3 Texas players excelling in their new positions in spring camp

Kitan Crawford, S

A breakout player to watch for the Longhorns this year is going to be the rising junior defensive back Kitan Crawford. The speedy former four-star cornerback recruit has shown flashes of what he could turn into over the course of the last two seasons. But he wasn’t able to get enough reps in the last two seasons to really make a legitimate impact for this secondary.

Crawford was pretty consistently passed up on the cornerback depth chart since 2020 by the likes of D’Shawn Jamison, Josh Thompson, Jalen Green, etc.

But Crawford is now moving from cornerback to safety, which could be very beneficial for him in the long run. Crawford can now use his insane speed and athleticism to make more of an impact in a versatile role.

This move will allow Crawford to get more direct work with safeties coach Blake Gideon in a role where he could be getting more reps right away. It looks like Texas is planning to use Crawford mostly as a boundary safety, which will make good use of his sideline-to-sideline speed.

And from what we’ve heard coming out of spring practice thus far, Crawford is really stepping up in camp after making this position change. Crawford is becoming more vocal and showing some natural progressions in practice reps over the last couple of weeks.

From what we can tell, this transition for Crawford is going very well thus far this spring. If he continues making strides the way he has in the last half-dozen practices, expect Crawford to be in the secondary rotation come this fall.