Texas Football: 4 key injured Longhorns players heading into Iowa State

Alfred Collins, DL

Another Texas defender hampered due to an injury in recent weeks is senior defensive lineman Alfred Collins. The likely 2024 NFL Draft pick originally suffered an injury on the road in Texas’ Week 8 win over Houston.

But that injury in the Houston game didn’t cause Collins to be completely held out of any of the last three games. However, he was still limited due to an injury while taking a season-low 16 defensive snaps in the win over TCU on Nov. 11.

Despite the injury, Collins has been a big part of the success of the Texas defensive line in the last few weeks in Big 12 play. Collins has registered at least one quarterback pressure, one tackle, and no missed tackles in each of the last three games. In fact, he’s the only Texas interior defensive lineman who has registered at least one quarterback pressure in every game this season.

Texas’ defensive line has dominated the line of scrimmage against everyone they’ve played this season. And that couldn’t be truer given the level they’ve played at in the last few weeks. Texas has the three highest-graded interior defensive linemen in the Big 12 since Week 9, with Collins ranking second in between junior Byron Murphy II at No. 1 and redshirt senior T’Vondre Sweat at No. 3.

Collins is a major reason Texas has the most dominant interior defensive line play in the Big 12 this season and possibly in the entire Power Five. He’s an incredibly important part of the interior defensive line rotation. He has started to live up to the immense talent level he showed when he first arrived on campus four years ago as a former five-star recruit out of high school.