4 former blue-chip recruits Texas football could redshirt for 2022

So far this season, No. 20 ranked Texas football is playing well and is looking massively improved from what we saw out of this team in Big 12 play a season ago. In fact, Texas and head coach Steve Sarkisian have as many wins through the first seven games this season as they did throughout the 2021 campaign.

Texas is sporting a record of 5-2 (3-1 Big 12) following the narrow three-point win over the Iowa State Cyclones at home at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on Oct. 15. Sark and the Longhorns have won three games in a row heading into a critical Big 12 matchup on the road on Oct. 22 against the No. 11 Oklahoma State Cowboys.

A big reason for the improvement for Texas this season is the extra buy-in that Sark and this staff seem to be getting in the locker room. It really looks like Texas is turning a corner for the better in terms of righting the ship for the culture and atmosphere within this program.

And you can thank some of the senior leaders that stuck around on this team up to this team for the improved culture, along with the buy-in from some of the younger players.

Yet, not all of the younger Longhorns players on this team are getting a big-time shot to make an impact early on this season. Here’s a look at four former blue-chip recruits for Texas that could be redshirted in 2022.

Texas football players that could be on track to be redshirted by Steve Sarkisian in 2022

*Players included in this list either are assumed not to play in more than four games this season or get an injury redshirt

J’Mond Tapp, EDGE

Total snaps: 26

Games played: 2

Texas fans were excited at the outset of this season to see what some of the new edge rushers that were signed in the Longhorns 2022 recruiting class would bring to the table. Co-DC/LB coach Pete Kwiatkowski and the Longhorns added some talented edge rushers in the 2022 class such as Louisiana four-star J’Mond Tapp, local three-star Ethan Burke, and Alabama four-star Justice Finkley.

But we’ve only seen bits and pieces of this trio of true freshmen edge rushers through the first half of the season. Finkley has taken the most snaps of any of the true freshman edge rushers, with 89 over the course of six games.

The lowest tally of defensive snaps among this trio of true freshman edge rushers belongs to Tapp. Through the first seven games of the season, Tapp has taken just 26 defensive snaps over the course of two games.

He got 16 snaps in the season opener on Sep. 3 against the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks and 10 in the matchup against the UTSA Roadrunners on Sep. 10.

Tapp was mostly on the field as a run defender so far this season, which encompasses 15 of his 26 defensive snaps. That leaves 10 of his snaps coming as a pass rusher and one coming in coverage.

Due to the lack of sample size, the production is pretty pedestrian for Tapp and doesn’t really paint a good picture of the impact he could ultimately have on this defensive front. He’s got one tackle, one missed tackle, and three quarterback pressures under his belt this season.

I will say it is intriguing that Tapp already has three quarterback pressures and one QB hit this season in just 10 pass rush snaps. He was very effective in that limited sample size of pass-rush snaps.

However, it was figured that the Donaldsonville, LA, native and Ascension Catholic product was going to take a couple of years at least to develop. Tapp has a higher ceiling than probably at least 90 percent of the Longhorns 2022 signing class. He’ll get his shot to make an impact in the next season or two upon the departure of senior edge rusher Ovie Oghoufo.