Breaking down 3 best Texas football newcomers so far this season

Kelvin Banks, OT

It goes without saying that the former elite five-star recruit and true freshman offensive tackle Kelvin Banks is off to a great start this season. In fact, I would pretty easily hand him the title of the most impactful newcomer through four games for the Longhorns in 2022.

It’s really difficult to find any gaps in Banks’ performance to start out his collegiate career. He has yet to allow a single quarterback hit or sack in more than 130 pass-blocking snaps so far this season.

The fact that Banks leads all Big 12 offensive tackles this season in pass-blocking grade as a true freshman just goes to show how great he is for Texas right away. He’s playing the part of someone worthy of All-Big 12 and Freshman All-American honors if he continues on this pace the rest of the way this fall.

That’s pretty obvious to say, though, since Banks is the highest-graded offensive tackle in pass blocking in the Big 12 so far this season.

I don’t really know of a better true freshman offensive tackle that the Longhorns had in the last few decades. Banks is already showing the potential to be a future first-round NFL Draft pick, potentially even in the top 10.

The 6-foot-5 and 320-pound Banks has also excelled blocking for the run so far this season. He’s done very well in terms of his ability to move bodies off the edge so that the running backs can get outside.

Texas has found a really nice run-blocking duo at the offensive tackle spots between Banks and senior Christian Jones.

Granted, if I had to pinpoint a singular area where Banks still has some room to improve, it would be with his run blocking. Banks is getting some good pushes at the point of attack in run blocking, but he’s still struggling to pick up his assignments at times when Texas runs the ball to the inside gap to the right of him or when he needs to be pulled over to get more of a push along the interior.

Coming into this season, Texas was looking for answers at the left tackle position. Banks has done nothing but shut down any of those questions that were being asked during the offseason through the first four games of this campaign. He deserves every bit of the praise he’s received so far this season.