Texas Football: 3 x-factors for the Longhorns vs. Louisiana

Luke Brockermeyer, LB

Nearly all of the snaps that the former walk-on and redshirt junior linebacker Luke Brockermeyer took in his college career up to this point came with the special teams unit. And even then, he’s taken well under 100 snaps between his time playing for Texas on defense and special teams in his career to date.

This will be a bright spotlight in a new defensive scheme that Brockermeyer finds himself in right away. The good news here is that Brockermeyer played well in the spring game, and shined in fall camp by most indications. The coaching staff has also held him in high regard since the beginning of spring ball this offseason.

Brockermeyer did get some game reps for the Longhorns in the regular season finale win over the Kansas State Wildcats and the Alamo Bowl win over the Colorado Buffaloes last year. But that is about it as far as in-game production at linebacker goes for him.

Against Louisiana, the rise that new co-defensive coordinators/linebackers coaches Pete Kwiatkowski and Jeff Choate have seen out of Brockermeyer will be put to the test. He won the MIKE linebacker job over the likes of former New Mexico State transfer Devin Richardson and fellow former walk-on Jett Bush.

Brockermeyer will have a lot of responsibility on his shoulders to read plays fast, stop the run, and still effectively run with the running back and tight end in pass coverage. The last MIKE linebacker that took more than 700 snaps in a season for Kwiatkowski at Washington (when he served as co-defensive coordinator) was Brandon Wellington in 2019.

Wellington took around 50 percent of his snaps in pass coverage, 40 percent in stopping the run, and the remaining 10 percent rushing the passer. While some of that is indicative of the style of offenses Kwiatkowski and the Huskies faced in the PAC-12, it should be a similar snap distribution for Brockermeyer if he holds onto the starting job this fall.

A versatile Louisiana offense that has a run-happy quarterback in senior dual-threat Levi Lewis will put Brockermeyer’s ability to quickly read plays to the test.