WOW: Texas Coaches RAVE about Colin Simmons - Is He the BEST Player in the Country? | Texas Football

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Colin Simmons has been the best player at Texas Spring Practice, and I'm not sure it's

close.

We'll give some much-deserved love to number one.

Coming up on Lockdown Longhorns.

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Podcast Network, your team, every day.

Welcome in, you're locked on to the Texas Longhorns.

I'm your host B.K. Brad Kellner.

We talk about Colin Simmons a lot on this show, yet I don't think we talk about him nearly

enough.

He might not just be the best defensive player at Texas.

He might be the most dominant defensive player in all of college football, heading into

2026.

I don't think that's hyperbole, unnecessary hype, me chugging the burnt orange Kool-Aid.

I think that's reality.

Let's start with what he's already done during his first two years of his college career.

As a freshman, nine sacks in 2024.

He won the Sean Alexander National Freshman of the Year award.

As a sophomore in 2025, he took things up to another level, 12 sacks which led the SEC.

Should have been named the SEC defensive player of the year.

Perhaps that's the conversation for another day.

15 and a half tackles for a loss, three forced fumbles.

He was a second team, all American, and a first team, all SEC player, and here's what

stands out to me about what he did in 2025.

He got better as the season went on.

Remember, he struggled right out of the gates.

Against some of the weaker, non-conference opponents that the long hordes played at the

start of the season, he didn't really do a whole lot.

He didn't stat pad, and then once he got into SEC play, he kind of fell off.

He got better as the competition got tougher.

He had a sack in each of his final five games.

He showed up in big moments, and he looked like the best player on the field against some

top competition.

That's when you know, if you didn't already know, we really learned down the stretch this

past year that Texas has a dude with number one.

Now heading into 2026, he's not just one of the best edge rushers in college football.

Again, he's got a strong case to be the best defensive player in the sport.

Everybody can look at the stats.

The real question though, why is he so good?

What separates Colin Simmons, not only from other players around the country, but other

players that Texas has had coming off the edge in this program's illustrious history.

His explosion on the snap is unbelievable.

I mean, he's basically beating tackles before they even get set.

The first step that he has, I mean, it's NFL ready right now, and I'm not talking about

like just a fringe NFL player, talking about like a legit pass rusher in the NFL.

That's how good and how quick his first step is.

He's been his agility.

That's another thing that separates him.

I mean, all offensive tackles can barely get their hands on him.

He turns the corner at angles that just don't make sense for a guy at his size.

And then speaking of his size, I mean, how strong he is, 63, 245 pounds, not massive for

an edge, but he plays much stronger than that.

He can hold up.

He can set the edge.

He's not just a pass rus specialist.

That's everybody focuses on the sac stats.

We understand that's how it works, but he is way more than just that.

He can wreak havoc in the backfield.

He's a very good run defender and you put it all together.

He's a guy who wins with speed.

He's a guy who wins with technique.

He's a guy who can win with raw power.

It's rare to find a player at this level who can win with all three of those things.

And he has pretty much done that from the moment he stepped foot on the University of

Texas campus at the beginning of 2024.

So that's the past, but bringing things to right now, like what's been happening this

spring, why I said at the start of the show, he's been the best player at Texas spring

practice.

I mean, it's ridiculous.

We talked about this a little bit yesterday.

Colin Simmons recently had a practice with six sex in one practice.

Like it's gotten to the point where Steve Sarakisian has had to limit him, not because

he's like not working on usually when guys don't get reps and practice, they're either

hurt or they're not playing hard enough or well enough and the coach is like, no.

We want to see somebody else.

Colin Simmons is so freaking good.

He is wrecking practice and the coaches are like, all right, like, can we give somebody

else a turn?

This is unfair.

Like the head coach is having to pull him back because he is disrupting everything

the offense is trying to do a dominance.

And the scary part, there's no complacency.

This is Colin Simmons could coast all year, you'd have just a good season and he's still

going to be a first round pick in the 2027 NFL draft.

But that's not what he's doing.

He is already practicing like a pro.

He's working hard.

He's improving.

He's trying to get better and you're hearing it from his teammates and you're also hearing

it from various members of the Texas coaching staff.

His position coach, Alan Clark said it best.

He said, quote, I haven't coached somebody like number one and, quote, and he doubled

down on just how unique Colin Simmons is talking about how he can manipulate past rushes

and set things up.

Like he's just, it's insane what this guy can do.

And Alan Clark, he's coached a lot of really, really good edge rushers in his career.

He was at Ohio State, a part of that 2024 national championship winning staff before he got

the Texas.

He coached JTT.

He was a first round pick who's having a great start to his NFL career.

Jack Sawyer started to bring those names up, but some studs.

And also Alan Clark works with some really good NFL defensive lineman too, including

guys like the Neil Hunter plays for the Texans and Jeffrey Simmons.

These are studs.

This guy has seen so many great defensive line slash edge rushers in his career.

And he's hyping Colin Simmons up that much.

He's heaping that type of praise on him.

You should listen to that.

That tells you something.

And then you think about Will Musham coming back to Texas and he has been raving about

Colin Simmons in his skill set and his versatility.

And he's been talking about moving Simmons around this year.

Traditional edge stand up outside linebacker, even some snaps inside blitzing from different

levels.

Like Will Musham said, the goal is to basically make it impossible for posing offenses to

locate Colin Simmons pre snap.

He said, quote, Colin is playing multiple spots.

Technically by day one, I'd say he's our Jack.

We've got to have him activated in the rush a lot.

He's very slippery, really good instincts in the run game and in the past game.

Our job is to put him in situations where people can't ID where he is all the time.

End quote.

So Simmons is good enough.

You could put him in one spot for every single snap during a game.

And he's going to rack a game, but lining them up all over the field to where all fences

are trying to figure out, OK, where is number one?

What do we have to do to stop that guy on this play?

Clearly that's what coach boom wants to do.

And that's going to make things even more dangerous for the Texas defense.

If you don't know where he is, if you don't know where he's coming from, if you can't

identify him, makes it a lot tougher to protect against him.

And that's how the long horns can turn somebody who already is a great player into an unstoppable

force.

Remember Steve Sarkiesian earlier in practice said, quote, he could ruin practice probably

every day if I let him right now.

End quote.

And said that about anybody else.

And I know Trevor Goosbees out.

First team all SEC left tackle.

So the left tackles that Simmons have been going up against this spring aren't as strong

as they could be, but this is still a Texas roster that's absolutely loaded with talent.

And this guy is standing close to a loan when it comes to the talent.

That's how good he is right now.

NFL people are already talking about him.

If he could be in next week's NFL draft, he'd be a first ground pick, probably a top

10 pick.

Next year, he could potentially be the first player off of the board.

And he could end up being a top five, maybe even a top three pick in 2027.

That's the type of talent we are talking about a bit smaller than the typical hand in

the dirt NFL edge rusher, but he can get to the quarterback.

He's proven that through his first two seasons in the SEC.

And I expect him to put that on full display when we get to this fall.

So we all know he's got two years of eligibility left.

This is almost certainly his final year at Texas.

Enjoy it.

You're looking at a season where double digit sacks could be in play again, SEC defensive

player of the year could be in play.

I don't want it last year.

It will definitely be in play again this season.

First team all, Americana, maybe an invitation to New York, not easy to do for defensive

players, especially guys who play on the defensive line, but that's how good I feel about

Colin Simmons because that's how good he is a game record, a war daddy, a difference

maker, whatever sent in him, you can think of for that.

That's what he is.

That's what he does.

And there's a lot of talent on this Texas defense too.

I don't know if you could just double team Colin Simmons every snap and say that's how

we're going to take him out of this ball game.

Good luck with everything else the long horns have on that side of the football with coach

Boop.

You don't get guys like this every year.

This is the type of player who can define a defense.

And a few years from now, I think we're all going to be proud watching Colin Simmons

on Sunday saying, yeah, I remember watching that dude at Texas, special player, special

player.

I'm excited to watch him terrorize college football in 2026.

He's been terrorizing spring practice.

I'm sure Sark is ready to see him do it again.

Somebody wears a different color uniform.

Colin Simmons, I'm sure we'll see him some on fan day this weekend, but more importantly,

when September rolls around, watch out for number one.

I think it's going to be a special year and even more special year than the two he's

already had, which have been pretty damn special.

All right.

We'd love to hear from you all below your thoughts on Colin Simmons, maybe some stat projections

and expectations for number one in year three of his longhorn career.

I don't do it for this one.

If you made it this far, number one, God bless you.

Number two, please remember to like, subscribe, share, leave a comment, rate five stars.

All of those great things.

Can't thank you all enough for your continued support of locked on long horns.

Tomorrow, we will talk some more Texas football, more spring practice and a little Texas baseball

unfortunately and a little longhorn basketball.

What else does Sean Miller need to address in the transfer portal?

We will dive into all of it, but that'll do it for this one.

Thanks again for tuning in.

Until next time, horns up, Microsoft, we'll see you all soon.

This is locked on long horns.

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