In 2013, Louisville dominated Miami 36-9 in the Russell Athletic Bowl.

The difficulty in blocking the 'Psycho' front: rushers can come from anywhere.

The headlines were predictable —Â Teddy Bridgewater threw for more than 400 yards — with Charlie Strong moving on later to take the Texas job. More in the periphery was the Louisville defensive effort, which held the Hurricanes to 174 total yards.

But apparent when watching the game was the overwhelming success of Strong and now-Texas defensive coordinator Vance Bedford’s use of the ‘Psycho’ front on third-and-long situations. Thanks in large part to the defense, Miami quarterback Stephen Morris was sacked five times and finished with a QBR of 5.9 —Â on a scale of 0-to-100 —Â per ESPN. The Hurricanes as a team were 0-for-11 on third downs.

While both Strong and Bedford are entering their third seasons at Texas, the front has yet to truly make an appearance in Austin. But could this be the year that we see the emergence of more Psycho front at Texas?

More on the Psycho

Simply defined, a ‘Psycho’ front is when a team plays with two or fewer down linemen. Louisville’s version included no down linemen, with each player operating from a standing up position. The advantage? Mobility and confusion. Potential blitzers can dance from position-to-position and gap-to-gap, making them difficult for offensive linemen to pin down.

When executed well, it can look a lot like this:

Louisville sent five players on that play, and Miami had five players —Â plus the back, who leaked out late —Â to block those players. But it’s different when you don’t know where those players are coming from, and the pressure hits home untouched.

On the next third down play, Miami attempts to pick up the five yards for a first down on a quick pass to avoid the pressure. But Louisville snuffed out the play early and eventually earned a fourth-down stop.

After a Psycho front forced a near interception and another punt on Miami’s next possession, this one led to a jailbreak up front and a throw-away.

Strong and Bedford’s defense had Miami so flummoxed that at one point in the third quarter, Louisville ran the front on back-to-back downs, creating pressure and an incompletion on third down, forcing a called timeout before fourth down, then getting a sack on the ensuing play.

The best part? On that third down play, Louisville was able to generate pressure despite 1) only rushing four players, considered an extremely safe look and 2) getting somewhat of a late jump on the ball.

What Psycho could look like for Texas

Though Louisville employed the Psycho front over and over again against Miami, Strong and Bedford have yet to make the defense part of his arsenal in Austin. One of the reasons for that decision could be schematic: the Big 12’s spread offenses make it more difficult to disguise blitzes and coverages while still maintaining assignment integrity (more on this in a bit).

But another reason could have more to do with personnel. The Russell Athletic Bowl came in Strong’s fourth year at Louisville, once they’d had a chance to recruit multiple classes and get the kind of rangy quick-twitch athletes that Strong covets.

That’s not to say he’s totally gone without in Austin. Naashon Hughes is a special athlete, a player who played safety as a high school junior and ran 4.44 in the 40-yard dash at 6-foot-4 and 217 pounds at Texas camp prior to his senior year. He’s now listed at 239, and would make an outstanding fit. Malik Jefferson is one of the nation’s most athletic linebackers and has shown an aptitude in the past for pressuring opposing quarterbacks off the edge.

But both of those guys are every down players, and Strong’s package at Louisville contained a mix of those —Â eventual first-round NFL Draft pick Marcus Smith wasn’t coming off the field in a pass-rushing situation —Â and sub package players. Before Deiontrez Mount and Sheldon Rankins became NFL Draft picks* at defensive end and defensive tackle, respectively, they were situational threats who came onto the field on pass-rushing downs and excelled at the Psycho package. Mount was especially interesting: he wasn’t going to start over Smith and Lorenzo Mauldin, but as a 6-foot-5 player who ran a 4.62-second 40-yard dash at Louisville’s Pro Day, he had a place somewhere.

*Mount was a sixth-round selection of the Tennessee Titans in 2015. Rankins is a projected first-round pick in next week’s NFL Draft.

And that’s where Texas could give some of its younger talent some options. Both outside linebacker signees Jeffrey McCulloch and Erick Fowler have explosive pass-rush potential. The No. 4 outside linebacker in the 247Sports Composite, McCulloch’s talents earned him the nickname “The Shark,” while Fowler was so successful pressuring opposing passers that some had him pegged for defensive end at the next level. Add in a player like 2015 signee Breckyn Hager, and Texas has a defensive end who came in as a linebacker and is plenty comfortable playing standing up.

Strong’s Louisville version basically used three defensive ends, one defensive tackle and a linebacker to apply five-man pressure. At Texas, that could include two defensive ends —Â let’s say Hughes and Hager —Â two linebackers —Â Jefferson and McCulloch/Fowler and perhaps a smaller, quicker defensive tackle like Marcel Southall.

That’s a lot of speed out a “front five” and the ability to generate one-on-one blocking or unblocked players would suit each of those players well.

But there’s another personnel reason Strong might not have gone with the Psycho front: uneven safety play. Calvin Pryor was an unbelievable player who covered for all manner of sins, and in the cases where five players were sent after the quarterback, the defensive backs had to cover well and tackle soundly to keep players from taking a short pass and turning it into a first down gain.

So why not Psycho?

A former Big 12 coach put it simply when he said, “It would be really tough to run that stuff in that league.”

Why? For a couple reasons. The first, as mentioned above, is the spread. Not every team in the Big 12 runs the spread (it only seems that way), and not every league team’s spread is created equal. But even with a safe pressure of sending four players, it can become difficult at times for a player showing blitz to rally back to his assignment.

The second, and potentially bigger reason? Some Big 12 teams like to go for it on fourth down. Send a ‘Psycho’ front at Baylor on third-and-10, for example, and the Bears would be more than happy to check into a trap or counter, run for seven (or more) yards and face a fourth-and-short. For Miami in the Russell Athletic Bowl, a seven-yard play on third-and-10 meant a punt on fourth down. For Baylor, which went for it on fourth down 40 times in 13 games, a punt is hardly guaranteed.

Put it this way: the Bears punted just twice more in 2015 —Â 42 times —Â than they attempted a fourth-down conversion. And the Bears converted 70 percent of those attempts.

Still, while three Big 12 teams attempted an average of two or more fourth-down conversions per game, that wouldn’t seem to eliminate the possibility completely.

It’s likely that Texas won’t ever use the Psycho front as often, or as effectively, as Louisville did in that bowl game. That was a situation where the Cardinals’ scheme and personnel fit perfectly against a Miami team that was susceptible to it. But could Strong and Bedford reach back and pull out the front as a situational weapon, particularly as the Longhorns add the talent to run it?

It wouldn’t be ‘Psycho’ to see the possibilities.