NEWS NOW: Three freshman from Texas are blazing before the bye week.
In the first five weeks of the season, several gifted freshmen for the No. 2 Texas football team, along with head coach Steve Sarkisian, have made significant contributions. Texas boasts an unbeaten 5-0 (1-0 SEC) record after five regular season games, and none of these contests have been very close.
After the first five games of 2024, Texas football’s rookies are starting to make an impression.
Due to Texas’ early lead in four of the team’s first five regular-season games in late August and early September, Sarkisian and his staff were able to move a number of emerging underclassmen down the depth chart and give them important live-game reps.
This season, the Longhorns weren’t exactly in a position where they had to start a ton of true freshman. At almost every position group on both sides of the ball, Sarkisian and his staff have amassed the skill and depth needed to compete with the players they have previously nurtured in Austin over the last few years.
For the Longhorns to be on the field regularly during live games, the freshmen who have made significant contributions early in the fall have truly earned their stripes. These three Longhorns freshmen are killing it on the field in September as they head into their bye week.
Vasek Colton, EDGE
Top playmakers at the position including true freshman Colin Simmons, junior Ethan Burke, senior Barryn Sorrell, and redshirt junior Trey Moore highlight Texas’s deep EDGE room this season.
However, Texas has also had some freshmen come on strong toward the end of games and perform admirably at the EDGE position for the front seven. In order to demonstrate his abilities on the field early in the fall, redshirt freshman Colton Vasek is a prime example of a first- or second-year player for the Longhorns’ defensive front who has made the most of the reps he’s received late in games.
Despite only playing 20 defensive snaps as a pass rusher after the season’s first five games, Vasek has already registered five quarterback pressures, two sacks, and three tackles for loss.
In Week 3, Texas easily defeated the UTSA Roadrunners 56-7, and in the second half of the game, Vasek recorded his first sack of his college career. With a terrific inside move, he acquired a solid launch point and quickly blew apart the opposing offense’s pocket to sack the UTSA quarterback.
Vasek recorded his first SEC sack of his college career last weekend in the SEC opener victory over the Mississippi State Bulldogs, putting their offense deep behind the chains during a first-and-10 play.
Vasek is obviously going to have a great future leading Texas’s defensive front off the edge. When Texas is leading by a few scores in the second half of a game, the early indications of improvement he’s displayed this autumn should continue to translate.
