Texas Football: 3 standouts from first fall practice of the week
The first practice in Week 3 of fall camp for Texas football and head coach Steve Sarkisian took place on the evening of Aug. 15. Texas got a day off to start the week in training camp after the first scrimmage of fall camp last weekend.
But the team returned to work for a high-octane practice that saw some younger players emerge in a big way. That’s where most of the practice reports and buzz surrounding individual Longhorns players coming out of Tuesday evening’s practice came from.
Arch Manning highlights the standouts from Texas football’s first Week 3 fall practice
Texas has a big week of fall practice ahead before the second and final scrimmage of camp this coming weekend. Sark and the Longhorns will take part in a fall scrimmage for the second weekend in a row, which also comes two weeks before the regular season opener on Sep. 2 at home against the Rice Owls.
However, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, there are plenty of notes and standouts from the first day of fall practice this week. Here’s a look at three standouts for the Longhorns from the first fall practice of Week 3 in training camp.
Jaray Bledsoe, DL/EDGE
Redshirt freshman defensive lineman/edge rusher Jaray Bledsoe is one of the Longhorns’ most physically gifted and explosive players along the defensive front this year. The 6-foot-4 and 275-pound Bledsoe has mostly taken practice reps at edge rusher this fall. But he’s still getting some reps as a three-tech defensive lineman early in fall practice too.
And it sounds like he’s making real progress in his second year on campus through the first few weeks of fall practice. Bledsoe has caught more people’s attention in the first half of training camp this fall with his improved understanding of the defensive schemes, better conditioning, and more explosiveness.
Bledsoe made a lot of noise during the fall practice on Aug. 15. Inside Texas reported that Bledsoe “had a pair of would-be sacks against the second-team offensive line” in practice on Tuesday evening.
This was one of Bledsoe’s best days of fall practice thus far. He’s putting himself in a spot to get many more live-game reps this fall than he did during his true freshman campaign in 2022 (six defensive snaps against ULM in the opener).