4 overreactions from Texas football’s dominant win over ULM

Interior offensive line will lag behind the offensive tackles early on

One position group that had a mostly positive showing in the opener against ULM for the Longhorns was the offensive line. Despite the lack of strength from the opposition in the opener, the Texas offensive line still looked better in most areas this weekend than they did in most games throughout last season.

And considering the youth that is present in the trenches this season for offensive line coach/offensive coordinator Kyle Flood and the Longhorns, that is a good sign of what’s to come.

Entering this game, only sophomore center Jake Majors and senior offensive tackle Christian Jones had more than one start in their career to date.

A notable takeaway for me in this game was the consistency that Texas showed on the edge of the offensive line. Texas got a solid performance from both freshman offensive tackle Kelvin Banks and Jones in this game. Jones had some nice pushes in run blocking and Banks was solid in really all phases of the game, especially considering he’s a true freshman that was making his first career start.

But there were some real question marks that emerged along the interior offensive line. This was largely due to Majors being the lowest-graded offensive linemen among the starters in this game and the fact that we saw some of the ups and downs from true freshman offensive guard Cole Hutson.

The struggles from Majors in this game are likely why we heard about senior IOL Junior Angilau taking snaps as the first-team center prior to his season-ending injury in fall camp. Majors does have more experience than three-fifths of the rest of the starting OL. The hope is that his experience will help him bounce back with the non-conference schedule really ramping up in the next two weeks.

I also firmly believe that Hutson will continue to get better and better as this season moves along. He’s made some notable strides since enrolling early and competing in spring ball for the Longhorns.