Provided by UT:
Tom Herman
Opening statement: I'll be brief, as I always say, and sometimes I'm not. Pretty historic day. Obviously a lot of the work was done by December 21st, but adding the eight guys that we added today really kind of solidifies the class, especially on the defensive front.
We made some big-time strides there with Keondre, Daniel, Joseph and Mike. So that was really important knowing that we didn't sign any on December 21st, but knew we were in really good position with a lot of them.
Again, I would be remiss if I didn't thank the people that need to be thanked. We had a lunch yesterday for all of the people affiliated with the University of Texas, namely professors. For those of you that don't know on official visit weekend, a number of professors give up their Saturday morning to come eat lunch with our potential prospects. For them to do that and provide us a face and a voice with a department and a degree is invaluable and something that we don't take very lightly. We wanted to make sure we thanked everybody that had their hand in recruiting for this cycle.
Recruiting cycles are really long, too. Everybody from rec sports for allowing us to use the pool and their facilities in the summertime last year for our pool party... The list goes on and on. But the people at this university, I told them yesterday at the lunch, to steal a line from Woody Hayes: You win with people. To a person, the people that have come on visits here to the University of Texas have always given me feedback that they're just so impressed with the people, they're impressed with their honesty, their hospitality, their forthcomingness, and just their overall demeanor, how much they love this university.
Again, to everybody that had their hand in recruiting, this is a 500-piece puzzle. The puzzle is never complete even if one piece is missing. No one piece of a puzzle is more important than another, and they all matter. I think that was very evident in the ability for us to sign the historic class that we signed.
The players on our team, I said it on the 21st, I'll say it again, wow, do they do a good job. I even tell recruits, Listen, my job is to show you the best of the University of Texas, from academics to facilities to football to social life to dorm rooms to meals, you name it, I'm going to show you the best. Our players are going to tell you what's real.
They were unbelievably honest. They were unbelievably positive. They had a huge part in this signing class. They took a lot of pride in it, too. I think they have truly bought into the notion, which is the truth, that in order to win championships, you've got to surround yourself with really good players and really good people. We have that in this class.
I want to thank our parents of our current team members. They did a phenomenal job. Whenever a parent of a recruit would have a question, we would get them in touch or our parents would be around on visits and answer questions. Just did a phenomenal job, as well.
Then to the assignees. Not only are they really, really, really good football players, but they're great people. They come from great backgrounds. They have great adult figures in their life. They have an unbelievable support system at home. Their parents, mentors, coaches, have raised unbelievably well-rounded, competitive young men that are going to fit in great in our program.
Really excited about this class for a bunch of different reasons. I think depending on what service you subscribe to, 11 out of the top 15 players in the state of Texas signed with the University of Texas. Again, I said it on the 21st, I'll say it again, that needs to not be an aberration, that needs to be the new normal.
When this place was winning championships on a regular basis, that's the way it was. We know we've got to do a great job in our state, our bordering states, mainly Oklahoma and Louisiana, to make sure the bulk of our roster is that. Then we have to do a great job of selecting the out-of-state players that can come in and fit in our culture and provide us with a spark and with some depth, also probably give us something that is not available in a certain class, in a certain cycle.
On defensive competition after signing this class: There's going to be a lot of competition on the defensive side. On both sides of the ball really. But I think we all can see, whoa, that side of the ball just got real in a hurry. To sign the three best safeties in the country, as well as what we think are the two best corners in the country, Jalen Green and D'shawn Jamison, then the two best defensive tackles in the state in Moro and Keondre, then the best pass-rusher in the state with Joseph Ossai, then Mike Williams and Daniel Carson as well. I think Daniel is a phenomenal player, a great frame, is going to be a really, really big dude. Mike Williams is a guy, again I told you last year who I think might be a sleeper, this guy I loved his film. He's a 6'3", 263 pound quarterback.
I walked into his high school. He had a bar on his back with 315 pounds. His feet were perfectly straight together, and he did six reps of a squat touching his butt to his heels. Then he jumped on the power clean, power cleaned it butt to the heels with his feet straight ahead. Whoa, that's a really, really flexible, athletic dude.
My hat is off to Oscar Giles for staying the course. This was a bit of a rollercoaster ride, especially in state at defensive line. We finished really strong.
On signing 27 players in this year’s class: Tremendous foresight by Derek Chang, our director of player personnel. Last year when it became apparent it was going to be very difficult to speed date the kind of person and athlete that we needed in our program in such a short amount of time, he said, Coach, we don't need to sign guys just to sign them. The 2018 class has a bunch of really good players that are slated to graduate early. If we don't sign a full class in 2017, we can then count as many early enrollees as we have back towards that number, as well as sign a full 25 for 2018.
I would suspect you're probably going to see that number go from 27 to maybe 28 or 29, with a transfer, grad transfer, before we open up camp. That's okay. I think we were working with the number of 31 I think we had available because we had seven freshmen enroll early that we could count backwards into 2017's class.
What a fantastic idea by Derek, and a tremendous amount of foresight to know, and confidence in what we were going to be able to do here.
On the December signing period and how certain prospective student-athletes used the six weeks between signing periods: I'll answer that part first. It becomes, I mean, a feeding frenzy out there, especially in a thin position, in a certain class. If you were a D-lineman, man, you were getting recruited by everybody after December 21st. That made it a little bit overwhelming I think for some of those guys because everybody in the country needed D-linemen. There were very few to choose from.
But to answer the first part of that question, I liked it. As difficult as it was, those three weeks of trying to see 30 guys in 15 days, and be here for bowl practices, get a team ready for a bowl game, that was hard.But I think the dividends were that the maintenance on those guys in the month of January was pretty nonexistent. Hey, let's get them ready to play. A lot of them were, Let's get ready to get enrolled in school. I liked it after it was over. But it did certainly make for a ratcheted up intensity level for the few guys that are championship-caliber players that were still left out there.
On if it’s more difficult with the early signing period if you’re playing in a playoff bowl game: No. I mean, the Texas Bowl was our playoff game. I mean, the only thing it might be easier if those games were on January 1st or January 2nd. Your first week out, you're probably not even practicing with your team. You're letting them finish finals, all that stuff.
But, no. I think the biggest change that you're going to see, the biggest adaptation for us, is going to be now moving forward, these spring visits. You want to talk about unchartered territory. We have April, May and June, whatever that is, 16 weekends, plus every weekend in the fall and every weekend in December and January, save for a two-week dead period. That's a lot of people at my house on Saturday afternoons for lunch.
I think we've got to be very selective on our dates in the spring or else we'll wear everybody out. Our players, can you imagine having to host a kid 12 straight weeks. That's not fair to our players. So you just wear everybody out. It wears the faculty out that has to be at breakfast for 12 straight weeks.
We'll probably have three to four days in the spring that we're going to try to push all the guys that want to take official visits in the spring. That's going to be the biggest difference, is January felt like spring recruiting, save for the eight to 10 guys that you were seeing. For some programs that only had one or two spots to fill, I'm sure it was almost identical to spring recruiting.
When you have spring official visits, these kids are telling you, Coach, I'm going to take all five of my visits in the spring, have a decision by July, so I can focus on my senior year of high school.
It's like, Whoa, okay, hang on. It's kind of like a new signing day is July, when all these kids are wanting to make their decision. We've created a bit of a monster with these spring visits, so we'll see how it goes.
On how the class came together by focusing on in-state talent first: By stating our goal to keep the best players in Texas, I certainly don't want to diminish the quality of player that we were able to bring in from out of state, from Cameron Rising, Casey Thompson, Ayodele Adeoye, Mike and Daniel. I'm sure I'm missing a few here. We signed some really, really good out-of-state players as well. Mike Grandy. The list goes on and on.
The core of every one of or signing class is going to be from the state of Texas. The numbers of good football players in the state, it makes no sense not to do that. Kids grow up wanting to play for the University of Texas, so you have a bit of an in there.
But again, when we go out of state, it is because we have evaluated every position in the state of Texas that we feel like you can win a championship with. Now, some years you might take four defensive linemen, you might be slotted to take four defensive linemen, but only the top three in the state you feel are good enough to win a championship with. Where do you get the fourth one? You got to go out of state, right? Maybe you have to go out of state for two of them because the top three you feel are good enough, but one of those mom and dad might have had them growing up with maroon pajamas or something like that.
There's all sorts of reasons why you would go out of state. But I think the bulk of every one of our classes from now until the time we leave here is going to be from the state of Texas.
On the difficulty of finding defensive linemen and if they need any offensive linemen to play next year: I don't think, I know we signed the two best defensive tackles in the state of Texas in Keondre Coburn and Moro Ojomo. Those guys are going to be expected to compete very early in their career. I think the biggest time you'll see them compete, though, is maybe their sophomore year. You look at the defensive line this year, it's going to be a lot of seniors. You have Charles, Breckyn, Chris Nelson, Jamari. There's going to be a lot of seniors on that defensive front.
These guys are going to be expected to come in, get their feet wet, provide us with quality, championship-caliber reps, then be ready to take this thing over full-time as sophomores.
The O-linemen, I don't think it's ever fair to have to rely on true freshmen O-lineman. The one position, and quarterback probably, that just takes so much time. One, they play every snap. If you're a starting O-lineman, you don't rotate like a receiver might, any of those other skill positions might. If you're an O-lineman, you're going to be expected to play every snap.
The game is really, really fast for those guys. Usually physically from a developmental standpoint they're not quite ready. I mean, we had a 17-year-old kid out there all year this year in Derek Kerstteter fighting his tail off against grown men. I'm sure he would have been better served in the short-term maybe to have developed. I think in the long-term, whatever it is, 800 game reps he got against really, really good competition, is going to serve him very well.
It's not something you ever want to plan on, though.
On Keaontay Ingram: I don't know that you're ever going to say, We expect him to be the guy. That's not fair to the guys that are bleeding and sweating right now for us and have in the past.
Every one of these guys, all 27 of them, at some point in their career we expect them to be the guy or we wouldn't sign you at Texas. But to your point, there is definitely a need at that position to get better. Whether that's the development of Danny Young, Kyle Porter, Toneil Carter, Tristian Houston, great, great, we're getting better. If that's the infusion of a Keaontay Ingram, great, we're going to get better.
But, yeah, that fact is not lost on any of us in this program that we got to get better at that position.
On the defensive back competition following a historic signing class for that position: Today. They already are. I mean, there's three of them that have already enrolled. They're making an impact in workouts, speed and strength training already.
I don't think you need to look any further than our own Michael Huff. You know how you get better at DB? You go try to win your job every day in practice, win your job. If you don't, if you have a bad day or a bad couple days back-to-back, some young dude's going to take your job. That's the way it was when they were winning championships, Rose Bowls, national championships around here, because those guys competed.
He tells stories about practice that are, I mean, legendary, Michael does, about just the quality and depth that they had at defensive back in that era. That's going to be the same way here moving forward. You're going to have to go earn your job. Hopefully we get to that point at every position, sooner rather than later. If you're not careful, you have a couple bad days, there's a young guy right behind you ready to step in.
On Bryan Carrington and the value he brings to the staff: Bryan does a fantastic job of connecting with players. He's young. He shares similar backgrounds to a lot of them. Grew up in Houston. He is passionate about the University of Texas.
I think where Bryan comes into play is because of that connection, I think it adds a lot of validity to the things that we're saying to the full-time recruiters. We're saying it and we're presenting information, then Bryan is saying, Yeah, man, that's the real deal, that's really how it is here. Oh, I trust this guy. I relate to him. I connect with him. It's just an added piece. He's the best in the country. Again, to find the loophole for the 10th coach, we've kind of held off on the hiring of our 10th coach. To get him out on the road, I thought was really good, too. I mean, he made a difference.
Again, there's nobody in this program that's ever going to get singled out for being more important in recruiting or on the field than any other. Like I said, it's a 500-piece puzzle, and they all got to fit. They're all roughly the same size. The puzzle doesn't work if even just one is missing. Bryan does a phenomenal job. I hope he sticks around for a long, long time.
On Herb Hand and how that impacts the gameday staff duties next season: Really excited. This is the first time I've spoken to the media since we've hired Herb. Excited is an understatement. This is a guy, you ask anybody in college football who the top two or three O-line coaches in the country, his name always comes up.
Herb is going to coach the O-line. He will hopefully develop those guys. Much like everybody in that room, he'll have an input in game planning. None any more great than anybody else in that room. I'm thrilled to death. I thank President Fenves and Chris Del Conte for allowing us to kind of think outside the box with that hire. I think it's much like Ohio State did, I think they hired the defensive coordinator from Washington State to come be a position coach, co-coordinator. You guys to pay those guys money to do that. President Fenves and Chris Del Conte said, Do what you got to do to make us better. I felt like, again, recruiting, we're pretty good there. Defense, pretty good. Special teams, pretty good. So where can we help our football team the most? That was to bring in some freshness and newness to the offense.
Really excited to work with him. He's been hitting the ground running. He's gelled seamlessly with our staff. It's been really, really fun to come to work.
Then call the plays, it's to be determined. I think, again, to judge any kind of coach's abilities based on the circumstances that surrounded the offense, we got to get better as coaches. We have to get better as coaches, okay, on that side of the ball. There were a lot of circumstances there that probably didn't allow for a fair observation. Much like any head coach, even that does call the plays, I've researched from Chip Kelly to Scott Frost to Gus Malzahn when he was doing it, in the spring I got to be the head coach. You're not going to see me out there in a headset standing on the sideline calling plays. I'm going to be behind the quarterback, watching the play, cheering and coaching both sides of the football. Tim Beck is going to call the scrimmage situation plays. We'll go from there and evaluate throughout the summer.
On dates for spring practice and the spring game: March 20th is the start date. Normally what we've done in the past is go the week before spring break, take spring break, come back. I felt like with signing date being so late this year, almost a week later than in some years, as well as adding a new piece to the offensive staff, we needed some more time to just talk football, everybody get on the same page.
We'll take that extra week before spring break. We'll come back from spring break, go whatever, four or five straight weeks, culminating in the spring game I believe on the 21st of April.
On recruiting competition in the state of Texas: It better make you better or you're in the wrong place. I go back to a story that was told to me by a former coach that I worked for. He talked about reading a story about Nike. For years and years and year, decades maybe, their growth line was like this. There was a point in history where it skyrocketed. That point right there was when a guy in Baltimore, Maryland, started inventing and promoting a product called Under Armour. Nike said, Oh, there's a new kid on the block that is pretty damn good. Better pick our game up. They did. Trust me, we've had that conversation in our staff room on numerous occasions. I know how good a recruiter Jimbo Fisher is and his staff is. I know that's a great place for the right person. But again, it's our job to make sure that we keep the best players. We're very unique. It says 'The University of Texas', right? There's very few institutions that are The University of Something. That means a lot to us. We want to make sure that the best players do stay here. But that competition is real. We welcome it. It makes us better.
On what will determine if he calls plays next year: If I felt like it helped us win.
On working in the 2019 recruiting class: I mean, recruiting is like shaving, right? If you don't do it for a couple days, you wake up and look like crap. So today was symbolic for a lot of reasons, one of them being that we are officially closing the book on the 2018 class, and now going full speed ahead on the 2019 class.
Not to say we haven't already. We've offered kids, had kids on unofficial visits. We've targeted a few. I think I said this on the 21st, and I want to make it clear publicly again, we finished this recruiting cycle, I believe my numbers are correct, Iowa State led all of the Power 5 schools in documented offers. We were the fifth fewest with Stanford, Northwestern, Clemson who I think is only signing 15, and Washington behind us, who they subscribe to the OKG model, our kind of guy.
I think it's very important that everybody in the state of Texas knows, Oklahoma and Louisiana, that when we say the word 'offer', the young man can say yes on the spot right then and there, and we're going to be doing cartwheels and backflips down the hallway and celebrate because we got our guy. We are not in the business of offering to get in it. Coach, I got to throw an offer out so I can recruit him. No, you don't. Not in this state you don't. You say the word 'offer', we better be happy if that kid commits. More than happy, ecstatic. Do we get beat up a little bit sometimes? Yeah. Coach, I had 47 offers before you guys offered me. I know. We weren't sure. We needed to see you in camp. We needed to see three games of your senior film because we weren't sure. We don't offer people we're not sure of. There's all this non-committable offer. That's a real phrase. So it's not an offer. If it's not committable, what is it? It isn't an offer. Or offer to get to camp. I hear that all the time. We want you to come to camp. I'm only camping at the places that offer me. Great. See you at camp. It's not real, right, we all know that. It's really important for me to continue to spread that message, that we are going to be very diligent in our research with guys that fit what we do.
You were asking about the 2019 class, and I got on my soapbox. But we are. I think that's what was kind of cool about the early signing period. I did have the ability to go in a lot of high schools. You can't talk to them. But, Hey, the head coach of Texas is here because you're here, he's watching you in athletic period, watching you work out, talking to your head coach finding out about you. I think that goes a long way. Obviously I couldn't do that with everybody in the 2018 class. The ones I did really matter.
On the success of the lightning package last year and the walk-on program: The first question, no secret, our lightning package was very productive for us last year. Again, you're only going to run that versus 10 and 11 personnel mainly because you have basically six DBs on the field, a lot of speed on the field.
The one position it might kind of tweak maybe what you're looking for is the boundary safety/B backer. By the end of the season, Jason Hall was playing our B backer position. Jason Hall is a big safety. He can play down there, blitz the quarterback, drop into the flat, but he can also spin to the middle of the field and play the deep post or the deep half off of hash. That's what you need. You need a big safety probably at that position.
Then the preferred walk-on deal, again, the word 'preferred' means you're guaranteed a spot in our 105 roster in fall camp. What am I looking for? I'm looking for a guy that, maybe if he had another year or two to develop, would be a Texas recruit, maybe a late-bloomer, maybe a guy that needs another year in the weight room. Maybe for whatever reason, one measurable might just not quite be there yet, but you see the potential for it to be there, then all the intangibles are there: the toughness, physicality, accountability, academically you got to get into Texas. You look for all those intangibles. You try to find a guy that is a Texas player, except maybe this one thing, but we're going to develop that one thing in a couple years, and hopefully he can earn a scholarship.
On the transition to prioritizing preferred walk-ons: You're probably not going to see gray shirt any more, because that guy is going to count one way or the other in the 25. Our walk-on program is crucial here. I firmly believe the reason we had so much success at Houston was because our scout teams were as good as there was in the country. A lot of those scout teams were young walk-on guys that really made both sides of the football better because of the daily practice that went into the preparation.
We have to get great walk-ons here, have to, because your numbers are such that you can't survive without it. It's becoming increasingly harder to do that. We're at the seven percentile in class rank. I'm sure that will change, too, in a few years. We need to make sure that we're bringing in the best walk-ons in the country so that they can provide unbelievable depth on the scout team and preparation, but also then develop themselves into scholarship players.
On Nick Foles: I called him. Nick Foles, if he's not a worldwide celebrity, at least leading up to the game he wasn't, but he was definitely a celebrity at Bridgepoint Elementary, where he attended. I know that elementary school was definitely rooting for the Eagles.
On competition in the program and all the talent within the state: We try to provide examples of that all the time. That's one of our four pillars of our program, which is competitive focus, to be ready when your number's called. But, no, that's definitely something we talk about all the time, try to provide examples of that.
To your question about being in this state, all that, yeah. Can't sign 'em all. I wish we could. Wish we didn't have limits. Wish we could go sign 'em all, do the evaluation once they're on your team. But you have to do the evaluation when they're not on your team and make really hard decisions.
There was one year, and we're hoping this changes on a regular basis, but I think one year in the NFL in recent history, somebody is going to have to fact check me, but it was close to half, maybe 16 of the starting quarterbacks in a certain week in the NFL all played high school football in the state of Texas, and none of them played at the University of Texas. We got to make sure that's not the case, that we're recruiting NFL-caliber quarterbacks, that we're developing them once they're here.
On the value of the recruiting class: No, no. It's plenty good enough. It's good enough. It goes to show you consistently mediocre to sub-mediocre years is going to bite you in the butt. One time is an accident, two times is a coincidence, three times is a trend.
But I think kids know what Texas is and can be. They know us most importantly now. They know our staff, they know me, they know our strength staff, they know our players, they know what kind of program we have here. You're not selling a record in recruiting, you're not. You're selling potential. That's whether we went 13-1 or 7-6. That year is over. You're selling the future, right?
They're doing that at Alabama. They're not selling a national championship. They're selling the potential to win another national championship.
On how many great recruiting classes you need before you can compete for national championships: That's a good question. It is definitely no secret, right, that the teams you see in the College Football Playoff, Alabama and Ohio State obviously come to mind first, those guys are in the top three every year. Even Clemson and Oklahoma, those guys, they've been in the top 10 consistently over the course of five to eight years. I don't want to put a timetable on it, but you need multiple years definitely because it's a player's game, right? I can't play. They got to go out and they got to be the best in the country.
I saw something, Alabama has wild stats coming out of the you know what, but some stat about every year the last five years, how many draft picks, something crazy. It's because they recruit them, they develop them, then they go play in the NFL. The first part of that is they recruit them. We've got to make sure we're taking care of that first part first.
On Joshua Moore’s skill set: That's where I see him fitting in, kind of doing a little bit of everything. Per our last conversation, probably slot receiver would be where he starts off in this program. Could he play outside receiver? Absolutely. Is he going to be a dynamic returner? Yup. Could he play corner? Yup. I think the necessity right now is probably at slot receiver. If we find some other guys that can do the job as good, if not better, we'll find another home for him. But probably the most versatile guy in this class that can do so many things.
On the quarterbacks: Rising and Thompson, the early returns, have been great. Both have magnetic personalities. They're both not afraid to work. In fact, they enjoy it. From the very little that I've got to see them, obviously I haven't seen them play football live ever, but the guys in the weight room. All of our newcomers, man, that is a mature, focused bunch of guys. Really, really mature.
Shane's health? Excited we got that taken care of. There's a guy in Philadelphia that's done probably five or six guys that have played for me, whether it be as an assistant or as a head coach, and have all had glowing reviews. A guy in Philly has a certain technique, he's pretty much the only guy in the country doing it. He's really good.
So Shane is doing good. If everything goes according to plan, we're expecting him back for spring practice full speed. Sam's mindset is great. He's a great leader. He knows in order for him to take the next step as a leader, he's got to put himself in the position to where his teammates don't doubt him, where his teammates have a ton of confidence in him. At quarterback, you do that by managing the game and not turning the football over. We've had many conversations about that. I think just the year under his belt and the year of college football, another spring practice, another training camp, the speed of the game is going to slow down for that kid monumentally. The situational awareness is going, because instead of we call it like crowd noise guy. What does that mean? He has crowd noise in his head all the time. There's no comprehensible thought in there.
So I think when the speed of the game slows down and you really understand what's going on, then the crowd noise goes away, you can start understanding and paying a lot closer attention to situations.
On what he is looking for out of his quarterback: Leadership, consistency, just be an everyday guy, be the same guy every day. Your quarterbacks better be the hardest workers on your team. They better be the guys that are never late, that are always on time, that make great grades, stay out of trouble on and off the field. If not, that nasty word 'doubt' creeps into the players around them. That's a really, really bad thing to have when you're a quarterback. You need trust, which to me is the opposite of doubt. To develop that trust, you've got to be consistent.
Thank you.
Tom Herman
Opening statement: I'll be brief, as I always say, and sometimes I'm not. Pretty historic day. Obviously a lot of the work was done by December 21st, but adding the eight guys that we added today really kind of solidifies the class, especially on the defensive front.
We made some big-time strides there with Keondre, Daniel, Joseph and Mike. So that was really important knowing that we didn't sign any on December 21st, but knew we were in really good position with a lot of them.
Again, I would be remiss if I didn't thank the people that need to be thanked. We had a lunch yesterday for all of the people affiliated with the University of Texas, namely professors. For those of you that don't know on official visit weekend, a number of professors give up their Saturday morning to come eat lunch with our potential prospects. For them to do that and provide us a face and a voice with a department and a degree is invaluable and something that we don't take very lightly. We wanted to make sure we thanked everybody that had their hand in recruiting for this cycle.
Recruiting cycles are really long, too. Everybody from rec sports for allowing us to use the pool and their facilities in the summertime last year for our pool party... The list goes on and on. But the people at this university, I told them yesterday at the lunch, to steal a line from Woody Hayes: You win with people. To a person, the people that have come on visits here to the University of Texas have always given me feedback that they're just so impressed with the people, they're impressed with their honesty, their hospitality, their forthcomingness, and just their overall demeanor, how much they love this university.
Again, to everybody that had their hand in recruiting, this is a 500-piece puzzle. The puzzle is never complete even if one piece is missing. No one piece of a puzzle is more important than another, and they all matter. I think that was very evident in the ability for us to sign the historic class that we signed.
The players on our team, I said it on the 21st, I'll say it again, wow, do they do a good job. I even tell recruits, Listen, my job is to show you the best of the University of Texas, from academics to facilities to football to social life to dorm rooms to meals, you name it, I'm going to show you the best. Our players are going to tell you what's real.
They were unbelievably honest. They were unbelievably positive. They had a huge part in this signing class. They took a lot of pride in it, too. I think they have truly bought into the notion, which is the truth, that in order to win championships, you've got to surround yourself with really good players and really good people. We have that in this class.
I want to thank our parents of our current team members. They did a phenomenal job. Whenever a parent of a recruit would have a question, we would get them in touch or our parents would be around on visits and answer questions. Just did a phenomenal job, as well.
Then to the assignees. Not only are they really, really, really good football players, but they're great people. They come from great backgrounds. They have great adult figures in their life. They have an unbelievable support system at home. Their parents, mentors, coaches, have raised unbelievably well-rounded, competitive young men that are going to fit in great in our program.
Really excited about this class for a bunch of different reasons. I think depending on what service you subscribe to, 11 out of the top 15 players in the state of Texas signed with the University of Texas. Again, I said it on the 21st, I'll say it again, that needs to not be an aberration, that needs to be the new normal.
When this place was winning championships on a regular basis, that's the way it was. We know we've got to do a great job in our state, our bordering states, mainly Oklahoma and Louisiana, to make sure the bulk of our roster is that. Then we have to do a great job of selecting the out-of-state players that can come in and fit in our culture and provide us with a spark and with some depth, also probably give us something that is not available in a certain class, in a certain cycle.
On defensive competition after signing this class: There's going to be a lot of competition on the defensive side. On both sides of the ball really. But I think we all can see, whoa, that side of the ball just got real in a hurry. To sign the three best safeties in the country, as well as what we think are the two best corners in the country, Jalen Green and D'shawn Jamison, then the two best defensive tackles in the state in Moro and Keondre, then the best pass-rusher in the state with Joseph Ossai, then Mike Williams and Daniel Carson as well. I think Daniel is a phenomenal player, a great frame, is going to be a really, really big dude. Mike Williams is a guy, again I told you last year who I think might be a sleeper, this guy I loved his film. He's a 6'3", 263 pound quarterback.
I walked into his high school. He had a bar on his back with 315 pounds. His feet were perfectly straight together, and he did six reps of a squat touching his butt to his heels. Then he jumped on the power clean, power cleaned it butt to the heels with his feet straight ahead. Whoa, that's a really, really flexible, athletic dude.
My hat is off to Oscar Giles for staying the course. This was a bit of a rollercoaster ride, especially in state at defensive line. We finished really strong.
On signing 27 players in this year’s class: Tremendous foresight by Derek Chang, our director of player personnel. Last year when it became apparent it was going to be very difficult to speed date the kind of person and athlete that we needed in our program in such a short amount of time, he said, Coach, we don't need to sign guys just to sign them. The 2018 class has a bunch of really good players that are slated to graduate early. If we don't sign a full class in 2017, we can then count as many early enrollees as we have back towards that number, as well as sign a full 25 for 2018.
I would suspect you're probably going to see that number go from 27 to maybe 28 or 29, with a transfer, grad transfer, before we open up camp. That's okay. I think we were working with the number of 31 I think we had available because we had seven freshmen enroll early that we could count backwards into 2017's class.
What a fantastic idea by Derek, and a tremendous amount of foresight to know, and confidence in what we were going to be able to do here.
On the December signing period and how certain prospective student-athletes used the six weeks between signing periods: I'll answer that part first. It becomes, I mean, a feeding frenzy out there, especially in a thin position, in a certain class. If you were a D-lineman, man, you were getting recruited by everybody after December 21st. That made it a little bit overwhelming I think for some of those guys because everybody in the country needed D-linemen. There were very few to choose from.
But to answer the first part of that question, I liked it. As difficult as it was, those three weeks of trying to see 30 guys in 15 days, and be here for bowl practices, get a team ready for a bowl game, that was hard.But I think the dividends were that the maintenance on those guys in the month of January was pretty nonexistent. Hey, let's get them ready to play. A lot of them were, Let's get ready to get enrolled in school. I liked it after it was over. But it did certainly make for a ratcheted up intensity level for the few guys that are championship-caliber players that were still left out there.
On if it’s more difficult with the early signing period if you’re playing in a playoff bowl game: No. I mean, the Texas Bowl was our playoff game. I mean, the only thing it might be easier if those games were on January 1st or January 2nd. Your first week out, you're probably not even practicing with your team. You're letting them finish finals, all that stuff.
But, no. I think the biggest change that you're going to see, the biggest adaptation for us, is going to be now moving forward, these spring visits. You want to talk about unchartered territory. We have April, May and June, whatever that is, 16 weekends, plus every weekend in the fall and every weekend in December and January, save for a two-week dead period. That's a lot of people at my house on Saturday afternoons for lunch.
I think we've got to be very selective on our dates in the spring or else we'll wear everybody out. Our players, can you imagine having to host a kid 12 straight weeks. That's not fair to our players. So you just wear everybody out. It wears the faculty out that has to be at breakfast for 12 straight weeks.
We'll probably have three to four days in the spring that we're going to try to push all the guys that want to take official visits in the spring. That's going to be the biggest difference, is January felt like spring recruiting, save for the eight to 10 guys that you were seeing. For some programs that only had one or two spots to fill, I'm sure it was almost identical to spring recruiting.
When you have spring official visits, these kids are telling you, Coach, I'm going to take all five of my visits in the spring, have a decision by July, so I can focus on my senior year of high school.
It's like, Whoa, okay, hang on. It's kind of like a new signing day is July, when all these kids are wanting to make their decision. We've created a bit of a monster with these spring visits, so we'll see how it goes.
On how the class came together by focusing on in-state talent first: By stating our goal to keep the best players in Texas, I certainly don't want to diminish the quality of player that we were able to bring in from out of state, from Cameron Rising, Casey Thompson, Ayodele Adeoye, Mike and Daniel. I'm sure I'm missing a few here. We signed some really, really good out-of-state players as well. Mike Grandy. The list goes on and on.
The core of every one of or signing class is going to be from the state of Texas. The numbers of good football players in the state, it makes no sense not to do that. Kids grow up wanting to play for the University of Texas, so you have a bit of an in there.
But again, when we go out of state, it is because we have evaluated every position in the state of Texas that we feel like you can win a championship with. Now, some years you might take four defensive linemen, you might be slotted to take four defensive linemen, but only the top three in the state you feel are good enough to win a championship with. Where do you get the fourth one? You got to go out of state, right? Maybe you have to go out of state for two of them because the top three you feel are good enough, but one of those mom and dad might have had them growing up with maroon pajamas or something like that.
There's all sorts of reasons why you would go out of state. But I think the bulk of every one of our classes from now until the time we leave here is going to be from the state of Texas.
On the difficulty of finding defensive linemen and if they need any offensive linemen to play next year: I don't think, I know we signed the two best defensive tackles in the state of Texas in Keondre Coburn and Moro Ojomo. Those guys are going to be expected to compete very early in their career. I think the biggest time you'll see them compete, though, is maybe their sophomore year. You look at the defensive line this year, it's going to be a lot of seniors. You have Charles, Breckyn, Chris Nelson, Jamari. There's going to be a lot of seniors on that defensive front.
These guys are going to be expected to come in, get their feet wet, provide us with quality, championship-caliber reps, then be ready to take this thing over full-time as sophomores.
The O-linemen, I don't think it's ever fair to have to rely on true freshmen O-lineman. The one position, and quarterback probably, that just takes so much time. One, they play every snap. If you're a starting O-lineman, you don't rotate like a receiver might, any of those other skill positions might. If you're an O-lineman, you're going to be expected to play every snap.
The game is really, really fast for those guys. Usually physically from a developmental standpoint they're not quite ready. I mean, we had a 17-year-old kid out there all year this year in Derek Kerstteter fighting his tail off against grown men. I'm sure he would have been better served in the short-term maybe to have developed. I think in the long-term, whatever it is, 800 game reps he got against really, really good competition, is going to serve him very well.
It's not something you ever want to plan on, though.
On Keaontay Ingram: I don't know that you're ever going to say, We expect him to be the guy. That's not fair to the guys that are bleeding and sweating right now for us and have in the past.
Every one of these guys, all 27 of them, at some point in their career we expect them to be the guy or we wouldn't sign you at Texas. But to your point, there is definitely a need at that position to get better. Whether that's the development of Danny Young, Kyle Porter, Toneil Carter, Tristian Houston, great, great, we're getting better. If that's the infusion of a Keaontay Ingram, great, we're going to get better.
But, yeah, that fact is not lost on any of us in this program that we got to get better at that position.
On the defensive back competition following a historic signing class for that position: Today. They already are. I mean, there's three of them that have already enrolled. They're making an impact in workouts, speed and strength training already.
I don't think you need to look any further than our own Michael Huff. You know how you get better at DB? You go try to win your job every day in practice, win your job. If you don't, if you have a bad day or a bad couple days back-to-back, some young dude's going to take your job. That's the way it was when they were winning championships, Rose Bowls, national championships around here, because those guys competed.
He tells stories about practice that are, I mean, legendary, Michael does, about just the quality and depth that they had at defensive back in that era. That's going to be the same way here moving forward. You're going to have to go earn your job. Hopefully we get to that point at every position, sooner rather than later. If you're not careful, you have a couple bad days, there's a young guy right behind you ready to step in.
On Bryan Carrington and the value he brings to the staff: Bryan does a fantastic job of connecting with players. He's young. He shares similar backgrounds to a lot of them. Grew up in Houston. He is passionate about the University of Texas.
I think where Bryan comes into play is because of that connection, I think it adds a lot of validity to the things that we're saying to the full-time recruiters. We're saying it and we're presenting information, then Bryan is saying, Yeah, man, that's the real deal, that's really how it is here. Oh, I trust this guy. I relate to him. I connect with him. It's just an added piece. He's the best in the country. Again, to find the loophole for the 10th coach, we've kind of held off on the hiring of our 10th coach. To get him out on the road, I thought was really good, too. I mean, he made a difference.
Again, there's nobody in this program that's ever going to get singled out for being more important in recruiting or on the field than any other. Like I said, it's a 500-piece puzzle, and they all got to fit. They're all roughly the same size. The puzzle doesn't work if even just one is missing. Bryan does a phenomenal job. I hope he sticks around for a long, long time.
On Herb Hand and how that impacts the gameday staff duties next season: Really excited. This is the first time I've spoken to the media since we've hired Herb. Excited is an understatement. This is a guy, you ask anybody in college football who the top two or three O-line coaches in the country, his name always comes up.
Herb is going to coach the O-line. He will hopefully develop those guys. Much like everybody in that room, he'll have an input in game planning. None any more great than anybody else in that room. I'm thrilled to death. I thank President Fenves and Chris Del Conte for allowing us to kind of think outside the box with that hire. I think it's much like Ohio State did, I think they hired the defensive coordinator from Washington State to come be a position coach, co-coordinator. You guys to pay those guys money to do that. President Fenves and Chris Del Conte said, Do what you got to do to make us better. I felt like, again, recruiting, we're pretty good there. Defense, pretty good. Special teams, pretty good. So where can we help our football team the most? That was to bring in some freshness and newness to the offense.
Really excited to work with him. He's been hitting the ground running. He's gelled seamlessly with our staff. It's been really, really fun to come to work.
Then call the plays, it's to be determined. I think, again, to judge any kind of coach's abilities based on the circumstances that surrounded the offense, we got to get better as coaches. We have to get better as coaches, okay, on that side of the ball. There were a lot of circumstances there that probably didn't allow for a fair observation. Much like any head coach, even that does call the plays, I've researched from Chip Kelly to Scott Frost to Gus Malzahn when he was doing it, in the spring I got to be the head coach. You're not going to see me out there in a headset standing on the sideline calling plays. I'm going to be behind the quarterback, watching the play, cheering and coaching both sides of the football. Tim Beck is going to call the scrimmage situation plays. We'll go from there and evaluate throughout the summer.
On dates for spring practice and the spring game: March 20th is the start date. Normally what we've done in the past is go the week before spring break, take spring break, come back. I felt like with signing date being so late this year, almost a week later than in some years, as well as adding a new piece to the offensive staff, we needed some more time to just talk football, everybody get on the same page.
We'll take that extra week before spring break. We'll come back from spring break, go whatever, four or five straight weeks, culminating in the spring game I believe on the 21st of April.
On recruiting competition in the state of Texas: It better make you better or you're in the wrong place. I go back to a story that was told to me by a former coach that I worked for. He talked about reading a story about Nike. For years and years and year, decades maybe, their growth line was like this. There was a point in history where it skyrocketed. That point right there was when a guy in Baltimore, Maryland, started inventing and promoting a product called Under Armour. Nike said, Oh, there's a new kid on the block that is pretty damn good. Better pick our game up. They did. Trust me, we've had that conversation in our staff room on numerous occasions. I know how good a recruiter Jimbo Fisher is and his staff is. I know that's a great place for the right person. But again, it's our job to make sure that we keep the best players. We're very unique. It says 'The University of Texas', right? There's very few institutions that are The University of Something. That means a lot to us. We want to make sure that the best players do stay here. But that competition is real. We welcome it. It makes us better.
On what will determine if he calls plays next year: If I felt like it helped us win.
On working in the 2019 recruiting class: I mean, recruiting is like shaving, right? If you don't do it for a couple days, you wake up and look like crap. So today was symbolic for a lot of reasons, one of them being that we are officially closing the book on the 2018 class, and now going full speed ahead on the 2019 class.
Not to say we haven't already. We've offered kids, had kids on unofficial visits. We've targeted a few. I think I said this on the 21st, and I want to make it clear publicly again, we finished this recruiting cycle, I believe my numbers are correct, Iowa State led all of the Power 5 schools in documented offers. We were the fifth fewest with Stanford, Northwestern, Clemson who I think is only signing 15, and Washington behind us, who they subscribe to the OKG model, our kind of guy.
I think it's very important that everybody in the state of Texas knows, Oklahoma and Louisiana, that when we say the word 'offer', the young man can say yes on the spot right then and there, and we're going to be doing cartwheels and backflips down the hallway and celebrate because we got our guy. We are not in the business of offering to get in it. Coach, I got to throw an offer out so I can recruit him. No, you don't. Not in this state you don't. You say the word 'offer', we better be happy if that kid commits. More than happy, ecstatic. Do we get beat up a little bit sometimes? Yeah. Coach, I had 47 offers before you guys offered me. I know. We weren't sure. We needed to see you in camp. We needed to see three games of your senior film because we weren't sure. We don't offer people we're not sure of. There's all this non-committable offer. That's a real phrase. So it's not an offer. If it's not committable, what is it? It isn't an offer. Or offer to get to camp. I hear that all the time. We want you to come to camp. I'm only camping at the places that offer me. Great. See you at camp. It's not real, right, we all know that. It's really important for me to continue to spread that message, that we are going to be very diligent in our research with guys that fit what we do.
You were asking about the 2019 class, and I got on my soapbox. But we are. I think that's what was kind of cool about the early signing period. I did have the ability to go in a lot of high schools. You can't talk to them. But, Hey, the head coach of Texas is here because you're here, he's watching you in athletic period, watching you work out, talking to your head coach finding out about you. I think that goes a long way. Obviously I couldn't do that with everybody in the 2018 class. The ones I did really matter.
On the success of the lightning package last year and the walk-on program: The first question, no secret, our lightning package was very productive for us last year. Again, you're only going to run that versus 10 and 11 personnel mainly because you have basically six DBs on the field, a lot of speed on the field.
The one position it might kind of tweak maybe what you're looking for is the boundary safety/B backer. By the end of the season, Jason Hall was playing our B backer position. Jason Hall is a big safety. He can play down there, blitz the quarterback, drop into the flat, but he can also spin to the middle of the field and play the deep post or the deep half off of hash. That's what you need. You need a big safety probably at that position.
Then the preferred walk-on deal, again, the word 'preferred' means you're guaranteed a spot in our 105 roster in fall camp. What am I looking for? I'm looking for a guy that, maybe if he had another year or two to develop, would be a Texas recruit, maybe a late-bloomer, maybe a guy that needs another year in the weight room. Maybe for whatever reason, one measurable might just not quite be there yet, but you see the potential for it to be there, then all the intangibles are there: the toughness, physicality, accountability, academically you got to get into Texas. You look for all those intangibles. You try to find a guy that is a Texas player, except maybe this one thing, but we're going to develop that one thing in a couple years, and hopefully he can earn a scholarship.
On the transition to prioritizing preferred walk-ons: You're probably not going to see gray shirt any more, because that guy is going to count one way or the other in the 25. Our walk-on program is crucial here. I firmly believe the reason we had so much success at Houston was because our scout teams were as good as there was in the country. A lot of those scout teams were young walk-on guys that really made both sides of the football better because of the daily practice that went into the preparation.
We have to get great walk-ons here, have to, because your numbers are such that you can't survive without it. It's becoming increasingly harder to do that. We're at the seven percentile in class rank. I'm sure that will change, too, in a few years. We need to make sure that we're bringing in the best walk-ons in the country so that they can provide unbelievable depth on the scout team and preparation, but also then develop themselves into scholarship players.
On Nick Foles: I called him. Nick Foles, if he's not a worldwide celebrity, at least leading up to the game he wasn't, but he was definitely a celebrity at Bridgepoint Elementary, where he attended. I know that elementary school was definitely rooting for the Eagles.
On competition in the program and all the talent within the state: We try to provide examples of that all the time. That's one of our four pillars of our program, which is competitive focus, to be ready when your number's called. But, no, that's definitely something we talk about all the time, try to provide examples of that.
To your question about being in this state, all that, yeah. Can't sign 'em all. I wish we could. Wish we didn't have limits. Wish we could go sign 'em all, do the evaluation once they're on your team. But you have to do the evaluation when they're not on your team and make really hard decisions.
There was one year, and we're hoping this changes on a regular basis, but I think one year in the NFL in recent history, somebody is going to have to fact check me, but it was close to half, maybe 16 of the starting quarterbacks in a certain week in the NFL all played high school football in the state of Texas, and none of them played at the University of Texas. We got to make sure that's not the case, that we're recruiting NFL-caliber quarterbacks, that we're developing them once they're here.
On the value of the recruiting class: No, no. It's plenty good enough. It's good enough. It goes to show you consistently mediocre to sub-mediocre years is going to bite you in the butt. One time is an accident, two times is a coincidence, three times is a trend.
But I think kids know what Texas is and can be. They know us most importantly now. They know our staff, they know me, they know our strength staff, they know our players, they know what kind of program we have here. You're not selling a record in recruiting, you're not. You're selling potential. That's whether we went 13-1 or 7-6. That year is over. You're selling the future, right?
They're doing that at Alabama. They're not selling a national championship. They're selling the potential to win another national championship.
On how many great recruiting classes you need before you can compete for national championships: That's a good question. It is definitely no secret, right, that the teams you see in the College Football Playoff, Alabama and Ohio State obviously come to mind first, those guys are in the top three every year. Even Clemson and Oklahoma, those guys, they've been in the top 10 consistently over the course of five to eight years. I don't want to put a timetable on it, but you need multiple years definitely because it's a player's game, right? I can't play. They got to go out and they got to be the best in the country.
I saw something, Alabama has wild stats coming out of the you know what, but some stat about every year the last five years, how many draft picks, something crazy. It's because they recruit them, they develop them, then they go play in the NFL. The first part of that is they recruit them. We've got to make sure we're taking care of that first part first.
On Joshua Moore’s skill set: That's where I see him fitting in, kind of doing a little bit of everything. Per our last conversation, probably slot receiver would be where he starts off in this program. Could he play outside receiver? Absolutely. Is he going to be a dynamic returner? Yup. Could he play corner? Yup. I think the necessity right now is probably at slot receiver. If we find some other guys that can do the job as good, if not better, we'll find another home for him. But probably the most versatile guy in this class that can do so many things.
On the quarterbacks: Rising and Thompson, the early returns, have been great. Both have magnetic personalities. They're both not afraid to work. In fact, they enjoy it. From the very little that I've got to see them, obviously I haven't seen them play football live ever, but the guys in the weight room. All of our newcomers, man, that is a mature, focused bunch of guys. Really, really mature.
Shane's health? Excited we got that taken care of. There's a guy in Philadelphia that's done probably five or six guys that have played for me, whether it be as an assistant or as a head coach, and have all had glowing reviews. A guy in Philly has a certain technique, he's pretty much the only guy in the country doing it. He's really good.
So Shane is doing good. If everything goes according to plan, we're expecting him back for spring practice full speed. Sam's mindset is great. He's a great leader. He knows in order for him to take the next step as a leader, he's got to put himself in the position to where his teammates don't doubt him, where his teammates have a ton of confidence in him. At quarterback, you do that by managing the game and not turning the football over. We've had many conversations about that. I think just the year under his belt and the year of college football, another spring practice, another training camp, the speed of the game is going to slow down for that kid monumentally. The situational awareness is going, because instead of we call it like crowd noise guy. What does that mean? He has crowd noise in his head all the time. There's no comprehensible thought in there.
So I think when the speed of the game slows down and you really understand what's going on, then the crowd noise goes away, you can start understanding and paying a lot closer attention to situations.
On what he is looking for out of his quarterback: Leadership, consistency, just be an everyday guy, be the same guy every day. Your quarterbacks better be the hardest workers on your team. They better be the guys that are never late, that are always on time, that make great grades, stay out of trouble on and off the field. If not, that nasty word 'doubt' creeps into the players around them. That's a really, really bad thing to have when you're a quarterback. You need trust, which to me is the opposite of doubt. To develop that trust, you've got to be consistent.
Thank you.
