In the three seasons since taking over as the head coach for the Texas Longhorns, head coach Tom Herman and staff leaned on the youth.
In the first 40 games of the current regime, 12 true freshman were called upon to start at least once, for a total of 43 starts from a player in his first year on campus. That means that on average, every game in the Herman era featured at least one newcomer in a starting role.
The need to call upon freshmen due to lack of depth and/or performance on multiple occasions seems odd taking into account the way Texas managed to recruit under Herman’s predecessor, a fact Herman clued in on early in his tenure at Texas.