AUSTIN, Texas - Texas has found an early force in the middle of its defense, and Ian Geffrard is making everybody feel it.
Even his own teammates are getting bounced around in practice. Hero Kanu, who stands 6-foot-5 and weighs 309 pounds, said the 6-foot-5, 375-pound senior has been impossible to ignore in individual drills.
“We go individual drills in practice and I’m over there getting knocked all over the field. It’s like, ‘Dang, I thought I’m a pretty big guy, too,‘” Kanu said this week.
Connor Robertson, the Longhorns’ fifth-year center, has seen the same thing from the other side of the line.
“He’s got some juice out there, bouncing around,” Robertson said.
Through Texas’ first two games, Kanu and Robertson have had a brief reprieve from the Arkansas transfer’s pressure. Geffrard has posted six tackles and five defensive stops across 50 snaps, but those numbers still don’t fully capture how disruptive he’s been.
Head coach Steve Sarkisian pointed to Geffrard as one of Texas’ defensive standouts.
“Ian Geffrard is a guy who we’re really excited about. I think that he has really stepped into becoming the dominant player that we were hopeful he could be,” Sarkisian said.
The impact started right away against Texas State. Geffrard graded out at 86.3 by Pro Football Focus after piling up four tackles and three defensive stops in 20 snaps, and college football analyst Landon Tengwall went so far as to call him one of the most dominant run-stopping defensive tackles in the country.
That game showed exactly why. When Texas State doubled him, Geffrard either anchored well enough to make the play himself or held firm long enough to let linebackers like Justin Cryer flow downhill and clean up the run. Against single blocks, his strength let him consistently create extension and control opposing linemen.
Ohio State had a harder version of the same problem. In 30 snaps, Geffrard finished with two tackles and two quarterback hurries, a noticeable step up in pressure production after recording only eight hurries last season in 462 snaps for Arkansas.
Julian Sayin probably had little interest in seeing 375 pounds coming straight at him, and who could blame him?
Geffrard also kept showing up against the run when Ohio State tried to work him laterally with outside zone. He handled the movement, shed the center and made the tackle himself. Left guard Luke Montgomery got a piece of that as well.
Sarkisian said Geffrard’s conditioning has improved since arriving on the Forty Acres - he is officially down 12 pounds from last year - but the bigger point is how Texas is managing his workload.
Last season, Geffrard averaged close to 40 snaps per game, including three games of 40 or more. Against Texas A&M, he played 62 snaps and finished with his second-lowest run grade of the season from PFF.
Sarkisian believes that heavy burden reflected Arkansas’ lack of depth.
“That’s a lot for a really big human being like him. I think one thing he learned here, and it took time, is to understand we’ve got a rotation.
You don’t have to play 65 snaps as an interior defensive lineman for us. But man, if you give us really good 20 to 25, and that’s maximum effort, great technique, then your quality of film that you’re putting out there is a better product,” Sarkisian said.
“I think that’s what he’s understood, that he doesn’t have to preserve himself, he doesn’t have to think about, ‘Man, I hope I’m there in the fourth quarter because I know I’m going to have to keep playing.‘ We’ve got a good rotation. We’ve got plenty of bodies in there, and I think he’s understanding that, and he’s becoming a dominant player for us that way on the inside.”
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