Experienced offensive line, deep defensive line lead Texas Longhorns into SEC

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Great football teams have a great offensive line, and as far as Texas Longhorns co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Kyle Flood is concerned, his squad fits the bill perfectly.

With training camp set to begin Wednesday for the Longhorns, Flood and other assistant coaches spoke with media members as an unofficial kick-off to the preseason. Texas, picked by media members to finish second in its first Southeastern Conference season, returns almost the entire offensive line from last year's College Football Playoff team. Only Christian Jones left for the NFL, and Flood said the unit's high expectations should be viewed as a privilege.

"It raises the bar and raises expectations to play at a high level," Flood said. "You have to earn those expectations."

Led by center Jake Majors who returns with 41 career starts, the Longhorns offensive line is experienced and deep. Flood said he anticipates up to eight guys, potentially more, to contribute in a significant way this season. Left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. has started in all 27 games he's played in and was a first-team All-SEC preseason selection after his second-team All-America honor last season. DJ Campbell, Cole Hutson, Cam Williams and Hayden Conner have combined to play in 100 games throughout their careers and 5-star freshman recruit Brandon Baker joins the fray, so the Longhorns are set up for success up front.

"This is a rare year. I've only had this situation a couple of times," he said. "Going into my fourth year here, working with these players and having this number of starts returning. We have high standards in the room and we're looking forward to the next month to do everything we need to do."

Texas ranked No. 9 in the country in total offense last season, averaging 477.5 yards per game, and a lot of that starts with the big guys up front.

On the defensive side, defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski said he likes the depth along the defensive line. That's what made them so good last season, especially against the run, so now the focus turns to becoming perfect when it comes to fundamentals.

"Block destruction, across the board," he said. "We've got to create turnovers, create fumbles ... we'd love to get more production punching the ball out, and tackling."

He said the Longhorns had an 80% tackle rate, meaning they missed 20% of their attempted takedowns, and he'd love for that to be closer to 85% or 90%. He said a lot of the passing yards they allowed last season would go down because a lot of the missed tackles were in the secondary.

"Every year, you're always trying to find that edge to get you over the hump," he said.

Special teams coordinator Jeff Banks said, flat out, that Michael Taaffe and Mo Blackwell are the best players in the program as far as the special teams aspect goes.

"How they work, how they drill, their attentiveness in meetings and ability to tell people how we're going to do it and lead ... those two guys are phenomenal," Banks said. "Those two are going to be the leaders, no doubt."

Banks said the special teams will need a more robust rotation of players, like offense and defense, because the season could last longer depending on the expanded College Football Playoff. He said there's a good group of younger players looking to contribute, but also a couple of transfers in Matthew Golden and Silas Bolden. He expects to use both speedy wide receivers in the return game.

Golden returned two kicks for touchdowns last season at Houston while Bolden returned one for a score at Oregon State.

"They're proven returners at the places they were at," he said, "but at the end of the day, we're going to have to block people."