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14 hours ago, Auto Driller said:

Every year it seems like there is one position that gets completely decimated. Last year it was RB with early enrollee Carter the only once available for the spring game. I guess this year it’s LB.

This year it's RB as well. 5 on the injury report right now. 

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12 minutes ago, PatSolitanojr said:

Is there any indication that Kyler "Garden Gnome" Murray will be a serviceable QB? 

He was pretty good in last year's spring game, and his stat line last year in game was 18-21 for 359 yds and 3 TDs/0 INT.

That doesn't mean much until teams get an opportunity to game plan for him, but he could present some issues. Our length on defense will probably bother him, but GJ vs Murray in the open field should be fun. 

Edited by Vertigo
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1 hour ago, Sidney Sherman said:

https://247sports.com/college/texas/Bolt/Texas-Longhorns-Football-Mack-Brown-to-make-color-debut-for-Tom-Hermans-Orange-White-Spring-Game-117156019

Mack going to get a trial run as the color commentator for the Spring game. Does LonghornNetwork stream this on their site?

I am praying it's not a Mack and Lowell tandem in the booth.

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IT team notes

From: Eric Nahlin

TEAM


To add to the Saturday scrimmage notes we gathered some information the offensive line. Much of it turned into people raving about the defensive line.

Here's the scoop:

As a unit they played well in the two-minute drill for three drives. Most of the day, however, Breckyn Hager, Charles Omenihu, and TaQuon Graham gave them fits. There were about seven holding penalties due to consistent pressure.

Again, we don't know where to separate what is very active d-line play and poor o-line play. Hager was a beast off the edge and we know what kind of camp Omenihu has been having. On Hager, he seems much more comfortable, likely because he's done bouncing around from role to role.

Shack struggled with Graham for most of the day, though he did show fight -- almost literally after one play.

Cosmi played strong on second team and impressed one bystander with his initial punch. Physically he's ready. Still ironing out the technical side.

The o-line did open up some running lanes a few times but the defense had way too many tackles for loss (8-9). On one big play, Danny Young went for 80 yards after hitting a cutback against first team defense.

Coach Hand was the loudest coach in the stadium -- which usually isn't the greatest sign -- but the offense did make some plays.

It's still far too early to think this line will look anything like it did last year. Said a bystander, "I think the biggest thing is more reps together will help with consistency especially when it comes to who has who on blitz pick up and who is climbing to the second level and who is staying on the d-lineman."

I talked to another source and started off with, "I heard the scrimmage was very physical." The response, "these aren't as physical as Tuesday and Thursday practice where they line up the whole team for inside hull. With the whole team watching the intensity is amped through the roof. Scrimmages are seen as a break and they look forward to them." This aligns exactly with what I heard about Herman's team jumping out of the gates and beating up OU to start the 2016 season.

On PJ Locke, I hear he's day-to-day. The injury hasn't been disclosed to anyone I've talked to but day-to-day is great. What happened: Collin Johnson comes across on a drag, he's hit from behind by a charging BJ Foster, PJ is coming from the other way and then is met by both Johnson's and Foster's momentum. Scary stuff but it sounds like PJ will be just fine.

Here's a quote you'll like, "The second team defense has some real talent out there. Cook, Boyce, Foster, Sterns, Delly, Bimage, Graham...these guys get a lot of practice reps and they'll see the field a ton." The staff clearly sees how much it will need these guys in 2019.

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8 minutes ago, Machinator said:

IT team notes

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

From: Eric Nahlin

TEAM


To add to the Saturday scrimmage notes we gathered some information the offensive line. Much of it turned into people raving about the defensive line.

Here's the scoop:

As a unit they played well in the two-minute drill for three drives. Most of the day, however, Breckyn Hager, Charles Omenihu, and TaQuon Graham gave them fits. There were about seven holding penalties due to consistent pressure.

Again, we don't know where to separate what is very active d-line play and poor o-line play. Hager was a beast off the edge and we know what kind of camp Omenihu has been having. On Hager, he seems much more comfortable, likely because he's done bouncing around from role to role.

Shack struggled with Graham for most of the day, though he did show fight -- almost literally after one play.

Cosmi played strong on second team and impressed one bystander with his initial punch. Physically he's ready. Still ironing out the technical side.

The o-line did open up some running lanes a few times but the defense had way too many tackles for loss (8-9). On one big play, Danny Young went for 80 yards after hitting a cutback against first team defense.

Coach Hand was the loudest coach in the stadium -- which usually isn't the greatest sign -- but the offense did make some plays.

It's still far too early to think this line will look anything like it did last year. Said a bystander, "I think the biggest thing is more reps together will help with consistency especially when it comes to who has who on blitz pick up and who is climbing to the second level and who is staying on the d-lineman."

I talked to another source and started off with, "I heard the scrimmage was very physical." The response, "these aren't as physical as Tuesday and Thursday practice where they line up the whole team for inside hull. With the whole team watching the intensity is amped through the roof. Scrimmages are seen as a break and they look forward to them." This aligns exactly with what I heard about Herman's team jumping out of the gates and beating up OU to start the 2016 season.

On PJ Locke, I hear he's day-to-day. The injury hasn't been disclosed to anyone I've talked to but day-to-day is great. What happened: Collin Johnson comes across on a drag, he's hit from behind by a charging BJ Foster, PJ is coming from the other way and then is met by both Johnson's and Foster's momentum. Scary stuff but it sounds like PJ will be just fine.

Here's a quote you'll like, "The second team defense has some real talent out there. Cook, Boyce, Foster, Sterns, Delly, Bimage, Graham...these guys get a lot of practice reps and they'll see the field a ton." The staff clearly sees how much it will need these guys in 2019.

 

Interesting. I am not sure this line will see defensive lineman the caliber of ours across the board from too many teams on the schedule. My hope is that Orlando dialed it up a bit more in the scrimmage and all the TFL's were not against base looks.

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5 minutes ago, Thiefery said:

Is it the Kool-Aid or is this years signing class that ready for action?

I think Sterns will play early and often. Dele will play because, well, we don't really have much else.

I'm very interested to see how the cornerback battle plays out in fall camp and in the season.

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1 hour ago, Vertigo said:

Interesting. I am not sure this line will see defensive lineman the caliber of ours across the board from too many teams on the schedule. My hope is that Orlando dialed it up a bit more in the scrimmage and all the TFL's were not against base looks.

Either way, it's OK right now. The offense should be behind at this point, and Hand should be chewing players' asses. The changes are just being made. Hopefully fall camp won't be that way.

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5 hours ago, Bevo said:

Man, this is a really interesting topic. I can see in 50 years, the lore of when surly discussed men's fashion.

It has already been determined that Surly will not exist in 10 years.  Try and keep up.

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2 hours ago, Vertigo said:

He was pretty good in last year's spring game, and his stat line last year in game was 18-21 for 359 yds and 3 TDs/0 INT.

That doesn't mean much until teams get an opportunity to game plan for him, but he could present some issues. Our length on defense will probably bother him, but GJ vs Murray in the open field should be fun. 

So are you asking, how does Kyler take that length?

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TFB scrimmage notes:

I spoke with some folks about this past weekend’s practice. I think we all know Todd Orlando’s defense is going to be good. The question that remains is the offense. I know that there are still recruits that feel the offense needs show marked improvement before they can fully buy into what Texas is selling.

* Lil Jordan Humphrey is the offense skill guy who received the most praise.

* The quarterback position is still a work in progress. There’s little doubt that Ehlinger is better than he was last year, but I was told that this past weekend there was still a lot of tucking and running.

* Generally, the quarterback competition is helping, but one person noted that they still aren’t seeing the field just yet. Said, there were missed open receivers.

* Not surprisingly, was told Casey Thompson looks good in the read option. Was told Rising showed off a massive arm but missed some targets due to overthrows. Was told Rising threw an INT over the middle to Caden Sterns.

* It sounds like Buechele was the most accurate quarterback of the day but that, again, isn’t a big surprise. His accuracy has always been excellent.

* Was told Young had a big (50 yard) play in the scrimmage. Also told that Carter caught a TD pass out of backfield.

* One source said corroborated what Will said…which is that Collin Johnson has the gifts but still hasn’t put it together to be the devastating offensive force he should be.

* Didn’t hear anyone’s name at the linebacker position.

* Offensive line has been better overall this camp but it doesn’t sound like they played well on Saturday. Was told the defensive line gave them fits. To be fair, Orlando’s movement – that constant slanting and gap exchanging – gives everywhere trouble.

* Heard it wasn’t a great day for John Bonney. Was told it started off slow for Boyd (got beat by Duvernay) but turned into a really good day.

* I think perhaps the most positive notes I heard were that the kicking game was outstanding and the redzone offense was good. When you think about the close games Texas lost, those two things were major factors. So, even though it doesn’t sound like the offense was gangbusters…those two improvements would’ve been enough to win a couple extra big games last year.

If I get more notes, I’ll post an update here…

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7 minutes ago, Machinator said:

TFB scrimmage notes:

* Not surprisingly, was told Casey Thompson looks good in the read option. Was told Rising showed off a massive arm but missed some targets due to overthrows. Was told Rising threw an INT over the middle to Caden Sterns.

* Was told Young had a big (50 yard) play in the scrimmage. Also told that Carter caught a TD pass out of backfield.

 

 I knew it.. Burton is ghost writing for TFB. 

Edited by Vertigo
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2 hours ago, VinyVango said:

I am praying it's not a Mack and Lowell tandem in the booth.

Man,  Mack needs to go to the golf course or fishing and keep the hell away. 

I'm not a hater,  but I really don't see what good it does having him around.  

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Quote

-I think perhaps the most positive notes I heard were that the kicking game was outstanding and the redzone offense was good. When you think about the close games Texas lost, those two things were major factors. So, even though it doesn’t sound like the offense was gangbusters…those two improvements would’ve been enough to win a couple extra big games last year.

A good kicking game has been sorely missed. 

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Here's the interview from Friday that aired today on ESPNU. Ignore grammar mistakes. 

 

Playbook: How much momentum does Texas have after the bowl win against Mizzou?

TH: Well I think the bowl game was momentous for us, and not just because we won a game, and I get that that is the bare minimum, or needs to be around here, winning a bowl game. The fact that we did it without all those guys that left early, without Malik Jefferson, without our starting TE, we were underdogs in the game playing an SEC team that had won six straight ballgames... I think it was a big lightbulb moment for the kids coming back. It was like "oh wow, we can do this, and we can do it in a big way." I think we won by a couple touchdowns... I don't remember the final score, but that gave a lot of credence to the way we do things. [on this spring] And I think there's a familiarity too. It's not like last February doing mat drills. It was the first time they'd ever done it so they didn't know what to expect. Every day was a new day for these guys, and now there is a lot more comfortability from our guys because they know what to expect. 

 

PB: Tom, to say your career has been a meteoric rise has been an understatement. Especially since getting in your car after the national championship at Ohio State and headed to take over as the new head coach for Houston. You guys have an unbelievable year there beating Florida State in the Peach Bowl. Another big year after beating Oklahoma, and then you get the keys to the car to one the most preeminent jobs in all of college football, maybe all of sport, that being the head coaching job at the University of Texas. Has it finally settled down for you? 

 

TH: A little, Yeah. I'd be lying to you if I said it didn't. Certainly we aren't going to get comfortable around here that's for sure. And for coaches probably the biggest settling down is that I'm in my house and I get to see my wife and kids every day. Where, this time of year last year they were still in houston finishing school and I was trying to buy a house. I was renting Major Applewhite's old house, and there was just a lot of loose ends. This season has felt like a normal offseason, if you will, now we've still got a ton of work to do on our team and on the field. And I think you're right, this is the best job in college sports, and we're here for a reason, and the reason is, this place had gone through the worst three year stretch in its very storied history. That doesn't get fixed overnight and we realize that. It also went through a ton of instability, with four athletic directors, three different head coaches, and two different presidents. So there was a lot of upheaval in a three to four year period that now, with Chris Del Conte here, and Greg Fenves settled into his role, and myself here it definitely feels like there's a sense of normalcy here now. 

 

PB: One of the things you were doing this time last year was laying the ground work for the recruiting class that you'd signed in December and February. You mentioned that one of your priorities was making sure that the best players in Texas come to Texas, and that was not the case for the last few years. It was partially your fault (laughs), because of guys like JT Barrett and that sort of thing. How did you then sell the best players in Texas on coming to Texas?

 

TH: When we first got here three of the top ten players in the state of Texas were going to Ohio State. It's not like they were going to A&M or Oklahoma, they were going to Ohio State. I think non of the top ten were signing with an in state school. That's bizzaro world to me, I didn't understand it, that didn't make sense to me that's not the way things are supposed to be. So, the one of the things I'm proudest of is I've surrounded myself with unbelievable people in this program, and a big priority for me was people that have relationships within the state. We've signed as a collective staff over 300 sum odd Texas high school football players at our different stops along the way. We have 80 something combined years recruiting just the state of Texas alone. So, I think that was big in getting the foot in the door, and it's all about relationships. Some of the most positive feedback I get from some of the guys I signed in last years class was that when they came and saw us, it wasn't always a sales pitch. There wasn't always the hard sell. It was "how is your mom? How are your grades? How's your girlfriend? How's track practice?" It was true caring and involvement in relationships. So much so that we had committed almost all of that 2018 class before we had coached a game here at the University of Texas. Then you go 6-6 in the regular season and I don't think we had any decommits from any in state kids. We had, I think, two over the course of the cycle, and they were both from out of state. You don't do that if you don't have great relationships with those kids, their parents, and their high school coaches. 

 

PB: One more question on Texas and your vision of this particular program. I've always said that to be fair to the football coach a program has to finance its expectations. The expectations at Texas are always going to be at the lofty. They're always going to be at the pinnacle. You have to win the national championship to reach the expectation of this fan base, of this institution because it's been done before. And the resources are available. Did this job become attractive to you when they were courting you, because there were a number of programs courting you, was this attractive because the resources were in place or because you thought it was the best platform to scale the mountain?

 

TH: A little bit of both. I think, certainly when you talk about college football, is part of the resource is your recruiting base. That was obviously a huge attraction to this job. The resources were there that I thought probably had been misallocated in different areas. We had fallen behind in the facilities game, we had fallen behind in certain areas from a leadership standpoint. But that made it maybe a little bit more attractive to me. I'll never forget, and I credit our president Greg Fenves and at the time our AD Mike Perrin, when I went to talk to them there were, myself, and two people in the room. That really said a lot to me, because I had heard about all the different cooks that were in the kitchen, or maybe previously had been at Texas, or hands in the cookie jar. Whatever phrase you want to use. There were two people that showed up to talk to me. That made me think, "Hey, maybe this place has it figured out. They've done a lot of soul searching, a lot of evaluating, and they realize what needs to be done." Greg Fenves said, "Tom, we want you to be the CEO of our football program." And I haven't been told no yet. Now I've been very calculated in the things I've asked for, but we had to get our staff, our support staff up to championship standards. We are slowly but surely getting the facilities up to championship status. But all those things they had promised me have come true. So the resources were there, but the commitment to the very aligned (there it is) and singularly, allotment of those resources.  

 

PB: Part of being CEO is figuring out your role. You called plays in the bowl game, and it's not something you had done as a head coach, is that something that you would look to do going forward?

 

TH: I don't know. We are going to evaluate like we evaluate everything in spring practice. From coaches to players and techniques we are going to evaluate everything. If I feel like I can help in that area, then I will. Part of the reason I did it was I wanted to feel what my offensive staff was going through. Not that I wasn't involved in game day, but when you're that involved in practice and preparation you have a much better perspective of it. If I am going to evaluate one side of the ball I thought it was fair that I put myself in their shoes. We had three weeks to prepare and we had 280 yards of offense, so let's not think that Tom Herman calling plays is the end all be all here. [banter]... And there has yet to be a coach were you're starting a true freshman right tackle, true freshman tight end, or a grad transfer tight end that started that game, this is at Texas mind you, a true freshman tailback, a true freshman quarterback, and a left tackle that was a true sophomore that had only played like 30 snaps or so. That's not a recipe for lighting the world on fire, and I get that, and I appreciate our administrations patience on that side of the ball because we're developing them. The best thing about true freshman is they become sophomores and have time to develop. Yes there are teams that have succeeded with a true freshman quarterback, like the two in the national championship game. But they have so many elite peaces around them when you see that happen. Or you have a true freshman tailback but you probably have a junior or senior QB. So the combination of all of those guys having to play a significant role on offense, and I think we have to get better at coaching them too. We've got to figure out what we can do with them. We've gotta narrow our focus. You know as coaches, I think the fist reaction is "maybe we can do this, or that" and the next thing you know you have a book of plays instead of a playbook. Just a bunch of plays with no rhyme or reason, no system, no compliments to each other. So I think that was a big focus this offseason. This is what we believe in. This is what we think these guys can do now that we know all of them, and this is how we are going to develop these guys in these areas. 

 

  

Edited by PatSolitanojr
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21 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

-They've figured out how to use Duvernay and that means they're hitting him deep and he likes it. There's a shot he actually comes back.

So, I guess this assumes that he was pretty much a given to leave after the spring? I assume the coaches didn't see it that way because they have been giving him starters snaps so far. Personally, I have questions about giving him all those snaps in that if he does leave, then we have to basically start over at his position this fall.

The good news in all of this is that the coaches are using him properly. Plus, Duvernay is happy with the way he is being used. With all that said, would you lay some blame on Duvernay for being a bit of a diva or do you think that the wr coach and Beck deserve the lion's share of blame for the broken relationship and the poor utilization?

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1 minute ago, Bevo said:

So, I guess this assumes that he was pretty much a given to leave after the spring? I assume the coaches didn't see it that way because they have been giving him starters snaps so far. Personally, I have questions about giving him all those snaps in that if he does leave, then we have to basically start over at his position this fall.

The good news in all of this is that the coaches are using him properly. Plus, Duvernay is happy with the way he is being used. With all that said, would you lay some blame on Duvernay for being a bit of a diva or do you think that the wr coach and Beck deserve the lion's share of blame for the broken relationship and the poor utilization?

All of it. 

I think the staff did a poor job in the 2017 calendar year dealing with the roster and the personalities and skill sets on it, specifically on offense. They basically said "fuck it, we're forcing this shit down everyone's throat and they're going to like it. Who cares that there is film available showing how to use Duvernay? Who cares if that's how he likes to be used? We're turning his non-quick twitch ass into a jitterbug slot guy whether he likes it or not."

I also think Duvernay acted like a bitch last year, including going so far as to negative recruit the program with people on official visits. 

If they sort the role out with him and everybody wins, great. If they show him the door or he leaves on his own, along with his equally negative yet non-contributing brother, fine by me either way. 

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1 minute ago, Machinator said:

What does the staff need to do to get Collin Johnson to shape up? It's irksome that things haven't "clicked" for him yet, given that the entire country saw what he is capable of in the Coliseum last fall.

I default to the premise that Drew Mehringer is a fucking assclown until I see evidence to the contrary, so I can’t go there with you. 

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