Kelvin Banks Jr. was already good at football when he walked onto Ross Sterling Middle School’s campus. 

Towering over his peers as a child, Texas’ freshman offensive tackle started playing football early in life. His parents Monica and Kelvin Banks Sr. enrolled him in youth football leagues and training camps from elementary school, understanding that their child had a natural build and strength to potentially compete in the trenches at the college level someday. 

Despite his stature and seemingly predetermined path, Banks was not spared from middle school being a transitionary period like it is for most.

In his first year playing for Ross Sterling’s football team, Bearcat athletic director Travis Albee said that Banks changed and matured throughout his seventh grade season. Coming in mild-mannered and even-keeled — a quiet, hard worker — Banks emerged as a vocal leader for the Humble ISD District Champions.

“He realized at some point that everybody looked up to him,” Albee said. “He realized that, at some point, he was going to have to be vocal, especially out on the field, because a lot of the time the coach is not out there.”

Only a week into Texas football’s 2022 season, it’s already become clear that some of Banks’ leadership lessons learned in his hometown of Humble have carried over to the Forty Acres. 

Since Banks enrolled as a student this fall, his teammates have raved about his vocal leadership. Even before starting offensive tackle Junior Angilau suffered a season-ending ACL injury in fall camp, redshirt junior wide receiver Jordan Whittington noticed that Banks was quickly emerging as a leader with a high football IQ. 

After a play didn’t go Whittington’s way in practice, Banks ran over for a quick exchange of words with the wide receiver.

“(Banks) actually ran to me and told me, ‘It’s all right. Let’s move on to the next one,’” Whittington said. “Coming from a freshman and also someone that’s in a whole different position, that’s a really big thing. It hit me, and I was like, ‘OK, this dude is for real.’”

Junior running back Bijan Robinson also listed Banks as a leader on the offensive line, though he described the left tackle as serious and methodical. Robinson likes to make jokes with his teammates when competing at practice, but his humor doesn’t always resonate with Banks.

Once when the team was in the weight room together, Banks was getting a lift in when Robinson approached, asking him in a joking manner if he was putting in an appropriate amount of effort. The 6-foot-4-inch, 320-pound lineman didn’t exactly get the friendly intent, dismissing Robinson’s comment and insisting that he was, in fact, grinding.

“I was like, ‘Shoot,’” Robinson said. “He brings that presence; he brings that dominance. He wants to get better.”

Like Robinson, who assured the press that he loves Banks, redshirt senior guard Christian Jones sees Banks’ hard work, noting that he learned Texas’ offensive system very quickly.

“He hit the ground running,” Jones said. “He’s very smooth with everything that he does, and he’s very technically sound, which is really good to see.”

Banks developed the work ethic during his middle school years playing for Albee. At Ross Sterling, Albee said that Banks built such an intimate knowledge of the scheme that he acted as a coach when blocking on the line of scrimmage or on the sidelines, waiting for his turn in the limelight. 

Albee said that Banks’ coach-type role has a positive impact on Texas, especially when the Longhorns have struggled with morale on the offensive line, and more generally in the locker room.

“The best teams are those that have all the players that are on the field (able to also) coach,” Albee said. “(Kelvin has) been maturing. He has leadership on and off the field and (a) work ethic.”

In Banks’ first game as a Longhorn against Louisiana-Monroe, he didn’t allow a single pressure and had the highest pass protection grade of Texas’ offensive linemen, setting a solid foundation that the former five-star recruit will hope to build on the rest of his Texas career.

“KB did his thing. We already knew what he was going to do,” sophomore tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders said after Saturday’s game. “He’s been executing their practice all the time, so I already knew what he was going to bring to the table.