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Malik Jefferson isn’t afraid to take on a charging running back.

That doesn’t mean the sophomore and reigning Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year is without preferences on who he’d like to collide with. If Jefferson had his druthers, the 6-foot-3, 238-pound linebacker would rather not see his 6-foot-2, 252-pound teammate barrelling down on him on a daily basis.

“I hate Chris Warren,” Jefferson said.

Jefferson said he likes to give Warren a hard time, adding that Warren is “a really good back” in his mind. Warren had 382 yards and four touchdowns on 53 carries over the final two games of his true freshman season, production that has given the Longhorns a nice one-two punch heading into the 2016 season with the return of Warren and junior D’Onta Foreman (681 yards and five touchdowns in 2015) returning to the backfield.

Foreman (6-1, 249) is a load to bring down as well. The Longhorns also have the luxury of having a physical between-the-tackles runner with burst in true freshman Kyle Porter (5-9, 208) and a versatile back in Kirk Johnson (6-0, 202), but Jefferson said having to try and get Warren and Foreman on the ground on a daily basis will make the defense better in the long run.

“It makes tackling smaller guys easier,” Jefferson said. “Running against them is fun, but it’s very challenging and that’s just part of the game.”

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