3 second-year Texas players ready to make a jump in 2024

Liona Lefau, LB

This is a big year for second-year linebackers in Pete Kwiatkowski's defense to see the field more and earn bigger opportunities along the front seven this fall. Sophomores Liona Lefua, Tausili Akana, and Derion Gullette must climb up the defensive two-deep depth chart to stay on track and not get passed up by younger players.

Lefau and Gullette have both seemingly made a lot of progress on the defensive side of the ball for the Longhorns after being limited in their role capacity last season as true freshmen. The latter of those two second-year backers was limited due to the recovery process that took a while after Gullette suffered a torn ligament in his knee during his senior year of high school at Teague (TX).

Lefau, however, is on track to break into Texas's linebacker rotation this fall after spending his freshman year learning and developing under All-Big 12 senior and captain Jaylan Ford last season. Lefau also saw limited defensive snaps in live-game action last fall for Texas to get his feet wet.

Lefau's playing time this fall should come down to how much Texas decides to play sophomore linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. at the mike linebacker spot. Middle linebacker has a lengthy process to learn the position, so Johnny Nansen and PK have specific plans to use Hill in different ways while he gets used to playing that spot.

One reason why Lefau could get more snaps at mike linebacker this fall is that he's more experienced playing this position than Hill. Lefau played middle linebacker for Texas in his first year on campus, getting valuable practice reps behind Ford on the defensive two-deep.