Texas football coach Tom Herman was asked about the impending spring camp quarterback battle between Shane Buechele and Sam Ehlinger during his press conference on Monday. As you can imagine, it will be the first of many questions he will receive about both quarterbacks between now and the time a starter is name.
In fact, Herman was asked when he intended to name a starter, and the coach is not ready to finalize his decision during the spring.
“Probably within into a week of (fall) training camp,” Herman said. “Yeah, there will not be a starting quarterback named after spring ball. We'll have an idea and we'll have that conversation with those kids, too, on where they kind of stand, but I think it's important that they at least have the ability to go win the job in training camp and really win the job over the course of the summer in terms of leading their teammates.
“Like I said, not a whole lot of time for evaluation in training camp, but that one will probably go five to seven days maybe into training camp. But then I want the guy, whoever we do name as the starter, to know that this is his team, too, for a couple weeks before heading into the game.”
Here are two more quarterback observations from Herman worth passing on:
Herman on what he is looking for in a starting quarterback
“Competitive, leader, football smart. I've seen a lot of guys that are average students that are brilliant on the football field, so not necessarily -- you don't have to be a 4.0 GPA to be football smart.
“I think you've got to be a guy that your teammates gravitate towards, that you make better. You make your teammates around you better through your play and your actions. And then specific to the position, really making great decisions, making them consistently, and then accuracy of ball placement and the speed at which you can translate decision to ball out of my hand is important, too.
“There's a lot that goes into it, a lot.”
Herman on being comfortable with Matthew Merrick and Josh Covey competing for the third quarterback position and if Jerrod Heard is in the mix
“ I don't know,” Herman said. “I think Matthew and Covey will be the first two that get the looks. With Covey being a guy that's actually somewhat impressive running around the cones, he's an athletic dude, which is kind of what you want from your third quarterback is -- he's your third quarterback for a reason, so maybe he can add a dimension or get you out of a game running around a little bit back there, which hopefully he can provide.
“But I don't think Jerrod -- to do what we're talking about doing with him like we did with D'Eriq King at Houston, you're talking about an eight- to ten-play package to just get you out of a game, and so we don't want to fill his bucket up with that in the spring and take reps away from Matthew and Covey to show us what they've got. But if Merrick and Covey can't be that third guy then in training camp we'll start introducing a few things for Jerrod, but we want him to focus on being the best wide receiver he can be and worry about the third-team quarterback stuff when we need to.”
In fact, Herman was asked when he intended to name a starter, and the coach is not ready to finalize his decision during the spring.
“Probably within into a week of (fall) training camp,” Herman said. “Yeah, there will not be a starting quarterback named after spring ball. We'll have an idea and we'll have that conversation with those kids, too, on where they kind of stand, but I think it's important that they at least have the ability to go win the job in training camp and really win the job over the course of the summer in terms of leading their teammates.
“Like I said, not a whole lot of time for evaluation in training camp, but that one will probably go five to seven days maybe into training camp. But then I want the guy, whoever we do name as the starter, to know that this is his team, too, for a couple weeks before heading into the game.”
Here are two more quarterback observations from Herman worth passing on:
Herman on what he is looking for in a starting quarterback
“Competitive, leader, football smart. I've seen a lot of guys that are average students that are brilliant on the football field, so not necessarily -- you don't have to be a 4.0 GPA to be football smart.
“I think you've got to be a guy that your teammates gravitate towards, that you make better. You make your teammates around you better through your play and your actions. And then specific to the position, really making great decisions, making them consistently, and then accuracy of ball placement and the speed at which you can translate decision to ball out of my hand is important, too.
“There's a lot that goes into it, a lot.”
Herman on being comfortable with Matthew Merrick and Josh Covey competing for the third quarterback position and if Jerrod Heard is in the mix
“ I don't know,” Herman said. “I think Matthew and Covey will be the first two that get the looks. With Covey being a guy that's actually somewhat impressive running around the cones, he's an athletic dude, which is kind of what you want from your third quarterback is -- he's your third quarterback for a reason, so maybe he can add a dimension or get you out of a game running around a little bit back there, which hopefully he can provide.
“But I don't think Jerrod -- to do what we're talking about doing with him like we did with D'Eriq King at Houston, you're talking about an eight- to ten-play package to just get you out of a game, and so we don't want to fill his bucket up with that in the spring and take reps away from Matthew and Covey to show us what they've got. But if Merrick and Covey can't be that third guy then in training camp we'll start introducing a few things for Jerrod, but we want him to focus on being the best wide receiver he can be and worry about the third-team quarterback stuff when we need to.”
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