Texas Football: 3 reasons the Longhorns can dominate Louisiana

Potent Texas front seven can disrupt an unproven Louisiana ground game

About the most reliable part of the Louisiana ground game heading into Week 1 will be the dual-threat nature of senior quarterback Levi Lewis. Louisiana will be rolling with Lewis and redshirt sophomore running back Chris Smith as the driving forces to power this ground game.

Two of the leading rushers from one year ago for the Ragin’ Cajuns, running backs Elijah Mitchell and Trey Ragas, are now gone. Mitchell and Ragas combined for more than 1,600 rushing yards and 18 rushing scores last season.

What Louisiana is getting back from Smith is 350 rushing yards and one rushing touchdown from last year. That’s not a whole lot of production compared to what Mitchell and Ragas provided for Louisiana last fall.

Moreover, Texas is bringing back one of its most productive defensive players from last season in senior linebacker DeMarvion Overshown. He and redshirt junior defensive tackle Keondre Coburn will be the driving forces in the front seven this fall. Both Overshown and Coburn had a lot of success in the past against Group of Five competition too.

In four outings for Overshown and Coburn combined against Group of Five competition, they registered a dozen tackles, five tackles for loss, two sacks, seven quarterback pressures, nine stops, just one missed tackle, and one interception. Put up that type of production against Louisiana this weekend, and Texas will be in a great spot defensively.

It will be difficult for Louisiana to keep pace with a lot of the raw speed and power that Texas has in the front seven. Texas has a fast group of linebackers sideline-to-sideline between the likes of Overshown, Ovie Oghoufo, Luke Brockermeyer, etc.