Texas strength and conditioning coach Yancy McKnight addressed the media on Friday afternoon, and I wanted to pass along a few quick notes to you guys.
Obviously, it is late on Friday night, Texas had big recruiting news on Friday, there are recruits on campus, so this report will be brief. I will give you a lot more from McKnight in The Sunday Pulpit. I will say McKnight was very impressive, extremely charismatic, and I sincerely believe players will gravitate to him during the offseason. It did not take me long to understand why coach Tom Herman loves McKnight so much.
McKnight spoke on camera, but gave a private interview session to writers. Here are some quick quotes from that gathering:
McKnight on which players have impressed him so far:
“You look at Connor (Williams). Left tackle. That’s what they should look like. The corners are some good-looking kids. I think I measured a couple of those kids at 6-2, flat-footed, the way the scouts are going to measure them. Those are good-sized corners. There’s some kids. Malik (Jefferson) is a good-looking kid. Just got to hammer away at them, and do what we do, and get them up to spend on what we’re doing to do in our program. That’s really it. What the demands are for them in practice, and what their position coaches are going to want.”
McKnight on improving Shane Buechele’s body:
“We’re going to work on his lower body. Get him stronger in his lower body. That’s the one thing with a lot of quarterbacks. I know with Greg (Ward) in Houston, he was a 162 (pounds) guy when we got there. I think we finished at 188 with him. He’s 5-10 and a strong, strong kid. He was pretty durable this last year, and that was the thing we challenged him with because the year before he was a little dinged up. I know Buechele kind of had the same things last year. He kind of got tagged around a bit. That’s what you do in the weight room. You’re trying to build that armor, and trying to get them a little bit more durable when taking some shot here and there. I think the lower-body stuff with the QBs is always so, so important, because that’s just all their power and torso whip from their throws. You got to hammer the legs with those guys, and their power base.”
McKnight on making sure Buechele still has upper-body flexibility:
“That’s with torso rotation … I’m not a big (bench) press guy. We do a lot more back stuff than we do anything on the front side because it’s just so overdeveloped. The quarterback is a tricky one because you want him grinding right in the middle of it with all the other guys because he needs to be that guy. He’s got to be tough and got to be an alpha (male), he’s got be grimy, as crazy as that sounds. Nobody wants to think that, but that’s really what it is, especially in the winter time. As we get closer to the season, you’re smarter with what you do with him. You’re smart with him all the time, but you got to be real cognizant of his upper body mobility. We work year-round with those guys on their torso rotation and their upper-body mobility.”
McKnight on why back work is so important to him:
“The back side of the body is an underdeveloped area. You try to offset injury stuff, overuse stuff, but anyone on the line just punches all the time. If you just sit there and you’re bench pressing them all the time, you’re going to have overuse issues. Shoulders, elbows, are always going to be hurting. We try to be balanced and have symmetry in all our training, front and backside.”
Obviously, it is late on Friday night, Texas had big recruiting news on Friday, there are recruits on campus, so this report will be brief. I will give you a lot more from McKnight in The Sunday Pulpit. I will say McKnight was very impressive, extremely charismatic, and I sincerely believe players will gravitate to him during the offseason. It did not take me long to understand why coach Tom Herman loves McKnight so much.
McKnight spoke on camera, but gave a private interview session to writers. Here are some quick quotes from that gathering:
McKnight on which players have impressed him so far:
“You look at Connor (Williams). Left tackle. That’s what they should look like. The corners are some good-looking kids. I think I measured a couple of those kids at 6-2, flat-footed, the way the scouts are going to measure them. Those are good-sized corners. There’s some kids. Malik (Jefferson) is a good-looking kid. Just got to hammer away at them, and do what we do, and get them up to spend on what we’re doing to do in our program. That’s really it. What the demands are for them in practice, and what their position coaches are going to want.”
McKnight on improving Shane Buechele’s body:
“We’re going to work on his lower body. Get him stronger in his lower body. That’s the one thing with a lot of quarterbacks. I know with Greg (Ward) in Houston, he was a 162 (pounds) guy when we got there. I think we finished at 188 with him. He’s 5-10 and a strong, strong kid. He was pretty durable this last year, and that was the thing we challenged him with because the year before he was a little dinged up. I know Buechele kind of had the same things last year. He kind of got tagged around a bit. That’s what you do in the weight room. You’re trying to build that armor, and trying to get them a little bit more durable when taking some shot here and there. I think the lower-body stuff with the QBs is always so, so important, because that’s just all their power and torso whip from their throws. You got to hammer the legs with those guys, and their power base.”
McKnight on making sure Buechele still has upper-body flexibility:
“That’s with torso rotation … I’m not a big (bench) press guy. We do a lot more back stuff than we do anything on the front side because it’s just so overdeveloped. The quarterback is a tricky one because you want him grinding right in the middle of it with all the other guys because he needs to be that guy. He’s got to be tough and got to be an alpha (male), he’s got be grimy, as crazy as that sounds. Nobody wants to think that, but that’s really what it is, especially in the winter time. As we get closer to the season, you’re smarter with what you do with him. You’re smart with him all the time, but you got to be real cognizant of his upper body mobility. We work year-round with those guys on their torso rotation and their upper-body mobility.”
McKnight on why back work is so important to him:
“The back side of the body is an underdeveloped area. You try to offset injury stuff, overuse stuff, but anyone on the line just punches all the time. If you just sit there and you’re bench pressing them all the time, you’re going to have overuse issues. Shoulders, elbows, are always going to be hurting. We try to be balanced and have symmetry in all our training, front and backside.”
