The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Tracking the Longhorns: Aug. 9
08.09.2009 | Football
Aug. 9, 2009
Video: Practice report [Aug. 9, 2009]
Offensive coordinator Greg Davis
On the first practice: We're really excited, obviously, to get started again. There were a couple of things that were clearly obvious in the first practice. One, is our team is in really good shape. Jeff Madden and the strength staff did a great job this summer, because we pushed them really hard and they held up, so that was exciting. The other thing is the retention. We have a lot of guys coming back so we were able to pick up at a pretty high tempo with the older guys in terms of what they were able to retain from the season to spring training until getting started today. So I was really, really pleased with that. I thought we threw and caught the ball really well this morning. The big emphasis in the helmets will be the throwing game and some of the outside runs. So I thought we did a good job getting started in that area. We're just looking forward to camp.
On the importance of retention: Retention is so important because it allows you to move at a faster pace. So this group, I think we had eight starters back on offence, so we were able to get started at a really high tempo, and we started working no huddle today. That's something that's hard to do if you have them stacked in a huddle and call the play and explain things, so it's critical in camp; what they've been able to retain over the summer.
On being able to tell the work the team put in over the summer: They had a great summer. There's no doubt about it. You can just tell. The timing in some of the routes, you can tell that the lineman have been working really hard on sets and things like that, so yeah, there are certain things you can pick up even though you just have helmets on that are exciting.
On the work between Sherrod Harris and Garrett Gilbert at quarterback: We started off today with a split practice. We had Colt (McCoy) and Sherrod this morning, and we'll have Garrett and Trevor (Walker) and John Paul (Floyd) this afternoon. And so they'll work separate practices for the first two. Then when we get into our third practice, we'll start dividing the time up between those two guys, between the second and the third group.
On the energy in this morning's practice: Yeah, the energy is something that, obviously, if you don't have it on the first day, then you're really concerned, because everybody's so excited. But on both sides of the ball, we're playing with a very high energy. What that does is, it allows you to overcome mistakes. In a ball game, it allows you to overcome a dropped pass or whatever. When your team is playing so hard, they're able to make up things, and that's what we saw this morning.
On Colt McCoy getting even more comfortable and confident than last year: Oh sure. I think at every position you can get better, and the thing that we've talked to Colt about is just things like ball placement, about where you actually throw the ball so the receiver has an opportunity to run after the catch. We talked about analyzing the defense a little bit quicker, about getting the ball to the third and fourth choices more often. Those are the things you work with him on different from things that you work with younger quarterbacks.
On the running backs at practice: I think all of them, Fozzy (Whittaker) and Vondrell (McGee), both had a really good morning catching the ball. Jeremy Hills did some good things, and it's really hard to judge running backs until you put the pads on. Until you see them pick up a linebacker; assignments, you can check out in shorts, but you can't check out whether they did it properly until you put the pads on. You don't get a feel for how many tackles they're breaking or not breaking until you put the pads on. But for what we asked them this morning in terms of route running and catching the ball, they did a heck of a job.
On the tight end position: It's certainly one that we're putting a lot of emphasis in here in camp. Greg Smith has dropped about 40 pounds from last year. He's playing at about 250 now. D.J. Grant, who we moved at the first part of spring last year, then got an ankle (injury) and missed the last part. Those two guys were working today with the first group. We'll continue to work them because that's such a big part of what we've been able to do in the past. And last year, we were not able to play as much tight end as we would like to play. So hopefully we'll be able to go back to that this year. Having said that, because of the depth at receiver, we still can play quite a bit of four-wide-receiver-sets.
On questions they want answered entering the season: Well, obviously the tight end position is something that camp is very critical to see. I'm pleased with where Greg Smith, played last year at 285; he's 255 or 254 this morning. D.J. Grant, who moved last spring, got hurt before spring break, and wasn't able to come back, so we have to find out where those two guys fit. We'd like to play more 11-personel than we did last year, but having said that, we feel comfortable in 10-personel, because we can put (Jordan) Shipley, or anyone else in there and still function. But, that's obviously something that is important. The other thing is the four-minute-offense. We felt like in the Kansas game, the wind was such a factor in that game, and it's typically not as big a factor, but we were disappointed as we evaluated the season that we were not able to burn more clock into the wind. It works both ways. It keeps us on the field and allows our defense to not have to play facing the wind. So the ability to force the run into some situations is one of the things we'd like to get better at.
On expecting Greg Smith to catch a large amount of passes: No, but at the same time, he can be really solid in the run-game. Greg has really good hands, he really does, and if he can function underneath in the option-run game and banging away at backers, we can get by. But, it's always great to have a guy, like we've been fortunate to have in Bo (Scaife) and David (Thomas) and Jermichael (Finley) that could stretch the field and do that. Hopefully that's where D.J. Grant fits that mold physically.
On negative-yardage plays in 2008: I don't know the percentage on that. I know we had too many zero- and negative-yard plays. That's something that, as we evaluate whether or not we're covering them up with the offensive line, whether or not the back is hitting the right hole, whether or not we need to be under center more. I mean, all of those are things that we discuss in that area. At the same time, we want to be smart enough to understand that, you know last year I think we were third in the nation in third-down conversions, so we were able to make up for a lot of those, but we'd rather not put ourselves in that situation.
On last year's conversions of third-and-longs: In our quality control, we feel like, what we call championship level, if we convert 33 percent of seven-plus (yards to go) on third down, you're playing at a very high level. Last year, we were off the charts. We were like 43 percent of conversions of seven-plus, and it's hard to count on that. You work towards it, but it's hard to count on it.
On what he attributes that to: I think one is (Colt McCoy's) ability to run plays with his feet. You can't put a price tag on how important that is. If the defense has everybody covered up down field and then he can break the pocket and go get you a first down, that's invaluable. Then I think that how well Quan (Cosby) and Jordan (Shipley) and those guys were able to run after the catch. You know, catching the ball at eight, and spinning forward and those kinds of things.
On the committee of running backs: Since today is August 9, I would say I don't look for one to carry it 20-25 times. That's only based on what happened last year, what happened in the spring, and one practice in helmets. We would like for somebody to win that job and establish that they can be on the field for that many snaps and be the "bell cow." But all three of them bring something to the table, and until one of them does emerge, we'll have to keep doing what we're doing.
On establishing the running-game without taking the ball out of Colt McCoy's hands: What we want to do is run the ball on goal line, short yardage, which we were pretty efficient at last year, and then when we want to, and that's where we were not as efficient. Going back to the Kansas game is when we say, `Ok, we want to run because of rain, wind, injuries...whatever.' We want to get better at that, but we've got to remember that the bottom line is scoring points, and that's our job. Just like the defense, when you look at...I've done so many studies, you'd think I'm back at college, but when you look at the last 11 years in college football, I'm not talking about the Big 12, I'm talking about college football, and you take nine categories. I'm going to try to go real slow for ya'll. (Reporter: We got the sheet yesterday.) Ok, you got the sheet? Ok. The bottom two categories; one of them is pass defense, and the other is rush offence. So, across the country, that is not as important as it was when I was growing up, where it was stop the run and run the ball. And interestingly enough on that sheet, still number three is rush defense. So, the number one is scoring offence, the number two is scoring defense, and the number three thing is rush defense. You know, we want to play to our strengths, obviously. But we...talk until I'm tired. I know ya'll are tired. We want to run the ball better when we want to. We want to eliminate as many zero- and negative-yard plays as we can.
On Colt McCoy being under center: I'm glad you asked that because we're going to play more under center. Now, we have played very little under center as you know in the last three years. I don't want you to think that all of the sudden we're going to play 40 percent, 50 percent of the time under center, but we do want to play under the center more for a couple of reasons. One is to let the backs go down-hill. That is the biggest thing. Also when we play up-tempo, we play under center, like we did against Ohio State. When we're playing with a really fast tempo, we like to play under the center.
