Texas’ next big star may be in trenches
Defensive lineman to get his first start as a true freshman
AUSTIN — Texas football coach Tom Herman spends a lot of time surrounded by massive humans.
This year’s Texas team alone features 11 men who top 300 pounds; all but one stands at least 6-foot-5. Given the company he keeps, it takes some staggering proportions to widen Herman’s eyes.
And a couple of true freshman defensive linemen managed to do just that this season.
“When you stand next to Vernon Broughton and Alfred Collins, woah, those are big, big, strong humans,” Herman said in
August. “They don’t know whether the ball is pumped or stuffed right now and that’s OK. But they’re gonna figure it out and it’s gonna be fun to watch.”
Broughton (6-4, 290 pounds) is, at this point, more of a project. But expectations remain high for the Houston Cypress Ridge lineman, who’s seen brief action in two games, as his classmate prepares to make his first career start against Colorado (4-1, 3-1 Pac-12) in the Alamo Bowl on Tuesday at the Alamodome.
At 6-5, 305 pounds, Collins cuts a figure similar to Philadelphia Eagles interior linemen Fletcher Cox (6-4, 310 pounds), a 2012 first-round pick out of Mississippi State who became a Super Bowl champ and six-time Pro Bowler. It’s far too early to tell whether Texas’ true freshman grows into a transcendent talent
like Cox, but most everyone who’s spent time around him agrees the ingredients for stardom exist within that prodigious package.
“With Alfred being in my position room, I feel like he’s coming along pretty nice,” senior defensive tackle Ta’Quon Graham said after Collins recorded a sack against UTEP in his first career game. “He’s physical, he’s long. He’s already big.
“Some of the things I might have taught him here and there just was tweaking his technique, pad level, hand placement. But mostly everything you’ve seen, that’s all him, that’s God-given talent right there.”
Collins will start against the Buffaloes in place of Graham, who opted out of the game to begin preparing for the 2021 NFL draft. It’s a just reward for months of training and evolving, for fighting against and eliminating bad habits, for sponging up knowledge from coaches and veterans.
The biggest challenge for Collins stemmed from his height. Staying low is constant internal tug-of-war, with joints and muscles screaming as the game wears on, trying to drown out the discipline the brain has tried to instill over countless hours of training.
It’s a personal war Collins will have to keep fighting as he tries to remain at pad level and maintain leverage in the trenches. There might be no stopping him once those fundamentals become second nature.
“The biggest thing Alfred’s got to work on is, he’s just so, so big and tall, his pad level at times when he gets tired gets a little bit high,” Herman said. “He’s worked really, really hard too staying in his gap. He freelanced maybe a little bit too much early in the year, and he’s a lot more disciplined now with his pad level, with his gap integrity. Then that explosiveness for a guy that size is very, very impressive.”
Collins can provide immediate help.
In 2019, Texas recorded a sack rate of 4.9 percent, No. 104 among FBS teams and ahead of only perennial doormat Kansas in the Big 12. Texas also ranked outside the top 100 in passing downs sack rate (5.2 percent), per Football Outsiders.
No. 20 Texas (6-3, 5-3 Big 12) wasn’t any better in 2020, posting a sack rate of 3.5 percent and passing downs sack rate of 6.8 percent.
While Texas has been shaky pressuring the quarterback, it’s been among the nation’s top run-stopping units. The Longhorns’ 23.3 percent stuff rate (percentage of carries by running backs that are stopped at or before the line of scrimmage) is No. 21 in the FBS.
And Texas will need Collins to replicate Graham’s run-stuffing presence in the middle when it faces Buffs tailback and 2020 Pac-12 offensive player of the year Jarek Broussard. Colorado’s 5-9 sophomore rushed for 813 yards and three touchdowns on 129 yards across just five games.
“I truly believe if you want to win, you have to do it up front with the defensive line,” defensive coordinator Chris Ash said. “Our defensive line has to make plays for us. They have to be disruptive in the run game, they’ve got to be able to affect the quarterback.”
Collins has already teased an ability to sow chaos in both facets of the game with 18 tackles (11 solo), two tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks and two pass breakups. And the big man is just getting started.