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Insider team notes: Thursday

By Gerry Hamilton

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The Longhorns are not practicing today, but will return to the field Friday for practice. 

So on this off day for the team, thought it would be a great time to deliver a few notes OnTexasFootball has picked up in recent days. 

* Trey Moore has been talked about the top/best pass rusher on the team in some circles already. That's because he has both finesse and power moves with twitch. What hasn't been talked about as much is his ability to be effective in the run game. One area he has impressed early on is his ability to set the edge. 

* Freshman Wardell Mack has made positive impressions at cornerback due to his advanced understanding of press coverage from a technical standpoint. He does some things naturally in press coverage that will help him maximize long term. 

* Left guard Neto Umeozulu was said to have had his best run of practices at Texas leading up to the Sugar Bowl. That began the last week of the regular season too. The spring thus far, it's been more of the same. Consistency in the film room and on the field. 

* Colin Simmons is showing the ability to be disruptive in spurts without being assignment sound. All of that is expected through a few spring practices as an early enrollee. His ability to create some chaos in the backfield is evident. 

* Ryan Wingo has been talked about plenty already. The continued theme OTF is hearing is a real skill set with ball skills. 

* Andrew Mukuba was mentioned on Monday by Steve Sarkisian. OTF was told he is a "savvy" player that has picked up the Texas playbook very smoothly. Texas is very happy with Mukuba in coverage, and the willingness to be physical. 

* Brandon Baker and Daniel Cruz may not be mentioned as much the first couple of weeks of spring practice due to the experienced depth and left guard battle, but Texas is very pleased with the two early enrollee OL's. Both are good in the OL room, and are proving to be keepers on the field out of the gate. 

* Freshmen safeties Xavier Filsaime and Jordon Johnson-Rubell have shown physicality early on. Filsaime has been talked about more in that manner early on, but JJ-R has also answered the that call. Both are said to be purposeful players that have flashed at both safety and in special teams thus far. 

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    Freshman

    Park Gothic

    Members
    1 hour ago, closetojumping said:

    The guy flat out whiffed on touching defenders in numerous plays throughout the season. "Sound" is doing a lot of work in your post. All accounts have Neto being a better performer towards then end of last season and into spring practices. Sounds like the best player is winning the spot and, thank goodness.

    You aren't wrong about Hayden Conner. But he's a longhorn legend for icing the Bama game with a single hand. 

     

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    • Freshman

    Stonedhornfan

    Supporters

    Hayden Conner is a good college player. Neto has high NFL upside, it’s not an insult to say you’d like the higher ceiling guy to take the job 

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    • Sophomore

    FrancoBevo3.0

    Members

    I’d love to see significant improvement in the back end of our D. That was just painful to watch at times last year.

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    • Lifetime Longhorn

    NothinButDaHorns34

    Supporters
    11 minutes ago, FrancoBevo3.0 said:

    I’d love to see significant improvement in the back end of our D. That was just painful to watch at times last year.

    It’s crazy the secondary has been below average since sark got here. Hence why gideon and joseph didn’t get raises to prove it this year. I worry about starting taffee with his lack of athleticism that he’ll get exposed early and often. 

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    • All-American

    Glass Joe

    Supporters
    5 hours ago, 4thandFive said:

    I am interested to see whether or not Texas will get holding calls FOR them or if it’s just something that is being largely ignored in college football.

    More broadly, I’m interested to see the difference in how SEC refs call the game, versus the clown show of B12 officiating.

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    • Sophomore

    codaxx

    Members
    17 hours ago, Longhornfocus said:

    Love all the info on the newcomers. Y’all have been killing it as usual. Bit surprised to not hear much about Jaray Bledsoe. Any updates there? Hoping he can make the leap soon.

    It’s hard to have any movement on the DL with 1 or 2 days with pads on. Need at least a week a pads on to get any real idea of how well the DL/OL are doing. 

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    • Freshman

    Longhornfocus

    Members
    32 minutes ago, codaxx said:

    It’s hard to have any movement on the DL with 1 or 2 days with pads on. Need at least a week a pads on to get any real idea of how well the DL/OL are doing. 

    That's probably true and a good point, although I believe we heard reports that Bryant and Savea were working with the 2's. Not sure what to make of Savea jumping Bledsoe already in such short time (as you mention). 

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    • Sophomore

    codaxx

    Members
    3 hours ago, Longhornfocus said:

    That's probably true and a good point, although I believe we heard reports that Bryant and Savea were working with the 2's. Not sure what to make of Savea jumping Bledsoe already in such short time (as you mention). 

    Going to be a lot of experimenting going on during spring/fall camp.  We will generally over-react to each one. We will see how it looks at the end of camp 

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