One look at him and it was easy to see why college coaches thought Ross Blacklock might have been an offensive lineman. He had a broad chest, thick legs, and, yes, a once-round stomach.
But get to know Blacklock even a little bit and it was also easy to understand why he’d never play offensive line, even as he soared past 300 pounds in high school. When college recruiters floated the idea by Elkins High School coach Dennis Brantley, he told them, “If y’all say that to Ross, you’ll lose Ross. This is a kid that played skill positions all his life. I never wanted to put him on the offensive line because I didn’t want to lose him.”
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TCU defensive line coach Zarnell Fitch decided the Horned Frogs didn’t want to lose him, either, once he saw Blacklock defy his frame and jump to grab a goal post with both hands during a local recruiting camp. This kid wasn’t going to play offensive line. He was going to wreak havoc on opposing offenses instead, first at TCU, then in the NFL, a vision realized Friday when the Texans selected Blacklock with the 40th overall pick.
“He is a true definition of how TCU was built,” Fitch said. “Our head coach, Gary Patterson, takes athletes and molds them into a position, and we’ve been successful at that if you look at (Bills defensive end) Jerry Hughes, even guys we took that have been three stars, two-star guys.”
Except Blacklock was a high school All-American. According to Brantley, who’s coached many eventual NFL players, it was obvious even when Blacklock was just a high school freshman that he possessed the athletic traits to become a pro. By then, he was about 6-foot-2, 270 pounds and quick enough to play running back, to toy with defenses that thought this burly guy would run into the line on short-yardage packages, only for him to bounce outside and make a defender miss for a 12-yard gain.
But Brantley didn’t tell Blacklock then what he foresaw. He thought Blacklock was still too lax to hear it — as evidenced by the time during Blacklock’s sophomore year, in the closing moments of a playoff game, when Elkins actually needed him to run into the line and bleed the clock, but he danced around long enough to fumble.
Elkins won anyway, but that was the end of the big-man running back experiment. And around that time, Brantley said, Blacklock began to realize he was working toward something greater. Sure, he was big enough and fast enough to dominate at Elkins, but that wasn’t the point. He needed to begin taking football more seriously so he could dominate at the next level, too.
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That’s why, by his senior year, Blacklock transformed into a player who dominated every practice — so much so that in a one-on-one drill, he embarrassed an up-and-coming underclassman without trying to. He knocked the younger player back and ran with him, never tossing him to the ground.
“Ross is such a nice guy,” Brantley said. “He didn’t even pancake him. He drove him.”
Blacklock and his former coaches like to say he’s a mature guy, too. Mature enough not to see any value in embarrassing a young teammate, and mature enough not to be upset when, despite being such a highly regarded recruit, TCU coaches opted to redshirt him. Instead, he gravitated toward the future high draft picks in that front seven who were older than him, 2019 first-rounder L.J. Collier and second-rounder Ben Banogu.
“He was never a guy who came in and said, ‘I was a four-star recruit, look at me, I’m here,’” Fitch said. “He came here, and his mindset was to earn the respect of the older guys. He worked hard. That’s what stuck out. The maturity came with having those guys mentor him and also falling in line with film preparation and putting that extra work in when he had time.”
Blacklock stayed plenty busy reshaping his body, too. Fitch still likes to look at the side-by-side photos of Blacklock from before and after that redshirt season — down 15 pounds, with that once-round stomach now flat and those neck muscles bulging.
Blacklock had the makings of a player who’d make a big impact as a redshirt freshman, so Fitch pushed him even harder. During one spring 2017 practice, before Blacklock had played in a game, he worked on breaking through double teams over and over again until he was gassed and Fitch could make a point about the technique required to survive the physicality of the college football.
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“I told him (then), if he’s not a top draft pick in the next couple of years, two things happened,” Fitch said. “He didn’t want to put in the work, and the second thing is, I need to be evaluated by a head coach, and he needs to fire me.
“Everyone still talks about that day.”
Because none of those things happened. Blacklock became the Big 12’s 2017 co-defensive freshman of the year. An Achilles injury sidelined him for the following season, but he only came back lighter — around 290 pounds, to reduce pressure on the injury — and better. In his final collegiate season, he led the Horned Frogs with 3.5 sacks and had nine tackles for loss. He recorded 30 total pressures, according to Pro Football Focus, and decided he was ready for the NFL.
Even though Blacklock is raw as a pass rusher, his elite athleticism for his size and ability to play all over the line earned him a fringe first-round grade from The Athletic’s Dane Brugler and, more importantly, from the Texans. But early runs on receivers and offensive tackles left him available as Round 1 ended.
“When we went to bed (Thursday),” Bill O’Brien said, “we were happy.”
And even happier when the Texans picked Blacklock on Friday evening, addressing a clear need for interior pass rushing before adding Florida edge rusher Jonathan Greenard at pick No. 90.
For the Texans, these marked the first offseason attempts at bolstering a front seven that struggled to generate pressure a season ago, tying for 18th in QB hits (91) and 26th in sacks (31). And for Blacklock, Friday represented what he believes to be the beginning of creating his own legacy, separate from his father, Jimmy Blacklock, a Harlem Globetrotters legend and also the first African-American to lead the Texas Longhorns basketball team in scoring.
“My dad created a legacy for my family in basketball, so I think I was meant to do it for football,” Blacklock said. “I’m the first person in my family to make it to the NFL. I think that’s a pretty good start for me.”
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It is, but the coaches who have been part of Blacklock’s journey might argue that he began building his legacy long ago. When that avoidable fumble as a running back led to newfound maturity. When he transformed from a highly regarded recruit to a redshirted one of the guys. When he visited the Texans’ facility early in the pre-draft process and impressed during a grilling from the entire coaching staff.
There’s more work ahead for Blacklock, but so far, he’s lived up to his potential. He was TCU’s first four-star defensive tackle, Fitch said, and because of him, the school has signed four since.
“If that’s not leaving a legacy,” Fitch said, “I don’t know what is.”
(Top photo: Matthew Pearce / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)