Texas Football: 3 players struggling mightily before Big 12 play

Jacoby Jones, DE

It appears that Texas is starting to find out who the real studs are along the defensive line in this new scheme under Pete Kwiatkowski. And one of the players that might find himself deeper down the depth chart soon if he can’t rise to the occasion along the defensive front through the start of Big 12 play is senior defensive end Jacoby Jones.

Against any decent opponent this season, Texas has not really played well along the defensive front. The linebackers have a lot of weight placed on their shoulders when the defensive line can’t get solid pushes off the line of scrimmage. Hence the complete struggle that Texas faced in stopping the run in the three-possession loss to Arkansas two weekends ago.

Jones is one player that struggled out of the gates this fall. He has missed more tackles than he’s come up with solo tackles. And on four quarterback pressures (two of which he had a legit chance to bring down the QB), he hasn’t come up with a single hit or sack.

This new defensive scheme under Kwiatkowski looked to be one that favored a powerful, yet agile, defensive end like Jones. But he looks slow to diagnose and blow up plays when he’s in the game at times. He just hasn’t made much of a positive impact on any game that mattered thus far.

That is highlighted by the fact that through three games, Jones has one penalty, three missed tackles, one first down allowed in his only assignment in pass coverage, along with just two solo tackles, no QB hits, no sacks, and no batted balls.

Jones just needs to be present to make a bigger impact on games in a positive sense. He really has yet to do that this fall.