Texas Longhorns Celebrate Historic Outland Trophy Win and Defensive Dominance
Original story from TexasSports.com
DALLAS – Texas defensive tackle T’Vondre Sweat was honored as the winner of the 78th Outland Trophy, the Football Writers Association of America announced on Friday during The Home Depot Football Awards on ESPN.
Sweat joins a trio of Longhorns have previously won the Outland Trophy, which has been given annually since 1946 to college football’s top interior lineman on offense or defense. Defensive tackle Scott Appleton brought home the award in 1963, while guard Tommy Nobis collected the trophy in 1965 and defensive tackle Brad Shearer won the honor in 1977. All four of Texas’ Outland Trophy recipients are native Texans.
The Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, Sweat has established career highs with 42 tackles, 17 solo tackles, eight tackles for loss, two sacks and four pass breakups, while adding a blocked kick on an Iowa State point after attempt that was scooped up by Austin Jordan and returned 82 yards for a two-point score for Texas. Sweat also caught a two-yard touchdown pass in the Longhorns’ Big 12 Championship Game victory over Oklahoma State.
Sweat and the Texas defense lead the Big 12 in third-down defense (26.5 percent) and red zone defense (71.4 percent), respectively ranking second and fourth nationally in each category. The Longhorns are also 13th nationally in scoring defense (17.5 ppg) and 22nd in total tackles for loss (82).
With Sweat providing pressure in the middle, Texas has held eight opponents to fewer than 100 yards rushing this season, the most since 2009 (10), including a stretch of five-straight games against Houston, BYU, Kansas State, TCU and Iowa State that was the longest for UT since 2009 and tied for the third-longest for a Big 12 team over the last 15 seasons. All totaled in those five games, opponents have rushed for 241 yards (48 ypg) on 118 carries (2 ypc). The Longhorns lead the conference and rank third in the nation in rushing defense, yielding only 80.8 yards per game, the fewest surrendered by UT since 2008.
A native of Huntsville, Texas, Sweat is the first Outland Trophy winner from a Big 12 school since 2004 (Oklahoma offensive tackle Jammal Brown). He was also a semifinalist for the Chuck Bednarik Award and the Walter Camp Player of the Year.
The official presentation the 78th Outland Trophy will be made at the Outland Trophy Awards Dinner sponsored by Werner Enterprises and produced by the Greater Omaha Sports Committee in Omaha, Neb., on Jan. 10, 2024.
