Bohls: Texas offensive line returns intact and bigger, but needs a sense of urgency

When Steve Sarkisian arrived in Austin less than three years ago, he took one look at the Texas football roster he inherited, sized it up and came to a very quick conclusion.

Not nearly enough size.

He needed to go big.

No, even bigger.

As Sarkisian and offensive line coach/offensive coordinator Kyle Flood are fond of saying, the coaching staff had to go out and lure large human beings to campus.

Approaching his third season at the helm, Sarkisian has done exactly that.

There was no bigger mandate than getting the makeup of the roster and especially the offensive and defensive lines acclimated to the challenges that the SEC will bring, soon with another date against Alabama in September and next year when the Longhorns join their new conference full-time.

He accomplished what he set out to do. But the line has to get better, too. Much, much better. It needs equal parts nastiness as well as muscles. One’s no good without the other because why in the name of Jerry Sisemore would anyone otherwise even care that everybody is back because everybody needs to be good. And better.

This is not yet a dominant front. Let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves.

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However, Texas prepares for the 2023 season with a more massive, yet also athletic and leaner and hopefully meaner as well, group up front. And equally important, an experienced front. The likely impact shouldn’t be lost on anybody because for the first time since, well, no one can really remember when, the Longhorns return every single starter in their offensive line.

Probably the first time in school history, in fact. Let that sink in.

It may have never happened before at Texas because of the constant turnover in offensive lines, early NFL departures, an injury here and there and the fact freshmen became eligible in 1972 creating more competition for spots.

“It’s unique, for sure,” Flood said. “I can remember this only one other time in my career.”

From left to right, Flood welcomed back Kelvin Banks Jr., Hayden Conner, Jake Majors, Cole Hutson and Christian Jones. Banks, who is a sophomore along with the promising Hutson, is clearly the most celebrated of the five.

The 6-foot-4, 318-pound Banks was an FWAA freshman All-American last season and started at left tackle from Day One. Majors and Conner are juniors, and Jones is a sixth-year player.

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The praise starts with Banks, who likely would have been a high draft pick last April as a precocious freshman but has two more seasons of eligibility left as a Longhorn.

“He’s a very physically talented player,” Flood said. “He’s got size, speed, change of direction. The tangible things you look for. But I’m telling you what makes him special is his mindset. As much success as he’s had, he works as hard as any player to perfect his craft, and that’s what separates him.”

Flood goes on down the long check list. He’s set apart.

“Other players have the size, speed and length, but they don’t have the mental toughness or capability to work every day,” Flood said of Banks. “That’s what creates the best players, the guys who ultimately get to play on Sundays.”

Lord knows Texas hasn’t had many of those lately outside an occasional Sam Cosmi or Connor Williams or Calvin Anderson. The school’s produced just one All-American up front (Cosmi) since 2016.

Longhorn Nation has wondered aloud where have all the Bob McCoys and Terry Tausches and Dan Neils have gone. It’s been a steep decline while the SEC has accounted for 11 of the 31 offensive line first-round picks the last five years.

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As a group, this year’s unit has combined for 101 career starts to make up a group that Phil Steele’s preseason magazine ranks as the fourth best in college football behind only those at Georgia, Michigan and Florida State. Pretty heady company. The players are embracing high expectations, and Flood has encouraged it with a chart in the locker room detailing the criteria for the best in college football.

"The offensive line goal this year is to win the Joe Moore award," Jones said Thursday of the award given to the most outstanding offensive line unit in the nation. "We're all pushing for it."

All five of the Longhorns weigh 308 pounds or more, but Flood relishes their new leaner look with less body fat. He can still remember bumping into Conner when he first got here from Nick Saban’s staff at Alabama in January 2021.

“I can remember when I first met him,” Flood said. “He looked like a freshman. Now he looks like an upperclassman, and it’s showing up in his play. Hayden has transformed his body. His change is the most dramatic.”

But they’ve all grown up.

Texas wasn’t exactly a world-beater offensively last season, riding the legs of Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson for the most part to compensate for an unreliable passing attack. The interior of the middle of that line struggled to make a dent in opposing defenses, especially in the run game. Robinson often created his own daylight.

But honestly this is a phase of the program that has mostly been wandering in the NFL wilderness for the better part of two decades.

Texas hasn’t produced a first-round lineman since consensus All-American Mike Williams was taken with the fourth pick by Buffalo way back in 2002. That’s barely this century. And even he was considered a bust, starting only 56 games over five seasons. In the 21 years since, only seven offensive linemen have even been chosen by NFL teams, and just Cosmi and Williams in the last 15 drafts. That’s a staggering drought of epic proportions and embarrassing for a program of Texas’ magnitude.

Alabama, by way of example, has had 21 offensive linemen drafted in the last 15 years. Nine of them were taken in the first round.

More: Texas needs to replace some starters on defense, but its coaching staff remains intact

The lack of continuity in coaching and changes in offensive philosophy at Texas both set back the recruitment if not the development of offensive linemen. The trickle-down affect of the wide-open, spread-attack 7-on-7 competition in this state also may have watered down the emphasis of big, physical run-blockers.

Since the disruption on Mack Brown’s staff in 2010 after a dreary 5-7 follow-up to the national championship game season, Texas has had four head coaches (counting Sarkisian) and seven offensive coordinators as well as six different offensive line coaches.

The jettison of hugely successful offensive coordinator Greg Davis and line coach Mac McWhorter and switch to smaller, quicker linemen for a spread attack after a decade’s run interrupted any stability. Sarkisian’s NFL background in Oakland and Atlanta and desire for a scheme in favor of more beef to get ready for the physically demanding SEC now has Texas with the makings of its first cohesive line group in ages.

Now Flood’s gotten even greedier.

He’s got eight players who are starter-ready, he says. He’s confident that Texas could go to bat with these eight and play winning football. He wants 10.

“I feel we have eight guys right now who can win football games,” Flood said. “You’d love to get to 10. It’s not very often you can do that. Is it close? No, we’re not that close. They’ve got a lot to show, a lot to prove.”

Behind that starting five, Flood’s seen enough progress in sophomores Cam Williams and DJ Campbell and redshirt freshman Neto Umeozulu to give them early-game playing time to develop depth and rotate fresher bodies in the fourth quarter.

Those three are all 6-foot-4 or taller and collectively weigh a salty 1,017 pounds. That’s a lot of ground beef. Redshirt freshman Connor Robertson, who missed the spring with a wrist injury, adds promise.

Flood wouldn’t go so far as to say any of the players has surprised him, however.

“We have pretty high expectations,” he said. “And I’m impressed with the new freshman group and how they’ve learned and absorbed the offense. That doesn’t mean they can translate it, but they’re ahead of where I thought they’d be.”

Add in the extra firepower in that department that Paul Chryst brings to the table as a special assistant with 11 years of head coaching experience at Pittsburgh and Wisconsin, and Sarkisian has an elite brain trust that should fuel Texas’ expected renaissance as the preseason Big 12 favorite and a potential top 10 team.

Chryst comes after being surprisingly fired at Wisconsin where the Badgers routinely produced punishing ground attacks and marque running backs like Jonathan Taylor and relied on downhill, physical game plans and play-action passing. “He’s an excellent offensive mind,” Flood said.

While his and Sarkisian’s philosophies may not sync up exactly, Texas likes the influence that former head coaches like Flood (Rutgers) and Chryst can exact on a line that hasn’t always been the most physical in the Big 12.

“We need to play at a more consistent level on the interior of our offensive line,” Flood said. “We didn't get the consistency inside that we felt we needed to be a top-tier team.”

Among the points of emphasis this year on offense are a more effective vertical passing game and more success on third and fourth downs. Those were trouble spots for last year’s team — the Horns ranked 10th and seventh in the Big 12 in those categories — that short-circuited the season and left Texas with an unfulfilling 8-5 finish.

What an upgraded line should do is beef up an attack that is missing Robinson and Johnson, two backs with a combined 5,600 career rushing yards, and too often put quarterback Quinn Ewers under duress.

Texas starts the year without a running back who has gained more than 408 yards in his Longhorns career and without one who has more than Keilan Robinson’s two college starts here (one in the Alamo Bowl where Robinson and Johnson sat out). But it’s got a big collection of human beings up front.

A solid line like times gone by that is a strength rather than a liability could ease those growing pains.

And eventually correct a disturbing trend the last two decades and set Texas on a brighter future.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas is bigger and more experienced up front, but needs to be meaner