How Texas LB Ray Thornton was a problem in the weirdest sense

Last season, we saw the linebackers for Texas football struggle on a defense that was one of the worst in recent memory for this program. And while the core issues of those inconsistencies from the Texas linebackers last season went deeper than just that one position group, there are still faults for a few players at this level of the defense that should be pointed out.

I’m not for pointing out particular linebackers just to blame certain individuals for the Longhorns’ struggles as a whole last season. In order for this defense to move forward this year, though, Texas has to learn from some of the mistakes on this side of the ball from the first season at the helm for head coach Steve Sarkisian and his staff.

And one of those areas Texas must improve is with finding more linebackers that can just make plays on a more consistent basis.

While that might sound obvious, it is something that is extremely important for the likes of co-defensive coordinators/linebackers coaches Pete Kwiatkowski and Jeff Choate to figure out this offseason.

It was largely to Kwiatkowski and Choate’s detriment last season that they had a few linebackers playing heavy snaps that just weren’t all that impactful when they needed to be.

That is exactly what happened with the former LSU Tigers senior linebacker transfer Ray Thornton, who was one of the least impactful players at the position in recent memory for the Longhorns. Thornton did get a ton of snaps for the Longhorns last fall, he just didn’t do much with that.

In nearly 520 defensive snaps played last season, Thornton registered just 31 combined tackles, four tackles for loss, one sack, no pass breakups, and six quarterback pressures. Thornton also missed around a dozen tackles last season, which made for a pretty high missed tackle rate of 27.9 percent.

That was one of the worst missed tackle rates on the team last season.

In fact, Thornton had the second-worst missed tackle rate on the team last season, only behind sophomore safety Jerrin Thompson. Thornton definitely had the worst missed tackle rate, though, among players along the defensive front that were often taking snaps in run defense or the pass rush.

That’s where most of the detriment was felt for the Longhorns last season in this regard in terms of the lack of impact Thornton made for this defensive front in 2021.

Moreover, there just weren’t really any areas of the defense where Thornton was able to make a real positive impact last fall.

Purely in terms of rushing the passer, Thornton was by far the least impactful of the edge rushers/defensive ends that had a hefty number of snaps last season. He had the second-most snaps last season among all Texas defensive players where he was rushing the passer. But he only got six pressures on the quarterback.

That was good for the lowest pressure rate among players in this position group for the Longhorns by a good margin (just 2.8 percent pressure rate on more than 210 snaps in the pass rush).

The same could be said in terms of the run-stopping ability for Thornton. And this was probably his most proficient area last season.

Thornton did come up with 18 stops last season (a little more than half of which came on run plays). But the average Texas linebacker had around 25 stops last season, also a little more than half of which came on run plays. And pretty much all of those other linebackers had a much better missed tackle rate than Thornton.

Texas football didn’t get much of any impact out of LB Ray Thornton in 2021

All in all, it’s easy to see why there are faults to learn from in terms of the usage of Thornton and the overall ineffectiveness he brought to the table for this defense. If you essentially add up “impactful” plays by defensive players last season, Thornton ranked near the bottom here too.

I tallied up essentially every impact play a defensive player could make in a positive sense. That included the likes of tackles for loss, quarterback pressures/sacks, forced fumbles, fumble recoveries, run stuffs, pass breakups, etc.

And when you take into account the number of defensive snaps that Thornton played last season, his “playmaking rate” (essentially calculated by aggregating “impact plays” and dividing them by total defensive snap count in a season) was the worst by a good margin among the five linebackers that took more than 350 defensive snaps.

There’s a lot that I’ve discussed here that really looks into the negative aspects of Thornton’s 2021 season with the Longhorns. But not all of the fault should fall on his shoulders. Plenty of blame should be going to the coaching staff in this regard.

Thornton was never the most effective pass rusher during his four seasons playing for LSU. He didn’t have the sideline-to-sideline speed or the burst off the line of scrimmage necessary to really be an effective pass rusher or run-stopper that could set the edge during his time at LSU or Texas.

This often not only resulted in missed tackles but also missed opportunities entirely to blow up plays in the opposing team’s backfield.

But he was effective at times as a rotation linebacker that could find his way through gaps to put pressure on opposing quarterbacks and just generally wreak havoc in the backfield.

LSU was good at using Thornton’s size at strength to his advantage at 6-foot-3 and 250-pounds to hold his own rushing the passer between the gaps. In his final two seasons at LSU, Thornton took more than 50 percent of his snaps rushing the passer either between the gap or over the tackle. Those were also his two most effective seasons in terms of pressure rate.

Meanwhile, Texas only had Thornton taking snaps between the gaps or over the tackle just over one percent of the time last season.

It is also worth noting that Thornton had the good fortune of playing around some better pass rushers at LSU than he did at Texas (i.e. K’Lavon Chaisson, Grant Delpit, Devin White, etc.). That certainly helped Thornton to get more pass-rushing productivity when playing with NFL-caliber pass rushers in Baton Rouge compared to the revolving door of unproven pass rushers with the Longhorns last season.

The combination of LSU scheming up Thornton more effectively along with playing next to more effective pass rushers obviously meant that the Tigers were able to get more efficiency and productivity out of him compared to the Longhorns last season.

And the fact of the matter here is that Thornton was just never a starting-caliber linebacker in Baton Rouge. But Texas looked to Thornton as one of their most heavily utilized pass rushers/outside linebackers for the entirety of last season.

So, what can the Longhorns learn from this?

First and foremost, Texas needs to get help out of the transfer portal to find a more proven pass rusher. That’s where landing the former TCU Horned Frogs two-time All-Big 12 senior edge rusher/defensive end Ochaun Mathis comes into play.

Texas can at least get a decent upgrade (at worst) playing at edge rusher this season if they get a commitment from Mathis out of the transfer portal.

Secondly, Texas needs to utilize its personnel better along the defensive front this season. Texas had other options in terms of personnel they could use coming off the edge over Thornton (i.e. moving Moro Ojomo to the edge, Alfred Collins, etc.). Yet, Thornton still had the most snaps among all edge rushers/defensive ends in the pass rush for Kwiatkowski and Choate last season.

In this regard, the Texas coaching staff needs to follow the analytics and they should improve massively in the pass rush this fall.

The good news here is that the Longhorns have the pieces in place (especially if they get Mathis out of the portal later this month) to improve the pass rush and the linebacking corps as a whole this year. Texas signed a good group of defensive linemen/edge rushers in the 2022 recruiting class too that should be able to help sure up the defensive front. These factors should combine to help Texas make some big strides in the trenches this fall.

Texas finished up last season with a record of 5-7 (3-6 Big 12), missing out on postseason eligibility for the first time since 2016. Sark and the Longhorns are set to open up the 2022 regular season on Sep. 3 at home against Louisiana-Monroe.