3 former Texas football players that were poor fits with Kwiatkowski
Brenden Schooler, S
For much of last season, Texas split reps at the free safety position between the former Oregon Duck and converted super senior wide receiver Brenden Schooler and sophomore Jerrin Thompson. More defensive snaps wound up going to Thompson last season, but both safeties got significant playing time in the secondary.
Both Schooler and Thompson had their fair share of issues last fall as each was asked to do more than they were capable of at the time. The free safety was often overstretched between having to help over the top in pass coverage for corners getting beat deep while also needing to watch the line of scrimmage for support stopping the run.
And this was something that really hurt School, in particular, last season. Schooler doesn’t have the sideline-to-sideline coverage ability and the speed in pursuit of the ball carrier necessary to cover all of that ground effectively. That’s just not the skill set he possesses.
Thompson was a bit more effective last season when asked to cover this much ground from the free safety position, but he also didn’t have the ball instincts at the time that Schooler did.
We should expect a pretty massive uptick in production from the safety position this coming season compared to last for the Longhorns. Texas has more capable defensive backs among the projected starters this fall, which should lead to this entire unit being picked up.
I would expect either sophomore JD Coffey III or Thompson to be the starter at the free safety position Week 1. Incoming freshman and former four-star recruit BJ Allen Jr. could also compete for early live-game reps at the position this fall.