Excerpt:
A master’s level crash course from Decker
Houston spent the first month of the season taking scout-team reps at right defensive end. He mimicked the pass rushers Decker was set to see in games, and he started picking the veteran left tackle’s brain about what worked, what didn’t and what he could do to improve.
Decker dominated Houston early on. He jump-set Houston in one-on-ones, engulfing the smaller defender with his long arms. He toyed with him in team work, sticking his left arm out to trick Houston into burning a move or tightening his alignment on pass checks to dupe Houston into thinking it was a run play.
For the inquisitive Houston, it was a master’s level crash course on the game within the pass-rush game. He felt, in some ways, like a Fortune 500 company hiring a hacker help build its firewalls.
“He’s kinda a quiet guy, but he’ll ask questions about it,” Decker said. “He wants to understand why certain guys do certain things, and it’s awesome. 'Cause if you can bounce ideas off your teammates, hopefully I helped him get better.”
Slowly, and with the help of defensive line coach Todd Wash and defensive line assistant Cam Davis, Houston learned to weaponize his unique skill set. He has exceptional quickness, though, and the elite ability to get low and turn a corner like only a few pass rushers Decker said he has ever faced: guys such as Von Miller, Robert Quinn and Myles Garrett.
“I realized that me, I move way differently than everyone else, and that movement scared them,” Houston said. “That’s kind of what they told me. They didn’t know what was going on, so they had to stop their feet or lunge or whatever, and I think that’s really what you want the linemen to do so you can get around them. So that really was, that was helpful for me so I understood, ‘All right, I’m quicker than these guys, I can move faster, I can move better than these guys, so I got to use that to my advantage.’ I can’t show my hand. They may not respect that.”
It all adds up
Houston always has been the cerebral sort, standing apart from his peers for his smarts as much as his athleticism.
As a fourth-grader, he tested so well in math at Country Iles Elementary in Weston, Florida, that his mother forced him to join the school’s Mathletes team. The team traveled the state’s southeastern coast taking part in math competitions. As reluctant as he was to devote his Saturdays to what felt like schoolwork, Houston’s competitive instincts took over and he found himself, scratch paper by his side, trying to win every match.
In middle school, Houston was so proficient in math he would leave school early to take classes at nearby St. Thomas Aquinas High. By high school, he was taking courses for college credit. He ended up at Jackson State after a disjointed career at Florida, in part so he could get a graduate degree from a Historically Black College and University, like generations of his family.