With all eyes on Texas' offense, don't forget about the defensive line
Josh Pate explains how the Cam Coleman practice clip distracted from the bigger story at Texas: a potentially dominant defensive line featuring Justus Terry, Lance Jackson, and Colin Simmons that could make this a team capable of winning games in multiple ways this season.
Video Transcript
If you have internet, I know you saw it over the weekend.
I know you saw the, declassified CIA footage of the alien there in Austin.
That's not enhanced in any way.
That's just something Cam Coleman did on the practice field.
Now look, if this clip were to surface in 2006, everyone would rightfully marvel at it.
But this is 2026, so 70% of people who saw it marveled at it, and then you've got, 15% who are saying, "Well, man, that's a hospital ball in the game.
Yep, I don't see any defense."
And then there was a unhealthy amount of people who just fixated on who threw the ball.
I just assumed everyone understood that ball was tipped at the line of scrimmage, but that was not understood by everyone.
So that became a freakout fest on how Arch Manning doesn't have a tight end on spiral for some people.
I just took it to mean I don't think there are, like, 10 other humans on the planet that I'm aware of that could make that play, make that catch, independent of whether he's ever gonna do it in a game.
Cam Coleman's a stud, and I think he'll stand out this year for them.
That's not breaking news.
But it's kind of masking, to me, the bigger story.
Number one, offensively, that's, "Hey, Ryan Wingo's still there."
I haven't heard his name much 'cause everyone's focused on Cam Coleman, rightfully so, but that's still not the point I'm ma- trying to make.
The point I'm trying to make is this defensive line could be hellacious, and no one's talking about defense.
Texas fans may be, but everyone outside of Austin's just focused on Arch Manning and focused on the passing game and added a couple of running backs from the portal, but just focused on offense mainly.
Justice Terry, Lance Jackson, we already knew coming into this season about Colin Simmons, but some of these other guys, plus the interior guys that they have and the depth they have here, that plus the addition of a guy like Biles at linebacker, that Texas defense, kind of the same thing I just said about Miami, if on the off chance offense just sputters, maybe, maybe turnover issues, and Texas has got a much tougher schedule than Miami, this is a team that can win a game in several different ways.
That's what I believe about them.
