Bevo Sports

Position Rating: B+
Starter: Brian Orakpo, Henry Melton
Reserves: Eddie Jones, Sam Acho, Russell Carter, Aaron Lewis

Even after moving two of the position’s best players inside to defensive tackle, defensive end is still one of the team’s greatest strengths heading into the season. There’s a possible dominant pass rusher in Brian Orakpo and on the other side there’s an interesting battle brewing for the power end. The talent and depth at the position may be the strongest of any position on the team.

Orakpo has all the tools to be a disruptive force off the edge. He had a solid 9 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks despite only appearing in nine games and not being 100% last season due to a knee injury in the season opener. After an impressive Holiday Bowl performance (4.5 tackles behind the line and 2 sacks) Texas fans are hoping for the same thing for an entire healthy season.

At the power end former running back Henry Melton is currently expected to be the starter but is being pushed by young and extremely talented players behind him. At 6-foot-3 and 265 pounds, if he can play hard every down Melton could play himself into a lot of NFL money this season. If he stumbles there’s a lot of talent ready to step up behind him.

Sophomore Eddie Jones is a former five-star recruit and will split time with Melton to start the year. Jones is the future at the position and I expect him to get a larger and larger share of the snaps as the season progresses regardless of how well Melton performs. Behind Orakpo is exciting sophomore Sam Acho. He didn’t play a ton last year but he showed incredible flashes of ability and a knack at getting after the quarterback during his true freshman season.

Overall defensive end should be a position well stocked with talent for the next several years. This season there’s talent and depth and if guys fulfill their promise it will make a huge difference to the entire defense. If the line can put pressure on the quarterback everyone else’s job gets a lot easier.

Update: Official depth chart for FAU is out and Aaron Lewis is listed as a co-starter with Melton so I’ve added him to the list of reserves.

Related Links

• Quarterbacks preview
• Running backs preview
• Tight ends preview
• Wide receivers preview
• Defensive tackles preview

Update: Bevo Sports is giving away NCAA Football 09, enter to win!

NCAA Football 09 is less than a month away, the demo is up on Xbox Live and the Playstation Network, and player ratings are starting to make their way on to the Internet. EA Sports released the team top 25 and player ratings for all those teams.

I went through the list and put the players’ real names in where possible. I had trouble with a lot of the true freshmen in the game so if you know who any of the blank names are or if I made any mistakes please let me know in the comments. It really looks like EA did a poor job this year on the roster and depth chart. Hopefully it’s a little more accurate when the game is released.

You can download Excel files of the player ratings at the bottom of this post or check out the overall ratings for the Texas team below:

Real Name	Name	Year	Position	Rating
Buck Burnette	C #66	Soph(RS)	C	78
	C #60	Fresh	C	72
Deon Beasley	CB #7	Junior	CB	85
Ryan Palmer	CB #13	Senior(RS)	CB	84
Curtis Brown	CB #3	Soph	CB	83
Aaron Williams	CB #26	Fresh	CB	80
Chykie Brown	CB #8	Soph(RS)	CB	80
Earl Thomas	CB #12	Fresh(RS)	CB	78
DJ Monroe	CB #27	Fresh	CB	76
Roy Miller	DT #99	Senior	DT	90
Jarvis Humphrey	DT #96	Fresh	DT	80
Brian Ellis	DT #90	Soph(RS)	DT	78
Ben Alexander	DT #92	Junior	DT	76
Kheeston Randall	DT #88	Fresh	DT	76
Chris Ogbonnayya	FB #3	Senior(RS)	FB	93
Cody Johnson	FB #31	Fresh(RS)	FB	72
Ben Wells	FS #5	Fresh(RS)	FS	84
Christian Scott	FS #6	Fresh(RS)	FS	77
Blake Gideon	FS #21	Fresh	FS	77
Vondrell McGee	HB #2	Soph(RS)	HB	85
DeSean Hales	HB #30	Fresh	HB	80
Antwan Cobb	HB #24	Soph(RS)	HB	79
Fozzy Whittaker	HB #22	Fresh(RS)	HB	78
Jeremy Hills	HB #32	Fresh	HB	76
Tre Newton	HB #23	Fresh	HB	73
Hunter Lawrence	K #15	Junior	K	82
Justin Tucker	K #9	Fresh	K	69
Lamarr Houston	LE #33	Junior	LE	91
Aaron Lewis	LE #95	Senior	LE	85
Henry Melton	LE #37	Senior	LE	80
Charlie Tanner	LG #52	Junior(RS)	LG	86
Tray Allen	LG #70	Soph	LG	82
Chris Hall	LG #71	Junior(RS)	LG	81
Aundre McGaskey	LG #76	Fresh(RS)	LG	74
Sergio Kindle	LOLB #2	Junior	LOLB	85
	LOLB #16	Fresh	LOLB	80
	LOLB #57	Fresh	LOLB	76
David Snow	LT #78	Fresh	LT	78
Britt Mitchell	LT #72	Soph(RS)	LT	78
Rashad Bobino	MLB #44	Senior(RS)	MLB	90
Jared Norton	MLB #11	Junior	MLB	85
Trevor Gerland	P #17	Junior(RS)	P	83
Colt McCoy	QB #12	Junior(RS)	QB	89
Sherrod Harris	QB #17	Soph(RS)	QB	81
John Chiles	QB #7	Soph	QB	79
Eddie Jones	RE #32	Soph(RS)	RE	92
Brian Orakpo	RE #98	Senior(RS)	RE	90
Russell Carter	RE #97	Fresh(RS)	RE	77
Cedric Dockery	RG #55	Senior(RS)	RG	89
Michael Huey	RG #63	Soph	RG	81
Roddrick Muckelroy	ROLB #38	Junior(RS)	ROLB	87
Keenan Robinson	ROLB #53	Fresh(RS)	ROLB	82
	ROLB #4	Fresh	ROLB	75
Adam Ulatoski	RT #74	Junior(RS)	RT	85
Mark Buchanan	RT #54	Fresh	RT	74
Ishie Oduegwu	SS #19	Junior(RS)	SS	88
Nolan Brewster	SS #36	Fresh	SS	79
Peter Ullman	TE #86	Senior(RS)	TE	81
Ahmard Howard	TE #13	Fresh(RS)	TE	74
Blaine Irby	TE #19	Soph	TE	73
Quan Cosby	WR #6	Senior	WR	89
Jordan Shipley	WR #8	Senior(RS)	WR	84
Montre Webber	WR #14	Soph(RS)	WR	83
Dan Buckner	WR #4	Fresh	WR	79
Malcolm Williams	WR #9	Fresh(RS)	WR	78
DJ Grant	WR #80	Fresh	WR	75
Antoine Hicks	WR #81	Fresh	WR	75
James Kirkendoll	WR #87	Soph	WR	74

Downloads

• Texas player ratings
• Full top 25 player ratings

The last scrimmage/practice of the spring is about to get underway on Fox Sports Southwest. The Orange-White Game is most fans’ first look at a lot of players and it’s always interesting to see who is playing where. We won’t see much (if any) new scheme or plays, but it’s football and gosh darnit I like it. The most important thing in this type of event is always that nobody gets seriously injured.

I’ll be posting my live thoughts and opinions below.

First Quarter

Nice to see we tackled more this spring, much more so that we did more full contact drills than in a scrimmage like this.

Here’s the spring roster off the official site. Definitely going to be needed today.

Tray Allen gets the start today at left tackle with Adam Ulatoski out.

I thought Brandon Collins had dropped that pass but on the replay cornerback Deon Beasley made a nice diving play to break it up. Collins probably needs to use his body better though to prevent the defender from being able to do that so easily.

I don’t know about that interference penalty on Beasley. Colt McCoy threw a nice pass but put it over Quan Cosby’s wrong shoulder. He had the position and Colt should have been able to put it in a more catchable position.

Not a good job on the Jordan Shipley reverse by Henry Melton. As the backside defensive end his responsibilities are RCC (reverse, counter, or cutback) and while he held his spot for a moment he started to pursue too quickly. Not a good job by the corner/safety over there either, the moment they saw Shipley going back the other way they should have been screaming at the top of their lungs.

Ishie Oduegwu is in street clothes on the sideline, I didn’t realize he was hurt. I assume that’s why true freshman Blake Gideon got the start at safety for Team Tradition. Okay that’s the last time I’ll mention these lame team names.

John Chiles and Fozzy Whittaker screwed up the hand-off on their first play of the day. Zone read and Chiles tried to change his mind and keep it but they put in on the turf.

On his first pass attempt Chiles makes a decent throw to Collins but he looked like he was tripled covered. The pocket was still holding so I think John could have waited another tick, bought himself some time, and looked for a more open receiver.

Nice run by Vondrell McGee ended with him delivering a blow to Earl Thomas. Good play though by Thomas to hold on despite the big hit and make the tackle.

I hope we’re not planning on playing freshman kicker Justin Tucker. We’ve already got Ryan Bailey and Hunter Lawrence and I want one of them to win the kicking job this year so we can afford to redshirt Tucker.

Russell Carter sure looks like a football player. Big old sucker. Nice play by him bringing down Whitaker.

(more…)

Name: Russell Carter
Position: Defensive end
Ranking:

Hometown: Houston, TX
School: Westbury
Height: 6-foot-3
Weight: 230 lbs

Background

Russell Carter was the coaching staff’s top target at the defensive end position. The young man out of Houston is one of the state’s top defensive linemen. Carter possesses the strength to be a force against the run and the speed and quickness needed to rush the passer. Needs work on his pass rushing technique but is already improving.

Carter’s story got a lot more interesting in the final weeks. He committed to the Longhorns way back last March and seemed very solid the entire time, but rumors started swirling right before signing day that he was looking around. There were rumors from good sources of visits to Arizona and Texas Tech, but Russell and his father denied that they took any final visits. No matter what went down, he’s a Longhorn now.

Immediate Impact

Even with Tim Crowder and Brian Robison off to the NFL defensive end is a position stacked at talent. The two-deep on both the strongside and weakside has talent and youth that Carter will have a tough time finding too much playing time this season. Carter is a player that will hopefully redshirt in 2007 to separate him from the guys in the 2006 class and give him extra time

Future

A year to get stronger, faster, and better is going to be a big help to Carter. Some time on the practice field with defensive ends coach Oscar Giles should is going to help even more. Carter has big time upside. Should be a fantastic run-stopping end and pair nicely with Sam Acho on the other side.