Three things to consider regarding Laurence Seymore and Texas' left guard competition

Wednesday can't get here quick enough 😀

Edited August 4Aug 4 by HonkEm

15 minutes ago, JMarquette said:

There’s some truth to this, but Stroh was objectively horrible. This shouldn’t be hard to admit, yet it is for you. Additionally, your description of how the OL works is inaccurate. It’s a “you’re only as strong as your weakest link” type of mentality. You can have 4 studs, but 1 dud ruins it. There were OL problems outside of LG, but the VAST majority was LG.

Stroh’s overall grade was 59.7.  His pass blocking efficiency was 94.7.  Not good but not horrible.  And since he hasn’t played in 3 years, I’d expect growth out him.  Brooks was 36.6 and sub-90.  Drastic differences.  And I don’t fault Brooks, but that’s the biggest head scratcher as to why he played.

CJ also pointed out in the past week that Brooks allowed pressure on 16% of pass plays whereas all others were 6% or lower.  Only one of those was horrible.  Basically the same as efficiency just calculated differently.

So why am I so adamant in defense?  Because the narrative starts off misleading.

Some plays yes.  Some plays no.  Guys miss blocks all the time.  I’d guess it’s much closer to 0% of plays than 100% that all 5 make a block on a given play.  And you know Arch can dodge one on just about any given play.  And versus OSU we had more yards rushing and yards per carry than anyone.   So that doesn’t really compute as to how he screwed that all up.

Ole Miss.  Of their top 5 Olinemen in terms of snap count, two graded lower than Stroh.  You do not get sub-60s by winning every play.  I’m not arguing Stroh is better but rather all the other points.  On any run, that’s at least two guys losing the play.  It didn’t destroy their run game.

18 minutes ago, Jeff Howe said:

In all seriousness, I don’t think this is something that’s that deep. All I’m saying is that I’m willing to let Seymore get through one practice and figure if/when Hutson will be with the team before concerning myself with scenarios that might not happen. 

I get this, but we should have at least 2 guys who should be in front of him. This goes back to the offseason. I like Siani more than Sprauge, but Guarnera almost felt like he was the piece. 

Hire ASU’s OL coach I guess…

2 minutes ago, Here for the Wins said:

Stroh’s overall grade was 59.7.  His pass blocking efficiency was 94.7.  Not good but not horrible.  And since he hasn’t played in 3 years, I’d expect growth out him.  Brooks was 36.6 and sub-90.  Drastic differences.  And I don’t fault Brooks, but that’s the biggest head scratcher as to why he played.

CJ also pointed out in the past week that Brooks allowed pressure on 16% of pass plays whereas all others were 6% or lower.  Only one of those was horrible.  Basically the same as efficiency just calculated differently.

So why am I so adamant in defense?  Because the narrative starts off misleading.

Some plays yes.  Some plays no.  Guys miss blocks all the time.  I’d guess it’s much closer to 0% of plays than 100% that all 5 make a block on a given play.  And you know Arch can dodge one on just about any given play.  And versus OSU we had more yards rushing and yards per carry than anyone.   So that doesn’t really compute as to how he screwed that all up.

Ole Miss.  Of their top 5 Olinemen in terms of snap count, two graded lower than Stroh.  You do not get sub-60s by winning every play.  I’m not arguing Stroh is better but rather all the other points.  On any run, that’s at least two guys losing the play.  It didn’t destroy their run game.

 

 

I’ll agree Nick Brooks simply wasn’t ready, full stop. That was a flood disasterclass. Them not moving Cole over was baffling to me. You won’t hear any disagreement on Brooks. 

The missing blocks thing is interesting because in a nut shell, you’re right. But outside zone versus power gap is so much different in what needs to work. When you’re running zone, you have to beat someone to a spot, that’s the name of the game. If you don’t get there, the play is blown up if DL are attacking upfield. Power gap is pretty much just big on big double teams, trying to push DL into LB with pulling guards coming into the hole sometimes. You have a little more forgiveness on power schemes because of how the blocking shakes out. With zone, if you have one mess up, especially on the interior, you are looking at 3-4 yard losses. Stroh’s problem was he was too slow, which allowed for more athletic, attacking DL to cross his face and get into the backfield.

This goes back to, I think, a previous point you’ve made about how sark should have known his personnel better. This is true. At the same time, if someone isn’t built for outside zone, then they’ll fail really spectacularly.

I think we’re kicking butt this year.  Just play our game and the offense will hum along.  Almost time to sit back and enjoy.

I think the Brooks experiment started off well in the OU game.   He did pretty well against probably the best DLine we faced all year. 

5 hours ago, Joe Zura said:

No not at all stating facts. He was awful as a center like beyond awful he was a beyond mid LG and if you try and tell me I’m wrong you will forever be known as sunshine pumper Howe 😭💀

It’s a hypothetical. Why are you assuming that they are going to start Hutson? And even if they do, he was actually pretty average last year. We can win it all if the rest of the line is above average to elite and our LG is average. Indiana had a few average pieces on its OL, including everybody’s favorite Westlake RG.

6 hours ago, Joe Zura said:

@Gerry Hamilton seeing people talk bad about his boy flood on this thread 

 

I commend my fellow board mates for the spirited discussion and back and forth.  My take home question is: can this mixture of highly recruited, large humans we have invested serious time recruiting, developing and money be brought together into a cohesive, effective unit by our coaching staff?  All excuses aside, the buck starts and stops with our offensive line coach.   He has a lot of skins on the wall, some good and some bad.  I think we will learn a lot about his capabilities this season because there are no excuses not to succeed now with the level of depth and available pieces he has on the board.  

7 hours ago, JMarquette said:

I’ll agree Nick Brooks simply wasn’t ready, full stop. That was a flood disasterclass. Them not moving Cole over was baffling to me. You won’t hear any disagreement on Brooks. 

The missing blocks thing is interesting because in a nut shell, you’re right. But outside zone versus power gap is so much different in what needs to work. When you’re running zone, you have to beat someone to a spot, that’s the name of the game. If you don’t get there, the play is blown up if DL are attacking upfield. Power gap is pretty much just big on big double teams, trying to push DL into LB with pulling guards coming into the hole sometimes. You have a little more forgiveness on power schemes because of how the blocking shakes out. With zone, if you have one mess up, especially on the interior, you are looking at 3-4 yard losses. Stroh’s problem was he was too slow, which allowed for more athletic, attacking DL to cross his face and get into the backfield.

This goes back to, I think, a previous point you’ve made about how sark should have known his personnel better. This is true. At the same time, if someone isn’t built for outside zone, then they’ll fail really spectacularly.

 

With Nick Brooks, I think if you hadn't thrown him into the fire that early you could've coached him up through this off-season to play G for you. Might've played a role in his leaving after the season, who knows?

From what I've been able to tell he's still only a depth piece at Bama, I think he's on the two deep at RT?

I agree about Stroh, his feet were really slow. But that also goes back to Flood and his development, did you not notice this before you put him out there? Feels like you set the young man up for failure there. Did they not try Robertson at C and Hutson at LG in fall camp?

So many questions, I guess we'll get some answers sooner rather than later. 

3 minutes ago, TexasMDcoach said:

I commend my fellow board mates for the spirited discussion and back and forth.  My take home question is: can this mixture of highly recruited, large humans we have invested serious time recruiting, developing and money be brought together into a cohesive, effective unit by our coaching staff?  All excuses aside, the buck starts and stops with our offensive line coach.   He has a lot of skins on the wall, some good and some bad.  I think we will learn a lot about his capabilities this season because there are no excuses not to succeed now with the level of depth and available pieces he has on the board.  

I want to say yes, but if he can't then Sark has already set the precedent with PK. Flood shouldn't be given special treatment. 

2 minutes ago, AusMOJO said:

I want to say yes, but if he can't then Sark has already set the precedent with PK. Flood shouldn't be given special treatment. 

Agree fully.  We are all accountable for what we produce especially when fully resourced and enabled to do our job. 

4 hours ago, Bunk Moreland said:

Classic 😭

11 hours ago, Joe Zura said:

🖕🏼🍺😂

17 hours ago, JMarquette said:

So much of run blocking on the interior are basically double teams. It’s very possible Seymore grades out lower because he had crappy double teams due to someone else. I don’t think grades are necessarily helpful. Fall camp will tell us everting. 

your basic assumption is incorrect.

3 minutes ago, Inspired73 said:

your basic assumption is incorrect.

On the interior, most run blocking is done as a combination of C/G if 1i, or G/T if 3 tech. Not a lot of defenses run straight up over the guard, and even if they do, most still are double teams. You are wrong.

14 hours ago, Joe Zura said:

@Gerry Hamilton seeing people talk bad about his boy flood on this thread 

 

That's his "basketball is better" look. He sent out a Legend to decipher these things.

13 hours ago, JMarquette said:

I get this, but we should have at least 2 guys who should be in front of him. This goes back to the offseason. I like Siani more than Sprauge, but Guarnera almost felt like he was the piece. 

I don't really fault them for not getting Guarnera. If I recall, we offered them more money than Michigan. What baffles me is how we didn't go after Aliou Bah. He had more P4 experience and better size that Seymore. Not to mention he wasn't battling for another year of eligibility an could have enrolled during he spring.

10 minutes ago, Deep in the heart said:

I don't really fault them for not getting Guarnera. If I recall, we offered them more money than Michigan. What baffles me is how we didn't go after Aliou Bah. He had more P4 experience and better size that Seymore. Not to mention he wasn't battling for another year of eligibility a could have enrolled during he spring.

That’s a good pull, totally forgot about him.  I’ll trust the staff on the eval *gulp*, but part of me thinks that they honed in on the Michigan guys, and then let everyone else fall off since it was almost a done deal. 

22 hours ago, JMarquette said:

That’s a good pull, totally forgot about him.  I’ll trust the staff on the eval *gulp*, but part of me thinks that they honed in on the Michigan guys, and then let everyone else fall off since it was almost a done deal. 

Yes, Texas definitely honed in on Michigan's Andrew Sprague and Jake Guarnera. But just before it was a done deal, new HC Whittingham came into the picture as a stabilizing force to help keep the duo at Michigan, forcing the Longhorns to look elsewhere.
 

We did not have a "ready" backup plan in place after our initial Michigan OL duo transfer plan failed.

But it worked out well for Texas with 9-4 Wake Forest's transfer LT/RT 6-6 #317 Melvin Siani. LT Siani dominated in their 43-29 bowl game win over MSST. For the season, Siani had stellar pass blocking stats, 487 pass-blocking snaps with 0 sacks allowed and only 9 pressures allowed (6 hurries and 3 quarterback hits). Elite 80.8 PFF pass blocking grade and good 72.8 overall PFF offensive grade for 2025 season vs ACC competition, Oregon St and MSST. Siani will again play RT (2024 RT) but for Texas. Great portal transfer win for Texas.

Texas WKY transfer 6-2 #316 Seymore did not get the benefit of a spring at Texas and is a bit more questionable.

Many talk about his good PFF pass blocking grades vs LSU.

Some context....WKY had only 22 rushing yds vs LSU. WKY had only 130 passing yds on 41 attempts for 3.2 yds per pass attempt. WKY offense had 152 total yds, 2.3 yds per play. 4/15 on 3rd down and 0/3 on 4th down. WKY lost 10-13.

Western Kentucky's Air Raid variation relies heavily on up tempo, quick-hitting passes and schematic relief to avoid pass rush, which can artificially boost an offensive lineman’s individual pass-block win rate.  When a quarterback consistently releases the ball in under 2 to 2.5 seconds, even an elite pass rusher may not have physical time to beat a block and record a pressure. 

Outside of their matchup with LSU and bowl game vs S Miss, WKU’s 2025 schedule consisted almost entirely of bottom-tier or average Group of Five and FCS opponents. They played subpar defenses like North Alabama (FCS), Missouri State (FCS), FIU, New Mexico State, and Middle Tennessee. Most of these programs feature interior defensive linemen who average under 290 pounds and lack NFL-caliber twitch or power move sets. Dominating pass-blocking metrics against Conference USA does not accurately project how a lineman handles 320-pound SEC defensive tackles who can execute advanced stunt-and-twist games.

Seymore had average run blocking grades for the season. Regardless, Seymore's high pass blocking grades are encouraging. He can anchor well when he locks on, you saw that in his LSU video. Seymore sets a floor as a pass protector that is better than TX LGs last September. 

But how will Seymore do if he needs to protect longer vs better competition? 

If Seymore starts.....Seymore will have his first real test vs Ohio St - Sr Bama transfer disruptor 6-2 #314 DT James Smith, former UA All American rJr transfer 6-3 #303 DT John Walker, and former 5 star 6-3 #292 DT Eddrick Houston.

If Seymore does struggle vs this trio, he will likely struggle vs several more SEC teams. But if he doesn't struggle....

Edited August 5Aug 5 by Jerky