Texas DT T’Vondre Sweat enjoying breakout senior season

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Longhorns fifth-year senior defensive tackle T’Vondre Sweat is the team’s jokester, known as the class clown who always has a smile on his face and always brings up his teammate’s energy. In fact, if you ask Texas senior linebacker Jaylan Ford about Sweat’s funniest moment, it’s hard to pick just one.

“I think he’s got so many jokes, it’s hard to tell one specific one,” Ford said on Monday. “I think with him he just says the right thing at the right time and everyone starts busting out laughing just because he’s a funny guy. If he starts laughing, everybody else laughs with him.”

On the field, however, Sweat is known for his business-like approach beyond an occasional crack on the sideline.

“Not on the field,” Ford said of Sweat’s joking demeanor. “On the sideline, he might. Usually on the field, he’s pretty much business. So I will say for Sweat, even though he’s a funny guy, he has a switch where he knows when he can turn it on and when to be serious.”

But it’s not the on-field, off-field switch for Sweat making jokes that is currently defining the Huntsville product — it’s the flip he’s switched from last season to this season after announcing his return for a fifth season on the Forty Acres in late December after the Alamo Bowl loss to Washington.

The 6’4, 362-pounder was a consensus three-star prospect in the 2019 recruiting class ranked as the No. 608 player nationally and the No. 45 defensive tackle, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings. In early 2018, Sweat committed to Texas over 16 other offers, including Alabama, Arkansas, Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, TCU, and Texas A&M.

Listed at 249 pounds in high school, Sweat began his career with the Longhorns at 320 pounds before playing at 335 pounds or more over the last three seasons. A surprise contributor as a freshman, Sweat played in all 13 games, recording nine tackles, two passes broken up, one sack, one tackle for loss, and one fumble recovery. In 2020, Sweat’s production increased to 22 tackles, four tackles for loss, one sack, one pass breakup, one quarterback hurry, one forced fumble, and one fumble recovery before notching 22 tackles, two tackles for loss, one sack, and three pass breakups as a junior. Last year, Sweat started eight games and was productive for the Longhorns with 29 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, six quarterback hurries, and three pass breakups.

So Sweat has been a longtime contributor for the Longhorns, entering the 2023 season with nine starts over 48 appearances, but the difference now is just how disruptive Sweat has been this year with an impact that goes far beyond the stat sheet, which shows 15 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, one sack, one pass broken up, and three quarterback hurries.

While the big defensive lineman is a half tackle for loss…