Texas Longhorns’ offensive line bulldoze everything in its path with Georgia Bulldogs the next obstruction

On Saturday, Oklahoma unveiled some new defensive wrinkles the Texas offensive line didn’t expect. The Longhorns were dominating the Sooners in such a fashion, nobody noticed. 

“We just kind of had to adjust to it,” center Jake Majors said.

OU players shouldn't feel too bad. Texas’ offensive line is dominating everybody, it seems.

The Horns have won all six games so far, and three different players have been honored as the SEC’s Offensive Lineman of the Week. Left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. was named the Outland Trophy National Player of the Week on Tuesday.

This whole group is steamrolling its way to the Joe Moore Award, presented to the nations’ best offensive line.

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Not to nitpick, but can this group take it another level? Is there another level?

“Yeah, definitely. I think every player always has more that they could have done on certain situations,” Banks said. “Obviously, everybody goes out and plays their hardest. But there’s definitely a lot we can do to just make sure we go out there every week and make sure we have the cleanest game through an execution standpoint.”

It’s hard to see what more Banks could have done against the Sooners. On 35 plays where Banks dropped back into pass protection, Banks didn’t allow any quarterback pressure.

Heck, the Sooners got a sack on the game’s first play before everyone had settled their nerves. By the time it was over, OU was credited with two quarterback hurries the entire day.

Through six games, Texas has allowed a total of six sacks. The Horns have the nation’s seventh-best scoring offense (43.2 points) and seventh-best total offense (495.7 yards). The offense ranks 13th nationally in third-down conversion (50%). And the offense has scored 29 touchdowns on 33 trips inside the opponent’s 20-yard line.

“They’re for real in the trenches,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said Monday. “They’ve got really good players, and they’re built like an SEC team.”

Smart said his defensive unit is best when the Bulldogs are rushing four players. “Our best rushers have been rushing well when they’re out there,” Smart said.

Outside linebacker Jalon Walker has a team-high 17 quarterback hurries with 1.5 sacks. The Dawgs are pushing the quarterback around, but with just 11 sacks for the season, they’re not getting them to the ground.

Now compare that to what Texas is doing right now. Banks, Hayden Conner, Majors, DJ Campbell and Cam Williams (left to right) are playing exceptional football at the moment. Take a bow, offensive line coach Kyle Flood. OK, now get back to work.

“Of course, we just want to continue to get better in the run game and the pass protection game,” Majors said. “I said this after the game on Saturday. Like, we’re far from a finished product. We’ve still got to continue to work out efficient ways to communicate amongst each other.

“We see certain looks, and we’ve just got to continue to remember the rules that we have on certain plays when we get certain looks at. We may not have practiced as much as we like to during the week, but we still got to be able to recall those rules and call upon them whenever we see certain stuff.”

Majors said Flood’s specialty is boiling down offensive concepts to where it’s like “a multiple choice question.” If the defense does this, you block that. If on third down the defense gives you a certain look, here are the only possibilities it could be.

In the end, offensive linemen can’t fail the exam. If you don’t know what to do, just go hit somebody.

“I feel like we’ve gone out there and the stuff coach Flood has wanted us to do, we went out and did it,” Banks said. “Obviously not everything’s going to be perfect. So we’ve had our bumps in the roads and our mistakes that we’ve made as a whole unit. But I feel like so far, we've been doing pretty good.”