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(From Anwar)
The Texas football team is officially in summer mode.
Once Texas played in its spring game, Longhorn players had a reprieve from team activities. During that time span, Texas football coach Tom Herman made appearances throughout the state. Herman was part of the “This is Texas Tour” in April. In addition, Herman addressed the Touchdown Club of Houston, plus hosted recruits throughout the offseason. Herman barely had time to focus on his team and the upcoming season because of his hectic offseason.
However, this is when the switch back to football starts.
Texas began its summer workouts with strength and conditioning coach Yancy McKnight on Tuesday. This is the time where McKnight works with players to get them ready for training camp. Basically, it is McKnight’s job to get the players physically ready for the upcoming season. McKnight became the staffer most Texas players gravitated toward last year because of his outgoing personality and honesty. McKnight’s goal was to earn the trust of his players, and once that occurred, players went above and beyond for him.
Many people associated with the program credit McKnight for the Longhorns hanging tough with their opponents last season. Texas was not physically outmatched last season, and the people I spoke to were happy the blowouts that plagued the Longhorns previously were eliminated last season. Obviously, everyone wanted Texas to win those close games, but they viewed it as a necessary step in the building process.
It is important for Longhorn fans to know the coaching staff gets to spend eight hours per week with their players during summer workouts. They are allowed to attend workouts as long as it fits in the NCAA limitations.
I asked a person associated with the program to explain to me what the goal of summer conditioning was during a brief conversation on Thursday. The definition of what Herman expects was concise.
“The goal of summer conditioning is to improve change of direction and get as close to football shape as possible while still maintaining our strength gains,” that person told me.
This is a change from what long-time Texas observers are used to hearing.
In the past, summer workouts is when players could move up the depth chart and earning a starting spot, especially quarterbacks. In fact, I asked a person associated with the program what the quarterbacks could do to move up the ranks in April, and here is what I reported in a previous War Room:
“I asked a person associated with Herman if the coach wanted one of the quarterbacks to organize offseason workouts. In previous years, the quarterback who did that was viewed as the guy who had the inside track to be named the starter. The quarterback who organized seven-on-seven workouts was the guy viewed as the player who wanted the position more than any other passer in the room.
“However, a person associated with the program told me, ‘Shane [Buechele] and Sam [Ehlinger] will set a time, and the time won’t change. They’re not going to the kids’ dorm room and dragging them out of bed. It’s doesn’t happen. It’s much more regimented.
“Very similar to before spring practice. Position specific conditioning. The only difference will be the running. It will be much more run and conditioning specific. A little more scientific about getting faster, quicker, and getting in shape.’”
Staying with that theme, I asked a person associated with the program if there were any particular players who needed to step up during summer conditioning or run the risk of getting left behind when fall camp begins.
The answer was a reminder of how summer workouts are viewed by Herman’s staff.
“Not applicable,” is what I was told.
In other words, summer workouts are important for the upcoming season, but they’re not the end all, be all - it is simply one part of Herman’s offseason preparation.
Lastly, I asked about incoming grad transfer running back Tre Watson.
As you already know, Watson is an important component to the upcoming season. Texas running backs Daniel Young and Toneil Carter struggled last season and during the spring game. Their struggles led Texas to heavily pursue Watson, who has a chance to start in the season opener against Maryland.
I asked if there were any concerns about Watson getting into Texas as a grad transfer, and it does not appear to be a concern of anyone associated with the program.
“No concerns with Tre,” a person associated with the program told me. “Just have to wait on him to officially graduate and get through some paperwork. Shouldn’t be too long before that’s all cleared.”
That is good news for Texas fans who are hoping for increased competition in the backfield this season.
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(From Suchomel)
Texas will host one of its biggest official visitors of the spring season this weekend when standout wide receiver Jake Smith makes his way to Austin for what will be his third stop on the Forty Acres. Smith, who will decide on either Texas or USC, has taken two unofficial visits to UT prior to this weekend, including a weekend stop for the Orange-White game.
The 6-0, 185-pound speedster took his official visit to USC two weeks ago. Prior to that, all the behind the scenes buzz had centered on Texas, and Smith’s social media posting has seemed to reinforce the idea that the Longhorns are the team to beat coming down the stretch.
Per people who cover USC, people inside the Trojans program do feel like they made a strong impression during their official visit. In checking around this week, I’m not really buying it ...I’m sure Smith enjoyed himself – he said as much – but Texas is in a good position, especially with UT having the last chance to make an impression.
Texas has done a great job with this one in Smith's previous two visits, so much so that I really like Texas’ chances with the Scottsdale (AZ) Notre Dame Prep standout even before he visits this weekend. The guess here is that the Longhorns win out and I don't expect this one to remain undecided for long.
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Texas offered a trio of in-state wide receivers last weekend, so it’ll be interesting to see how those situations play out if the Longhorns do land Smith (to go along with a current commitment from Jordan Whittington). You have to figure the staff can’t take all three, especially with guys like Dylan Wright still on the radar. Could it speed up the process for a guy like Jaylen Ellis, Langston Anderson or Peyton Powell? A bit too early to tell, but a situation worth monitoring.
Anderson has been on UT’s radar for a while and visited for the Orange-White game in April. He’s planning to take his time and will release a list of favorites in a couple weeks. Texas will certainly make the cut.
“They’ve been recruiting me for a while. It finally happened. It’s big, I’m super excited,” Anderson said of the offer. “They’ll always be one of my top choices. I was putting out a top 10 on June 15, I was waiting on Texas to come through and they did.”
The Midlothian Heritage standout will take his first official visit this weekend, to Arizona State. He wants to take one to Texas and said Ole Miss is another strong possibility (he played his sophomore year of high school ball at Jackson Academy in Mississippi). As for Texas, Anderson said there’s a lot to like, and he’s heard good things from current Longhorn Kobe Boyce.
“The big tradition, the history of good players, the big Texas name,” Anderson said about what stands out. “I actually went to school with somebody who goes to Texas right now. When I asked him about it he had a lot of good things to say.”
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If there’s one of the group from last week’s offer that could make a move to beat the others to the punch, it might be Round Rock Cedar Ridge standout Jaylen Ellis.
Ellis is still committed to Baylor, but he’s been very open about wanting a Texas offer and said this week how big it was for that one to come through. Ellis is aware of the other wide receiver offers that went out and said he’s not sweating those because all the receivers talk and know what each other’s next step will be, so I’d expect him to keep an eye on UT’s standing with the other in-state receivers. If Texas does add Jake Smith, it could be a case of Ellis having to speed up the process a bit if he wanted to secure his spot.
“Texas is obviously high on my list due to them being my hometown school. It does change things, changes how I think about things,” Ellis said after getting the UT offer. “Being able to put Texas in the mix is interesting but it does change things.”
Ellis will visit Arizona on June 11. He wants to take some visits this summer and have a decision made before his senior season starts. With Texas having a limited amount of spring official visits remaining (the spring visit window ends at the end of June), it’ll be interesting to see if Texas tries to get him on campus for an official, or if multiple unofficials might be enough to seal the deal. As of earlier this week, Ellis hadn’t talked to UT about an official visit, but he said he’ll probably try to have that discussion in the very near future.
Even before Texas offered, Ellis told me at a couple different camps this spring how strong his feelings are for the Longhorns, and he reiterated those thoughts when I talked to him this week.
“I know I always say it, but it has that hometown school feel. My grandmother lives about two minutes away. For games we can literally park at her house and walk over,” Ellis said. “I’ve always played around the area, maybe 10 minutes away, if that. Just being home. I’d never have to leave, don’t have to deal with anything, so it’s that special for me.”
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Add defensive end/linebacker Rian Davis to the list of possible official visitors for the Longhorns in June. Texas is still putting the finishing touches on things, but Davis has been in touch with Todd Orlando about coming up for a visit and he has tentative plans to be on campus the weekend of June 15 if things work out.
“I’ve been thinking about cutting down my schools, setting up some official visits,” Davis said. “I knew they were going to be a top school, so I went ahead and set that up.”
Davis will take an official visit to Louisville and said he’ll also probably visit Georgia. He’d like to take a few of his trips in June and save one for sometime in the fall. Davis said he had been considering committing this spring or summer, but it’s now looking like he’ll delay his decision a bit.
“I wanted to do it before the season, but I doubt that’s going to happen,” he said. “I’ll probably do it sometime early in the season.”
Davis played his last two seasons at Clear Lake in Houston but is now back at Apopka (FL) Wekiva. His time in Texas gave him some familiarity with the UT program and he’s anxious to get a closer look at what Texas has to offer when he does take his official visit.
“I’ve been there one time before. I went up there for a game. I had a great time there,” Davis said. “I just want to get back there, see the academics, see the campus, things like that.”
Davis said he has a top five in his mind but he’s not ready to put out his finalists just yet. Texas is in the top group. He does still have an uncle in the Houston area so there’s still some Texas ties. At 6-3 and 232 pounds, Davis said Texas has talked to him about playing at both middle and outside linebacker.
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When I spoke to JUCO DE Jermaine Johnson after he picked up his UT offer a few months ago, he mentioned that he’d be saving one of his official visits to see the Longhorns. I caught up with Johnson very briefly this week (he was packing to help his mom move to Arizona), and he said he’ll make his way down to Austin in June, but it’ll actually be an unofficial visit.
Johnson recently named Texas in his top six, along with Miami, Georgia, UCLA, USC and Oregon. Obviously, getting him on campus for an unofficial visit is a big first step for the Longhorns. If they can then get him back in the fall for an official, this one could get interesting.
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Recently, Shaka Smart filled his assistant coach opening by hiring Neill Berry away from Iowa State. As we reported initially, Smart was expected to take his time with the hire, and did. The more people he talked to and the more he thought about the job, the more he kept coming back to Berry.
“First, I really wanted to make sure we did a ton of research and took our time … fortunately it was a time of year we didn’t have to do something super-quick just because of our guys were finishing school and we had spring recruiting but we could do what we wanted to do with that,” Smart said. “The month of May is one where it’s never slow, but it’s slower. Talked to a lot of people. Spent a lot of time going around in my own head with the different components of the job that I was working on prioritizing. I have a notecard of a bunch of different priorities I looked at and rearranged it at different times. Neill is a name that kept coming up. Obviously, he worked with Darrin at South Carolina and Western Kentucky.”
Berry checked some key boxes for Smart: recruiting, skill and player development, experience in the Big 12, and experience working at a place known for quick, efficient offense. I asked Smart if he knows how he’ll structure his staff – this conversation was about a week ago – and divide responsibilities.
“I have some strong thoughts on that, but I haven’t set anything in stone. Just because our guys are away right now. This is usually the time of year when I try to think through some things and evaluate … it’s not final yet what we’re going to do. I think Neill is going to be able to help us on the court. He has great experience including in our league. He’s coached a lot of different guys … he’s been around some great players and coaches.”
As always, a big focus for Texas this offseason will be progressing its personnel mentally, and also improving its skill and physical attributes. As for basketball-specific areas, Smart, unsurprisingly, started where all Texas fans would.
“Number one (basketball wise) would be scoring more efficiently, and probably at the top of the list for that in terms of scoring would be making a higher percentage of our threes and free throws,” stated Smart. “As you know, there’s a lot of things that go into that – passing, execution, ballhandling, combinations, getting more guys comfortable playing together. Last year we had a lot of different combinations depending on the time of the year. We need to get guys more and more comfortable playing together in different combinations … I’m excited about the fact we’ll have a good core back that played a decent amount of minutes together. Hopefully, those guys will be further along than they were last year at different times because they’ve played together more.”
For Texas, the upcoming season will be the first time it returns three or more starters since Smart arrived, and the first time the projected rotation will include at least one senior, junior, sophomore, and freshman.
A late but big addition to the incoming 2018 recruiting class, which arrives June 2-3, was Webster Groves (Missouri) point guard Courtney Ramey. From talking to Smart about Ramey, it’s hard not to think Texas fans will quickly grow to like the freshman guard.
“Probably the thing with him I’m most excited about is he has a seriousness about the game that’s unique for a freshman. Most freshmen are pretty happy go lucky; just everything is kind of funny and happy to be in college. But he’s so serious. He’ll text me every day with something. Last week, he was like, ‘Coach, I need our schedule to start researching teams we’re playing.’ Recently he was like, ‘How did P.J. Tucker become such a great player and change his game so much after he left college?’ Courtney, he has a very serious approach towards the game and getting better and winning.”
Ramey arrives at Texas after winning back-to-back state titles, and he’s not the only member of the incoming class that enjoyed a lot of winning at the high school level.
“That’s another thing I like … there’s six state championships in this class and Brock (Cunningham) and Gerald (Liddell) both came from really good programs that played in the state semifinals … that’s something in recruiting we look for because we’re trying to win. It’s going to be interesting because most of the time freshmen come in with a certain degree of understanding of what’s coming but they really don’t know. They kind of get hit with it and it’s like ‘whoa.’ The real evaluation is how they respond after that initial transition.” (McComas)
