Photo via AP
Texas football coach Tom Herman’s program is seemingly at a disadvantage prior to the upcoming football season. Yep, this column will focus solely on football.
Herman decided to overhaul his staff after a disappointing 7-5 finish during the regular season (8-5 overall). He parted ways with former defensive coordinator Todd Orlando after his squad finished with the 97th ranked defense in the country. Herman moved on from offensive coordinator Tim Beck after being forced to call plays for two straight seasons. He hired offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich, a coach who studied under Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy, one of the best developers of talent within the country. Herman added defensive coordinator Chris Ash, a guy he won a national championship with at Ohio State. Longhorn receivers fell in love with Andre Coleman during practice for the Alamo Bowl, which prompted Herman to lift the interim tag. Herman also hired Mark Hagen (defensive line/assistant head coach for defense), Coleman Hutzler (co-defensive coordinator/linebackers), Jay Valai (cornerbacks), and Jay Boulware (special teams coordinator).
Adding seven new coaches is hard enough under ideal circumstances, but Covid-19 added another layer of difficulty. Herman’s new staff worked with their players during winter conditioning before being released for spring break in March. Spring practice was canceled the following week, and coaches have been forced to interact virtually with their players. On the surface, it is hard to imagine how much progress has been made without live reps in practice. Ash installed a new defense, but the Longhorns have never practiced at full-speed. Offensive players have not endured a full-speed practice with Yurcich. Coaches have been forced to cultivate relationships with their players through Zoom and FaceTime, which is the equivalent of trying to maintain a long-distance relationship when you live in Texas, and she resides in California.
Herman has a built-in excuse to lower this year’s expectations.
He is not interested.
“The good part about everything was that in the last five to 10 years, the NCAA has certainly relaxed a lot of the rules surrounding our interaction with our guys in the winter offseason,” Herman said. “As soon as these guys got back from Christmas break, we were allowed to meet with them for two hours a week, which we took full advantage of. We were able to have position specific conditioning drills. Every single one of our players has been coached numerous times on the field by their new coach. The last couple years, we've been allowed to have walkthroughs, too.
“We got a lot accomplished in February and March, certainly. Now, with eight hours a week, we're not even close to using the eight hours a week of meeting time that the NCAA has allowed us to have with our players virtually, but I feel a static more than comfortable with the mental aspect. Let me put it this way, regardless of spring practice or not, we have met more this offseason from February until June than any other year in the past. Maybe twice as much.”
The Longhorns are definitely meeting.
The Big 12 began allowing its programs to meet virtually on March 30 (seems like three years ago). Football programs began meeting through Zoom as players were forced to self-quarantine during the pandemic. That served as the only communication coaches have been allowed with players. Voluntary workouts begin on Monday, but coaches are not allowed to supervise. However, they are getting closer to a likely return of football practice in July.
Again, Herman is not worried about the lack of traditional preparation prior to this season.
“Really not concerned with the mental aspect of assignment and learning the offense and defense,” Herman said. “Obviously, there's no substitute for full-speed 11-on-11 physical reps. We're going to have to catch up to that as best we can. We're to the point now where we're talking about third-down packages. We're talking about red-zone packages. We're talking about short-yardage packages. We're talking about things that you wouldn't even get in a spring practice. These are situations that you wouldn't talk about probably until training camp, and we're already meeting on them here in June.
“So, that part of it, very comfortable, but certainly understand that it's one thing to know it, and have met on it, but it's another thing to go out there and do it correctly over and over again.”
Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger is not concerned either.
Ehlinger is entering his fourth season as a starter, and has played well when healthy. Ehlingher has stood toe-to-toe with former Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray and former LSU quarterback Joe Burrow, two Heisman Trophy winners. He enters this season as arguably the Big 12’s best quarterback.
If any quarterback is poised to have a smooth transition this season, Ehlinger is the guy.
“It's been great,” Ehlinger said. “Obviously, we [Yurcich and Ehlinger] got a little bit of time to be together in January and February. We got to start our relationship there. Through Zoom meetings, nothing has dropped off. We've been able to meet a lot. I know if I ever call him and want to meet virtually, he's always available. We've done that multiple times, just meaning individually. I think that he's an incredible coach and a great teacher. I'm really, really, excited for the relationship that we'll have on-the-field.”
Texas safety Caden Sterns shares similar sentiments about Ash.
“Just to piggyback off that, I feel the exact same way,” Sterns said. “Again, coach Ash is really elite at what he does. He's detail-oriented, and I felt like through virtual meetings, on the mental aspect when we get back. We're going to be able to slow the game down. Outside of that, he's calling us a lot. Just checking in. If I wanted to meet anytime, or have any questions about film, he's responding within 10 minutes. The relationship is there, and it's continuing to grow, regardless of interaction in-person. The relationship is there.”
That relationship has not developed in-person, but virtually.
It would be easy to to lower this year’s expectations.
Nobody associated with the program is interested.
Photo via AP
Funniest Things You Will See This Week
One of the funniest videos I will post this year
If you have ever seen people at the slot machines in Las Vegas, this is not surprising
I feel the same way about needles. I cannot blame him
This dog’s reaction is priceless
Sports On A Dime
1. I posted recently post this on the message board and it is worth repeating:
- Juwan Mitchell went into the transfer portal and took his name out
- Denzel Okafor went into the transfer portal and withdrew his name
- Anthony Cook created a panic with his tweet this past week and deleted it.
These young men face a lot of obstacles. It is best to not overreact and give them time to sort through their challenges. Cook is still a part of the Longhorn program, and there is no timetable for his return.
2. The Big 12 announced it would hold virtual media days in July. If you missed it, here is the schedule:
3. In order to have a college football season, fans and media members must get used to players testing positive for Covid-19. Honestly, we will need to remove the stigma and accept it as our new norm. We will need to treat the news of a positive test like a sprained ankle on an injury report. Players are going to test positive. There is just no way to avoid it. In order to make it through this season, we have to become numb to the news, which might be easier said than done.
4. When I covered Jon Gruden in Tampa, he said something about offensive and defensive linemen that changed my perspective about the NFL draft. Gruden said there are not a lot of agile 300-pound men on this earth. The majority of them are not in great shape. As a result, whenever an NFL team sees an athletic guy at 300-pounds, that player gets drafted before a 5-foot-11 defensive back who runs a 4.5. That is why I expect the stock of Sam Cosmi to continue rising.
5. When I think of quarterback battle next year between Casey Thompson, Hudson Card, Ja’Quinden Jackson and Jalen Milroe, Texas will have an abundance of QB riches this program has not enjoyed since … (fill in the blank)?
6. Yahoo Sports writer Pete Thamel recently reported the NCAA Football Oversight Committee passed a recommendation that coaches can begin formally working with their teams on July 13. It is expected to be passed by The NCAA Division I Council during a meeting on Wednesday.
Here is what Thamel wrote:
“Here’s the schedule as laid out by the Football Oversight Committee. Schools can begin to have access to their players on July 13, which would include strength workouts and coaches engaging in film study with their players. (It would be a week earlier for teams involved in Week 0, as they’ve been told they can start July 6.) According to the language discussed on the football oversight call, summer access “may begin 25 calendar days prior to the first permissible preseason practice date.”
“Those eight-hour weeks would transition to a pair of 20-hour weeks on July 24, which have been added in part as a safety measure to help get players physically prepared for the season. These have been discussed by the group as being comparable to NFL OTAs, as they’d include walkthroughs and a ball.
“This would lead to the training camp starting date on Aug. 7.”
7. You may not be familiar with former Florida A&M football coach Ken Riley, who recently died at 72-years-old. However, he had one hell of a football career that deserves to be recognized in this column.
“Riley played his entire 15 seasons for the Bengals as a defensive back, with 65 career interceptions for 596 yards and five touchdowns — all franchise records. The interceptions rank fifth in NFL history. He also recovered 18 fumbles before retiring in 1983.
“After retiring as a player, Riley spent two seasons as an assistant with the Green Bay Packers before taking over as coach at FAMU, where he went 48-39-2 from 1986-93. He won two Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference titles and was a two-time MEAC coach of the year. He took over as athletic director from 1994-2002. During those years, the Rattlers won 35 MEAC championships in 11 total sports.”
8. Nobody will care about this when college football season begins. Right now, every college football fan should be thrilled to know players took the necessary precautions while away from campus, and a return to college football continues to trend in the right direction.
9. Does Floyd Mayweather have a son we do not know about?
10. Boxing needs more its top fighters facing off in their prime. That being said, it seems weird to announce Tyson Fury’s future opponent before facing Deontay Wilder in the trilogy.
“I'm going into the third fight even more focused than I was for [the second] fight because this is Wilder's last chance at the big time, especially to win his belt back," Fury said via ESPN. "Deontay Wilder will come in more prepared and more ready for this fight. I have to take this fight even more serious than the first two because a lot of champions and a lot of fighters who had trilogies with people, just because they beat them comfortable the second time, overlook them the third time and end up getting knocked out or losing, and I don't want to become a statistic.”
Holiday Road
I am heading on vacation this week, which means I will not have a column next Sunday.
Play nice.
