Texas Six-Pack: Breakout players on defense

By Steve Habel, Senior Contributing Writer

AUSTIN, Texas — If there is any real question about the Texas football team entering the 2019 campaign, it’s about the Longhorns’ defense, a group that has had to replace eight starters from last year’s 10-4 squad that beat Georgia in the Allstate Sugar Bowl.

In this, the second half of our preseason look at our “Texas Six-Pack” of potential breakthrough players, we look at the defensive side of the ball, identifying Longhorns who need to step up, and out of the shadows.[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]

Horns Illustrated will update the progress of this group throughout the season, and monitor their “impact factor” as Texas battles through its demanding 2019 campaign.

Keondre Coburn — redshirt freshman nose tackle
The 6-foot-2, 340-pound Coburn has earned the starting spot over center because of his rapid improvement in the fundamentals, and without a doubt, his massive size.

Coburn played in three games last season — versus West Virginia, at Kansas and in the Sugar Bowl against Georgia — and had two total tackles. But stats are only part of the story.

Texas utilized the NCAA’s redshirt rules to get Coburn into the games in which he figure to be the most comfortable, and playing when he did, especially against the talented and physical Bulldogs, allowed Coburn to set his own expectations high this season.

“It took me all last year to learn the plays, how to be a college football player, how to be useful to this program,” Coburn said. “Now I feel like I’m up to date.”

Defensive line coach Oscar Giles said Coburn’s improvement has been by leaps and bounds.

“He won’t like me saying his, but Keondre kind of has his own leverage,” Giles said. “He’s gonna be a handful in the middle of the line, and that’s right what we need.”

It may be a little optimistic to think Coburn can immediately fill the shoes of his immediate predecessor at nosetackle — Chris Nelson is now in camp with the NFL’s Tennessee Titans — but he may have a higher upside than Nelson or Poona Ford, now of the Seattle Seahawks.

Jeffrey McCulloch — senior linebacker
Most Texas fans remember McCulloch (nicknamed “The Shark”) for his a 65-yard interception return last year that sealed a win at Kansas and sent the Longhorns into the Big 12 championship game.

McCulloch will need more plays like that to establish himself as a leader of the Texas defense; the good news is that he is primed to improve on his play from the past three years.

McCulloch, with 36 career games over three years and six starts last season, has twice as many appearances as the rest of UT’s linebackers combined. He has 66 total tackles, 39 of them solo, in those contests, with 3.5 sacks and two forced fumbles.

McCulloch has moved to rover from B-backer, and the transition has been relatively seamless.

“He looks pretty natural there,” Texas head coach Tom Herman said about McCulloch. “I know it’s a little bit different than being the B-backer on the line of scrimmage, but Coach (Todd) Orlando, for three years, has been cross-training all those guys. The good thing is that we blitz our Rover quite a bit and (McCulloch is) a pretty good pass rusher, too.”

We are expecting 60-plus tackles out of “The Shark” this season, numbers that will help him lead the defense.

Kobe Boyce — sophomore cornerback
Consistent and productive play from the cornerbacks was one of the real goals for Herman and his staff during preseason camp, and Boyce has stepped up and taken the bull by the horns, as it were.

Boyce, who played in six games last season and had two starts, was one of the two starting cornerbacks (along with freshman Jalen Green) in its final preseason scrimmage Aug. 17.

“Kobe has had a great preseason camp and has come along, maturity-wise, ” Texas cornerbacks coach Jason Washington said. “He learned from the three guys that were here in that spot last year and are playing at the next level. Kobe is understanding the game a lot more, which is allowing him to play a lot faster and with a lot more confidence. I’m excited to watch him.”

Washington is looking more consistency from Boyce.

“If we give up a pass or something, he has to have a forgetful attitude and approach the next play with the right frame of mind,” Washington said.
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