Kyle Flood and the interior OL

[ChanmanV]

Outside of the tackle position, Kyle Flood has been awful in developing and recruiting interior OL since he's been at Texas. Here are the list notable OL he's recruited:

DJ Campbell
Cole Hutson
Connor Robertson
Hayden Connor
Neto Umeozulu
Connor Stroh
Daniel Cruz
Nate Kibble
Jayden Chapman
Jordan/Devin Coleman
Max Merrill
Andrej Karic
Nick Brooks
Brandon Baker

None of these guys have been standouts (JAGs mostly) and some have even transferred which is crazy given how poor the starters have been. That's a lot of misses for 5-6 years. You'd think at least 1 player would have been all conference material from a reputable OL coach. He's put 2 OT in the NFL and soon to be 3 which he should get full credit for but the interior line has been an issue almost every year. He's lucky Jake Majors (Herb Hand/Herman recruit) carried that role for him so long but since he's been gone, it's been a disaster. 

It's clear as day that high school recruiting for interior offensive line has been a huge failure for us. So either we need to put more money into getting top talent at every position on the Oline (ie Ohio State) or Kyle Flood needs to go. We're all tired of the same Oline narrative every year. 

[Red Five]

I think we're running some kind of social experiment. How long can the IOL be the worst part of your team while the OL coach keeps his job (and gets offseason raises)?

[Shmatt]

Yeah keeping Kyle Flood is just coaching malpractice by Sark

If he wants to keep his job he will have to make these “hard” decisions 

[TexTheHorn24]

Dylan Sikorski genuinely the only acceptable guy we’ve ever had in the interior OL under flood ever lmao 

[JMarquette]

11 minutes ago, Shmatt said:

Yeah keeping Kyle Flood is just coaching malpractice by Sark

If he wants to keep his job he will have to make these “hard” decisions 

It’s unfortunate because I think we were all gaslit into thinking that Flood would be better with better personnel. 

[ThatHornsGuy87]

There's a reason @Joe Z and myself have been 10 toes down on this for a few years. Got Quinn killed and now Arch

[Joe Z]

Just now, ThatHornsGuy87 said:

There's a reason @Joe Z and myself have been 10 toes down on this for a few years. Got Quinn killed and now Arch

We are tough soldiers brother. Trust me I never wanted to be right about it either 

[Jeff Howe]

Outside of guys inherited from the previous regime (Hayden Conner and Jake Majors turned out to be NFL players) and the 2022 recruiting class (DJ Campbell was drafted, albeit later than expected), I’ve been disappointed.

Interior offensive line play should be markedly better than it was last season. You can argue that it’s worse.

[FHS Mr B]

4 minutes ago, Jeff Howe said:

Outside of guys inherited from the previous regime (Hayden Conner and Jake Majors turned out to be NFL players) and the 2022 recruiting class (DJ Campbell was drafted, albeit later than expected), I’ve been disappointed.

Interior offensive line play should be markedly better than it was last season. You can argue that it’s worse.

@Jeff Howe  no argument.... it's worse, worse, worse....

[Red Five]

5 minutes ago, Jeff Howe said:

Outside of guys inherited from the previous regime (Hayden Conner and Jake Majors turned out to be NFL players) and the 2022 recruiting class (DJ Campbell was drafted, albeit later than expected), I’ve been disappointed.

Interior offensive line play should be markedly better than it was last season. You can argue that it’s worse.

It's most definitely worse than it was at the end of the 2025 season. About the same as it was with Stroh playing, which is simply amazing. 

[ClubWhatever]

The Head Coach signs off on every take.

[Joe Z]

But don’t worry Gerry will defend flood for it watch 

[ChanmanV]

15 hours ago, TexTheHorn24 said:

Dylan Sikorski genuinely the only acceptable guy we’ve ever had in the interior OL under flood ever lmao 

He didn't develop Sykorski. I didn't include any people we grabbed out of the portal that was developed elsewhere for the most part.

[ChanmanV]

15 hours ago, Jeff Howe said:

Outside of guys inherited from the previous regime (Hayden Conner and Jake Majors turned out to be NFL players) and the 2022 recruiting class (DJ Campbell was drafted, albeit later than expected), I’ve been disappointed.

Interior offensive line play should be markedly better than it was last season. You can argue that it’s worse.

The biggest head coaching malpractice is Sark allowing an Oline coach to think Cole Hutson was a good enough center last spring to start last season. That was a disaster. Outside of some of the OSU game, at no point last year with Hutson at center were we any good. So to avoid calamity, we swapped our backup center (Robertson) to salvage what we could from the second half of the season as a band aid. I have to question a coach that would even think that was even close to the level we needed to be a contender. 

That's the first fireable offense in my opinion since we wasted a great defense last year too because of that lapse in judgement. The second offense is thinking this backup caliber center was good enough to run it back again this year and go against a full season of SEC DTs. Surely a good coach would have spent the money and gotten a top tier center knowing we barely got out of last year without disaster with a backup level center. I don't know what Flood expects from Robertson who is a bit undersized and not strong enough. He's done an admirable job but everyone could have told you that he would get ragdolled as a starter the whole season.  Where is the "standard" Sark talks about all the time? The "standard" surely isn't having a backup caliber center as your starting center and just getting by right?

And the funny thing on top of that is we still run mostly inside zone even with Robertson getting pushed back 2-3 yards on many plays. 

Edited 34 minutes ago by ChanmanV