East Texas man Tyrone Hunt ready for the next step?

If you didn't know better you'd be under the impression that Baylor redshirt junior Tyrone Hunt was recruited by Matt Rhule's staff when they first arrived. The 6-foot-5, 295-pound defensive tackle arrived at Baylor in 2015 as a 245-pound defensive end out of Arp High School in East Texas. 

Not a SicEm365 Premium member? Try us out: $1.00 for 3 months

His high school film didn't flash a lot, mainly relying on his size and athletic ability to take advantage of lesser competition across the line from him. At times he would slide down to the interior and at others he would play as a linebacker in a two-point stance. He also flashed promising ability to make plays in the backfield and chase down passers.

Three years into his career at Baylor, including two on the field after a redshirt season in 2015,, Hunt has shown similar great flashes of potential while playing below the radar at least an equal amount of time. As a true freshman Hunt notched the two best games against Oklahoma (8 tackles, 3.0 tackles for loss) and Boise State (5 tackles, 2.0 sacks). 

Colt Barber

Tyrone Hunt

He's the perfect mix of characteristics for what the Baylor defensive staff is searching for on the defensive line and those flashes of potential in his first two seasons on campus create optimism. Now, what does he have to do to take his play to a more consistent level? 

In Phil Snow's defensive scheme you will rarely see guwdy statisics from any one player, so measuring Hunt's impact, or any other defensive player for that matter, on the field by raw numbers would be doing him significant disservice.

However, there is one piece of information that can be pulled to measure his success: consistency.

In two seasons Hunt has collected a total of 10 starts including five as a sophomore in 2017. His production has come like a flash in a pan typically, if lasting for an entire game or for a single series. After a strong start to the season coming off the bench for the first four games (10 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss), Hunt was inserted into the starting lineup for the following six, a stretch that was quite the opposite. 

Hunt went the final three games without collecting a single tackle after totaling only eight in the three prior. He didn't collect a single tackle for loss or sack through the final stretch of the season after the 3.5 in the first four. 

The strong finish to Hunt's redshirt freshman season in the Cactus Bowl coupled with his start to 2017 gave the impression he was ready to take the next step, but when given the chance, Hunt's production disappeared and he was moved back in the depth chart.

The good news is that he has the makeup and at least some production under his belt to build off of. The question is will he?