The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Tracking the Longhorns: Wednesday media availability
08.09.2017 | Football
Head Coach Tom Herman spoke with the media on Wednesday following the morning practice session.
Tom Herman
Opening statement: Pretty good one today. Yesterday was really, really physical and we had to push through, yesterday being practice eight, coming off of a scrimmage on Saturday. Really good practice on Monday. Yesterday, there was some teeth pulling to get them going. We called them up about halfway through practice and told them that if they give us everything they've got for the rest of practice, then we'll take some of the gear off of them today. They did that, they responded and they were rewarded. We were in shorts and shoulder pads today, very limited contact today but we got a lot of good work in.
On the schedule for the rest of camp: We'll do six days a week. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays will be our heavy contact days. Monday, Wednesday, Friday will be limited to no contact days and then Sundays will be our day off and we'll wash, rinse and repeat.
On variation of the training camp schedule: I would think that there'd probably be something, whether it be a night off or, "Hey, go home, we're not going to meet tonight." Maybe take them somewhere in the afternoon, but we're not going to ever miss a practice of training camp. So we'll have practices. If anything, if they perform to our expectations and merit an afternoon off or an afternoon that's more fun, we'll think about that. But we'll never sacrifice a day of preparation.
On Joshua Rowland: I like him more than other kickers that have been around because he's halfway normal and I think he's got a bit of a toughness to him. We ended today's practice with a two-minute drill needing a field goal to win. Then we simulated bobbling a snap where the holder fell on the ball, called timeout so now we've got to go back and try it again. Then we iced him, and then had the whole team come out, form a tunnel of noise and he nailed the thing right through the uprights.
On blocked kicks last season for Texas: Unacceptable, I think, is probably the best term. That's a difficult team to be on because when you get real dudes in the middle there, that becomes a war inside for about a second and a half. I think we've helped ourselves by bringing in a fifth year transfer short snapper that's got a little bit more girth on him to protect the A-gaps. One blocked kick on the year, whether it be a PAT, field goal, or punt, is too many, and the stats back that up. You block a punt, your chances of winning that football game increase substantially just from that one statistic.
On special teams personnel: I know skill position guys on offense will not be allowed to touch the football unless they're starting on special teams. I believe our number one punt team is made up of all starters as of now and then most of the rest of the special teams will be starters or key backups. It's a third of the game and we have always had the philosophy, even with my days of going back to Sam Houston State when I was the special teams coordinator, that if you're an offensive or defensive player and you need a breather, you need a play off, it's going to happen on offense and defense. It's not going to happen on special teams. I think special teams miscues are much more disastrous than an offensive or defensive miscue, and so we're going to put our most trustworthy guys on those teams.
On determining the depth chart order at running back: Production comes in all shapes and sizes, and all different kinds of forms and rotations. So, would you like a guy to really, really separate himself? Yes. But if they don't, but they're all playing at an above average to winnable level, then that's a good thing. So I view running backs very similarly to defensive line, we're going to have two or three that are probably going to play quite a bit throughout the course of the game.
On assigning special teams personnel: Early in training camp, we'll be three or four deep and we're going to have meetings as a staff prior to training camp, like, "Hey, this is what this position needs from a body type standpoint: Speed, size, strength, length." All of that stuff, and then, "This guy would be good, and this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy." A week or so of practice, you try those guys out in drills and see how they do. And then as you get closer to game time you whittle that number down so, essentially, by game week just the ones and twos are getting reps.
On impact in recruiting: I think that you sell the people, you sell our staff, you sell our strength coach, you sell our academic staff, you sell our nutritionist, and our assistant coaches. The truth is easy to sell and your current players do as a good a job recruiting and truth-telling as anybody. When your current players tell these recruits, "Man; this guy, my position coach, he is phenomenal, he loves me, he cares about me, takes care of me; the strength coach, in seven months I put on 70 pounds on my squat max, this guy is really, really training us to maximize our genetic potential." I think that goes a long, long way. So you sell the people and obviously the academics are about as good as it gets for a public institution. You sell the city of Austin, you sell the tradition. Although tradition for these guys is Vince Young, it's not Earl Campbell and Tommy Nobis. It doesn't go back very far, so I think tradition can only get you so far. You've got to sell the people, the academics, the city. And then you sell the track record too, you sell the testimony of what we've done as a staff at the last place we were at.
On the timetable for recruiting, being finished before Christmas: I think that's realistic. There might be one or two guys that want to do the hat dance in February or the Under Armour All-American or the Army All-American thing. But other than two, three, I think especially with the new signing day, we're going to learn a lot from whether they sign or not.
On history and chemistry with offensive coordinator Tim Beck: Not a ton far back. When he was at Nebraska we used to cross paths recruiting a little bit, we would sit down and talk ball when we're out on the road spring recruiting. We'd share offensive ideas and I certainly liked watching his offenses when he was at Nebraska. He was one of the guys that I considered at Houston before Coach Meyer hired him at Ohio State. Again, when I called J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones and they said, "This guy is the real deal," that carries a lot of weight with me. Coach Meyer had a lot of great things to say about him as well and so, very uniquely much like Major (Applewhite) was, we need a guy that can bring some ideas to the table, a guy that can manage the room, a guy that's got experience, a guy that can coach the quarterbacks, a guy that can recruit. Because of mine and our experience on that side of the ball, I think that part of it is more important than, "Hey, we're going to come in and we're going to run Tim Beck's offense." It's, "We're going to run our offense." With some ideas and creativity from Tim and the rest of the offensive staff. But a phenomenal guy, the kids love him, he's a great teacher and we work really well together.
On Tope Imade's move to defensive line: Really good. He got a lot of reps on Saturday. He's a big, good looking dude that's got some intelligence about him, that's got some twitch to him. I even wrote down on my notes today just watching him run around, something like, "We've got to find a way to make Tope a player." So we're going to talk about that in our staff meeting, and whether that happens this year, I mean he's a redshirt freshman that played offensive line for an entire year and some change, but happy with that move at this point and he's got to do the things that we're asking him to do to develop as a defensive lineman, but I think that the talent is there.
