← On Texas Football
On Texas Football
Texas Had the WORST Left Guard Play in America — Can Laurence Seymore Fix It? | Steve Sarkisian
00:25:02
Jeff Howe, Rod Babers and CJ Vogel break down one of the most important position battles of Texas training camp: the competition at left guard. The numbers reveal just how damaging the position was last season, as Texas left guards allowed a...
Loading summary
Transcript42 lines
- [00:00]
A
The car is beautiful. Where did you end up going for it? This exclusive place that dad has connections with. They have more cars for more dealerships than like anywhere else. You have to put me in touch. What's it called? It's Dune Dial.
- [00:13]
B
Where?
- [00:15]
A
Dune Dial. There's an accent on the E. Do you mean. Yes. I got it undone. Dale cars, lift, please. You going past Kimage? Oh, Kimmage. No, no. Done deal cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere else.
- [00:30]
C
Sec media days in the rearview mirror. That means camp is next. So let's go ahead and talk about that left guard battle, one of the biggest position battles on the board for Texas. We'll talk about it here on this latest edition of On Texas Football, brought to you by Price Picks. I'm Jeff Howe, joined by Lifetime Longhorn, Rod Babers and CJ Vogel. Guys, this is one of the big battles on the board for Texas in camp, that left guard battle. And you know, Lawrence Seymour will get a little nuanced. You dig into Lawrence Seymour here in just a minute. But I felt like Sark during his press conference at the Texas High School Coaches association convention gave some really good insight into Seymour since he got the campus in June, kind of where he is now. So producer Matt's got this queued up. This is Sark on Lawrence Seymour from the thsea convention in Houston about a week and a half ago. Yeah, I think Lawrence, Lawrence has done really well. You know, I've been impressed with him and his body has changed already, which, which is big, you know, of our style of summer conditioning and what that looks like. And I think that he's really responded well to that and, you know, the connectivity with the other offensive linemen and the fundamental work that we get to do. You know, time will tell. I was lineman. It's difficult in the summertime. We're in underwear of what it's really
- [01:44]
B
going to look like.
- [01:44]
C
We'll find out a lot in training camp, especially kind of when we get into the second week when we're really in full pads and we're getting going. But so far, so good with him. Rod. I want to dig into, start digging in Lawrence Seymour from this standpoint, I think the expectations can kind of get out of whack when you see, oh, well, he was an all American and you know, I think the Football Writers association of America, second team all American and kind of what do you expect from him? But you know, he's a guy Rob that from a measurable standpoint, probably a pretty limited NFL ceiling. But I, I feel like if he's just a good average college lineman, that would be a significant upgrade from what Texas went through at left guard last year.
- [02:23]
B
There's no doubt. Actually, I went and did some deep diving and looked at a pro football focus allowed pressure stat and they actually break it down by position on the O line. And I hate to break this to you guys, no matter how bad you thought it was at left guard, pro football focus analytics say it was even worse. You look at pressure rate allowed by left guards across the country. All right, I looked at left guards with at least 100 snipers snaps. Texas had the highest pressure rate allowed by the left guard position in the entire country at 26.5%. So yeah, it was really bad. So I'm with you. If Lawrence Seymour can just be an upgrade to just be above average, Texas could have tremendous improvement on offense, especially in the past protection for Arch Manning, who was the sixth most pressured quarterback in the country. And most of that pressure came from that left guard position. And I think kind of that's where things are going to start for the evaluation right of this competition because Arch is, as you've pointed out several times, Jeff, easy identity of that offense. And we hope that this year you have some strengths schematically, you know, maybe something in the run game to hang your hat on. You know, obviously Cam Coleman added to the mix so you can take the top off of defenses and force defenses to have to account for all your weapons and win the numbers game in the passing game. But the identity of the offense still revolve around Arch and you got to protect him for him to be able to, you know, reach his ceiling as a player.
- [03:46]
C
CJ we'll go back to that Sark cut right there. Ed, I'm really encouraged by the fact that he talked about Laura Seymour's body. I know you did some reporting that earlier in the summer, Seymour came in ready to work on a business like approach. Sark talked about the body transformation. You juxtapose that with what our Jerry Hamilton reported over on Texas Football.com last week, where now they've gotten Seymour in the building measurables, you know, six foot and a half without shoes, you know, 32 to 30, 32 to 32 and a half inch arms. So like I said, in terms of NFL measurables, there's a ceiling there. But C.J. that aside, like where are you at on this left guard battle right now? Like we know and from Jerry's reporting, it's going to be a battle. He's going to have to earn that job. But, C.J. are there any realistic contenders here or is this pretty much Seymour is going to have to really, really not have a good camp to lose this thing?
- [04:35]
D
No, look, it's. It's going to be a battle, right? And I think Texas staff knows that. I think Texas fans deserve that after what they watched a year ago at the position. And, you know, looking ahead a little bit, should he have an NFL future, Rod, he's gonna have to take some tricks from you with the weights in the pockets, with the socks and the shoes, whatever he can do to look a little bit taller when it comes to this combine measurement. But he's realistically going to look like the run of the litter when it comes to what Texas has become accustomed to with their offensive line. And.
- [05:06]
B
Right.
- [05:06]
D
We've all kind of paraded around the big humans mantra with Kyle Flood and Steve Sarkeesian. It's kind of basically a foreign concept to sit here and think, hey, this guy's not going to be 6 foot 5, 340. What do you. What do you mean? Right. So the one thing that I look back on and I think the weight room, the body transformation that Sark mentioned is fantastic. I'd like to know what exactly that was given. Again, he's not growing physically. What does he look like from, you know, a. A pulling a power perspective, I guess, is where we're really angling this to. I go to what we heard from Trevor Goosby in Tampa. He said, the first time I saw him in the weight room, my first takeaway was, wow, this guy's explosive. This guy can really, really move himself. But he does so with a lot of force. And we talked about that. Texas has missed and really lacked in that interior. It's physicality and explosiveness. So if that's a bit of some, you know, future telling of what to expect with pads on, I think that's a great sign. But all in all, it's going to be a battle and he's going to have to prove that he is far and away the best option for the Longhorns, especially when you consider the guy that will be in that battle with him is potentially coming in with 48 career appearances and 23 starts.
- [06:21]
C
Rod, I, I've. I'm glad C.J. kind of went there. To us talking about the interior of the Texas offensive line of where it's been the last few years, because under Kyle Flood and Sark, they have not had a problem identifying, you know, developing and getting really good NFL type tackle prospects, even if you look at the job they did with Christian Jones to turn his career around, Kelvin Banks is a first rounder. Trevor Goosby's trending that way. But if you look at the interior, Rod, and I've been critical of Sark for some schematic things on the offensive line. Obviously Kyle Flood has a hand in what didn't happen last year. But when we talk about Roger going from, hey, it's a really good offense to is it good enough to win you a national championship and execute in clutch situations? Is it too simple to say, Rod, that at the end of the day, Texas just hasn't been where it needs to be on the interior center, guard, center. Is it that simple from a personnel standpoint, that it's been good, but you need to be better there specifically to get to where you want to be.
- [07:20]
A
The car is beautiful. Where did you end up going for it? This exclusive place that dad has connections with. They have more cars for more dealerships than like anywhere else. You have to put me in touch. What's it called? It's Dune Dial.
- [07:33]
C
Where?
- [07:35]
A
Dune Dial. There's an accent on the E. Do you mean. Yes, I got it on Dundeel cars. Lift, please. You going past Kimage? Oh, Kimmage. No. Done deal cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere else.
- [07:50]
B
Yeah, that's interesting. I was actually talking to a coach about this a while back and we were talking about Texas run game. And you know, why Texas has been so good recently, at least not in 2025, but when Sark has been here at Texas in the outside zone concept, right. Have they hung their hat on? He said because they have good tackles. Right? You had NFL caliber tackles. That's a great way to kind of, you know, cement that outside zone foundation in your offense. Right? Because that's where it starts right there on the edge that see that D gap? And they haven't, until 2025 really had much of a power gap identity. To your point about the interior O line. And I think they tried to force it actually this year they actually had more gap power scheme runs than zone runs. This year for the first time in Sark's tenure, I think they were trying to force that physicality they were lacking, to Trevor Guzzi's points, like, yeah, they were lacking the physicality. I think Sark tried to schematically exert physicality on teams and he thought that he had, you know, maybe the running back to do it with the Cedric Baxter, but that didn't work out. And I think what they also realized was they weren't athletic enough in the interior. Part of the reason to move Brandon Baker inside, they need to be more athletic. The interior D lineman in the SEC are built different. Right. Even the ones Texas has. And I think that's part of the evolution too. That's like realized. You know what this Lawrence Seymour, yes, a little undersized, but actually may work because the athleticism that he brings and Sarco help him out with the scheme because they move their guards around, really pull their guards a lot. You talk about that, Jeff, all the time. When you talk about the screen game, whether you're talking about pass pro, they pull them in play action all the time as well. And their gap power schemes. This is a guy that actually may add a little bit more to that element of the offense too, because the athleticism, yes, undersized, but maybe that makes him a little bit more compatible with what Sarka wants to do.
- [09:30]
C
C.J. let's, let's, let's expand on that what Rod was just talking about, because I know as an OTF staff, we kind of had some O line conversations when we were down in Tampa for SEC media days. And then I thought it was interesting. We had that conversation one night to the next day. Pete Golding was asked about run games in the sec and he said something that like you, we observe it. But I don't know that I really absorbed it the way I probably should have until he said it. SEC schools are putting so many resources and so much emphasis on getting impact players on the interior D line and making sure you've got really good interior D linemen that can win on the line of scrimmage in college football's ultimate line of scrimmage league that CJ We've never considered guard a premium position and I don't think we ever will, much to my chagrin. But C.J. to Rod's point, maybe it's taking a look at, okay, maybe it's not a body type thing, maybe it's not necessarily a rating thing. Maybe for guards and centers it's fit more than anything and maybe we find that out with the Texas offensive line this year.
- [10:28]
D
Yeah, not to mention you, you just consider how difficult it is to keep your number twos and number threes in your program. Right. Texas saw it this year with Daniel Cruz, Nate Kibble all departing. Obviously Connor Stroh ended up at Kansas, but even before then, right. Guys that were in this program for quite a time not panning out because while there are brighter opportunities to start to, to get paid right away in other programs at, you know, a Baylor or an NC State or Tulane. And that makes sense. And so that's something for me that whenever you consider constructing the roster, yeah, today's day and age, Guard, center, guard, probably doesn't get, you know, the big bucks. It probably doesn't get the emphasis, but it absolutely can make or break your offense or your running game in general. And Texas saw that a year ago. But it's going to be interesting again because the whole conversation about what your running game should look like, well, I think it's bookended off of what you can do. And it's funny looking back at that Ohio State game, we talked about it a little bit in Tampa as well. Jeff, the longest rush or second longest rush of the entire season from C.J. baxter last year was 14 yards. It came on his first rush attempt of the season against Ohio State. What was it? It was Texas under center with him as your eye formation back back there. Two tight ends on the field. You pull the guard and you pull the tight end. Power running scheme, but you did so from the right side.
- [11:52]
B
Right.
- [11:52]
D
It was DJ Campbell and it was, I believe, Jordan Washington at the time that were both pulling. Could you have done that on the opposite side? Could your left guard at any point have been the one to create that hole and kick out? Probably not. So I think that's what you're looking at is athleticism first and foremost. But the way in which these guys are used now, kind of in that half halo pass protection where they're pulled out on the outside, it's all about footwork, it's all about mobility. And that probably goes against what we've heard about with this big humans mantra.
- [12:22]
E
You know, we're always looking for ways to make watching games a little more fun. And that's exactly why we love Prize Picks. It's America's number one sports pick app. And honestly, it's about as simple as it gets for Player picks. All you do is just choose more or less on a few player stats and then you lock in your lineup. That's it. And if you're someone who likes picking teams instead of individual players, Prizepix has you covered there as well. You can now pick the winner, the spread, or the total on games and even fights. And Prize Picks is available in most states, including California, Florida, and right here in the great state of Texas. So chances are you can jump in today. And one of my favorite features is that you can follow users on the app. If you like the picks they're making, you can Tell them with one click. And of course you can follow your friends picks as well. And the best part is, if you've never tried Prize Picks before, they have a new promo for you. Play your first $5 lineup and if you win, they're going to give you $150 in bonus lineups. Just make sure that you use code HMA when you sign up. They actually just updated this offer, so there's never been a better time to get started. And if you want what I'm going with today, I got Pirates pitcher Jared Jones to have more than three and a half strikeouts, along with brewers pitcher Shane Grohan to have less than five and a half. So download the prize Picks app Today, use code HMA and then again when you play the first five five dollar lineup, if you win, you'll get $150 in bonus lineups. That's prize picks, code HMA. And of course, as always, play smart, play responsibly. Play Prize Picks.
- [13:57]
C
We'll get back to left guard specifically here, just a second. But Rod, you mentioned that a Trevor Goosby quote from SEC media days, and I actually asked him about, hey, when you went back and evaluated the run game from an offensive line standpoint, where do you feel like it went wrong? What'd you work on? And shout out to producer Matt, again, we've got this clip queued up. This is Trevor Goosby's answer when I asked him about going to be evaluating the offensive line last year from a run game standpoint. Trevor, when you went back and looked at the run game specifically last year, just from your individual perspective and an online perspective, what did you feel like either didn't click or needed to change? And do you feel like the work you guys have done from, you know, January up until now, do you feel you guys have taken the steps you need to have the kind of run game you want?
- [14:41]
D
Yeah, I feel like sometimes we just, we, you know, first and foremost, we weren't physical enough. Obviously we weren't, you know, moving bodies
- [14:47]
C
the way that we should have.
- [14:48]
D
And then sometimes I always felt like,
- [14:50]
C
you know, we were just kind of playing as five individuals rather than five
- [14:52]
D
is one, you know, and everybody was kind of, it was just kind of five offensive linemen out there rather than one offensive line unit. And that's kind of how I felt about last year. And you know, like I said, with the cohesion of the O line off the field, you know, we've, we're such a tight group this year that, you know, I feel like it'll show on the field.
- [15:09]
C
So, Rod, you hear that about physicality and look, it's not just from an online standpoint like Jabarja. Luke's added a degree of physicality. He's talking about wanting violent runners at running back. They kind of doubled down on tight ends, getting Michael Masunis out of the portal. And, you know, Trevor Groove even talked in that press conference there in Tampa about the impact Steve Kasula has had coming over from the Michigan staff. And I'm working with the tight end, so done a lot of stuff right outside of O line to work on the run game. But Rod, again, getting back to the interior offensive line, are you confident, Rod, how confident are you that it's going to be significantly better? And I'm not talking about a Texas run game that's going to average 300 yards on the ground. But more often than not, do you feel like Texas at the point where we can count on them more often than not to execute situationally in those situations like we talked about earlier, short yardage, goal line, red zone. Because that's where the crux of the issue has been.
- [15:59]
B
Yeah, there's no doubt. I, I do think, you know, Sark is hoping that one of these backs that's, that he's called, he's brought in in the, you know, in this class, whether it be transfer reporter religion Brown and Hollywood smothers or a young Derrick Cooper that they have that innate and I call it a violent twitch that you need when you get to red zone goal line charge. And Texas had two of them, Rojo and Dijon, when he first got here. And you were a top 10, top 5 red zone offense in the country. That is not a coincidence.
- [16:28]
C
All right.
- [16:29]
B
Those, I think those are just special kinds of backs. C.J. you did a great breakdown and suggested the, the analytics stats say really, Brown could end up being that guy that has that violent twitch. I think that's going to be key for him. But in terms of the offensive line, you just need at this point, I think you need an offensive line that's going to give you a push. And, you know, with Brandon Baker now inside and Lawrence Seymour inside, you know, hopefully you can get a push inside to give those back attacks. All right, a little bit of yards. You know, before contact last year, the reason that you didn't get a lot of explosive plays, you know, you don't have Bijani Rojo back there who could break three, four tackles and still get them five, six yards. You know, with a trey wiser in that backfield C.J. baxter, when those guys got hit at the line of scrimmage or behind the line of scrimmage, your plays are pretty much dead. Which is why you had some of the worst tackle for loss numbers since Sark has been here too. And you had the least explosive running game in Sark's tenure. So to get back to the explosivity, I do think you're going to get back to running more outside zone. I think Sark will start popping some of those big runs and I think with the relief Brown and Hollywood smothers those types of players, it does fit their skill sets to be able to pop those C and those D gap runs. He's still going to mix in the power in the gap schemes. But I think when Sarks talked about getting back to their style of running the football, he's talking about getting some chunk yards and that means getting to the outside gaps via the outside zone.
- [17:47]
C
C.J. i'm gonna make a generalization here. You tell me if I'm wrong. Getting back to the left guard battle specifically. I feel like they went out and got Lawrence Seymour because I. I just don't know that they were confident that Jaden Chapman was going to take that next step or at least not leaving it to chance that he would. But CJ it does seem like Lawrence Seymour at the very least is going to be a one year buffer because it does sound like whether it's Dylan Sikorski or Jackson Christian or Jordan Coleman. It does. Even John Turntine at tackle. And you know, going back to Jerry Hamilton's report, we may see in camp John Turntine at center a little bit. Just seeing what that looks like. C.J. it does sound like they're excited about some of the younger guys. It's just that they may not quite be ready for prime time yet.
- [18:30]
D
Yeah, that's probably most likely the case. And Jeff, we've talked about it on plenty of shows. You don't really want to be young on the offensive line. And you know, when you have an option like seymour with over 1200 career snaps or even Dylan Sikorsky, who I think gets lost in the shuffle at Times, who played 440 snaps a year ago, started eight games for Oregon State, that is again another serviceable option for you here. Now, who creates the biggest difference? Who becomes the most reliable option? Well, Rod, we talked about it right before we went live. I kind of look at it as which of these guys can protect the quarterback the most effective consistently. I think that is what you look at and say going into camp, he's probably going to be your number one option. The run game will follow. And Sarkis talked about it too. The running back talent alone should elevate that position or that that area of the game. And I don't disagree though, in the areas that we talked about, red zone, short distance, you need that push up front. I'm not denying that. But holistically, what does this offense really like to do? They like to throw the football. They like play action pass. They like just the threat of the running game to make you think it's coming and then boom, over the top. But you have to protect the quarterback. And that's something that boy, when you look back, and I know I'm referencing PFF a lot here, you look back at the past protection grades a year ago of left guards that Texas trotted out there. Nick Brooks 17.1, Cole Hudson 43.9, 64.9. And that's why Kansas, you know, dropped a pretty considerable nil bag to get him to Lawrence. But that's when Lawrence Seymour comes in. I know it's not SEC level talent, but you allow one sack, eight pressure and only have one penalty on the entire season. And pass protection while having a grade that's 82.6, that to me tells me, okay, the kid can move 1 and 2. That size isn't a, a massive detriment to what he can do on pass protection. I think going into camp he needs to be the guy that comes out of this. But we'll see who pushes that.
- [20:29]
C
And then Rod, real quick to wrap us up, Cole Hudson does have his hearing for to get his injunction on August 3rd, right before camp starts. But Rod, you know, CJ pointed out Cole Hudson, you know, towards the end of the year, you kind of found a combination that worked with Hudson at left guard and Connor Robertson at center. Rod, there's a, you know, better than CJRI Everwell. There's a difference between kind of working out on your own, trying to stay in shape, and going through summer workouts with the team. Let's say Cole Hudson gets the injunction and he's eligible, right? Like, what can you realistically expect from him? Just rejoining the team, presumably, right when camp starts?
- [21:04]
B
Yeah, I mean, you're right about that. Even Sark talked about that with Lawrence Seymour. Right. He wasn't with the team during the spring summer workouts. Very different than putting the pads on. It may take him a little while just to get acclimated, but I'll say that this is A guy that played a lot of football at Texas in that system. So Cole Hudson will probably have a mental edge over a lot of guys, if not a physical edge, conditioning wise, because he knows the system, he knows it really, really well. And honestly, if it comes down to a competition between him and Seymour, that's one of the edges he'll have on Seymour is he knows the scheme really well. Seymour hadn't really played with any of those guys in any form or fashion. So cohesion, continuity and chemistry on the O line, working as a unit, as Trevor Goosby said, they got to be hive minded. So how quickly can a Lawrence Seymour mentally get on the same track with everybody else on that O line? So I do think it's, it's going to be interesting if Cole Hudson does indeed, if he's available. I think it's only a good thing though, is advantageous to Texas. Even if he loses the competition, you still would like to have, have, you know, high caliber guys and guys you can trust, trustworthy offensive linemen that are in the rotation. And he would definitely be one of those guys.
- [22:18]
C
C.J. i know you've got one last thought to wrap us up here.
- [22:21]
D
Yeah, look, I, I think, you know, the idea of Cole Hudson coming back with all these starts and all of these appearances and obviously being in the system with Kyle Flood for four years is great. And we talk about that, that rhythm that the offense found, right. The offense certainly towards the back half of the season found a rhythm. But when I talk about Texas needing to take that step, beating the Ohio States, beating the Georgias, right. And really you could probably lump in the level of defense with the Oklahoma and Texas A M into that conversation as well. You need pass protection and Cole Hudson was the leading pressure allower. Against Georgia he had six. Against Texas A M he had four. If that's what you end up back with, with that combination of Hudson and Connor Robertson in that middle, can you definitively say that your offensive line in the interior improved from a year ago? And right now I would probably say no, considering you didn't have the weight room, you didn't have the summer, you didn't have the spring to fix or tinker with what some of those issues were against elite level talent. So again, it's going to be a competition. We rattled off the five names that we expect to at least see some sort of first or second team snaps and at the left guard position right now I would be a little wearisome if that's what Texas trotted out against Ohio State Week 2 was the same thing that we saw become their Achilles heel a year ago.
- [23:43]
C
As of Monday, 40 days until the season kicks off. It's a lot of time for us, but not a lot of time for Kyle Flood to get this offensive line figured out and figured out who his starting left guard is going to be for that September 5th opener against Texas State. All right, Rod, C.J. thank you guys for the time, the knowledge, the intel, the expertise. As always, big shout out to Matthew behind the scenes doing the great job that he does for us here at On Texas Football. Shout out to prize picks for sponsoring this edition of On Texas Football. If you're not a member over@ontexasfootball.com make sure you get over to the site, check out everything we've got going on over there. Make sure that you like this video. Make sure you're subscribed to the on Texas Football YouTube channel, and make sure you've got your notifications set. That way, anytime we go live or drop a new video, you're not going to miss any of our Longhorn coverage or breaking news. For Rod, for C.J. for Matthew, for the entire On Texas Football staff, I'm Jeff Howell. Thank you so much for watching and listening. And until next time, welcome.
- [24:31]
A
The car is beautiful. Where did you end up going for it? This exclusive place that dad has connections with. They have more cars for more dealerships than like anywhere else. You have to put me in touch. What's it called? It's Dun D. Where? Dun D. There's an accent on the
- [24:48]
B
E.
- [24:50]
A
Do you mean. Yes. I got it undone. Deal cars. Lift, please. You going past Kimage? Oh, Kimmage. No. Done. Deal cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere else.
- [25:01]
B
You're welcome.