins.

The 2020 NFL Draft is well underway, and the first round was a sight to behold with the national television stream coming virtually from ESPN. The entirety of the 2020 NFL Draft will be held virtually, as the novel coronavirus pandemic has consumed pretty much every facet of life. But the Texas football program did have even the first overall pick in the 2020 draft join a former player of theirs.

That former member of the Texas Longhorns football program is offensive guard/center Trey Hopkins, and he will now be blocking for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. Hopkins is a member of the Cincinnati Bengals, and that No. 1 pick he will be blocking for is the former LSU Tigers Heisman winning quarterback Joe Burrow.

During his senior campaign under head coach Ed Orgeron at LSU, Burrow would beat the Longhorns in the regular season on his way to claiming the program’s first national title of the decade. LSU’s last national title had come in 2007, under the direction of former head coach Les Miles.

However, Burrow was a breakthrough quarterback leading a record-breaking offense in Baton Rouge last year. LSU handled pretty much every team they faced, including the Oklahoma Sooners and Clemson Tigers in the College Football Playoff.

Burrow will now be the face of a franchise that is in near-complete rebuild mode. But there are some solid pieces that he’ll have in the trenches blocking for him, and a handful at the skill positions for the Bengals. Former Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon will be balancing out the offense alongside Burrow. And the receiving corps is headed up by A.J. Green, Tyler Boyd, and John Ross.

In the trenches, the Bengals are hoping for a more complete 2020 campaign than this group had in 2019. The Bengals are going to be namely relying upon Hopkins, left tackle Jonah Williams, and right tackle Bobby Hart, to spearhead the offensive line.

Hopkins and Hart had to two highest approximate value ratings among Bengals offensive linemen from last season. But the interior offensive line as a whole needs to hold up better this coming season. If the Bengals are able to address the guard positions throughout the remainder of the offseason, and in the NFL Draft, then Hopkins will lead a very formidable group in the middle.

During his senior season at LSU, Burrow registered 5,671 passing yards, 60 passing touchdowns (65 total touchdowns responsible for), and just six interceptions. He had an insane completion rate of 76.3 and also registered 12.5 adjusted yards per passing attempt. Burrow was just one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the modern era of college football last season (also registered a 202.0 passer efficiency rating).

The Bengals are going to hope they can turn the corner with a new prospective face of the franchise picked up with the first overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft in Burrow. They also have a few pieces in place to help him on his path to stardom with standout offensive linemen like Hopkins and Hart.