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Tom Herman creating culture at Texas

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Guest Lobo

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Jesus, now I'm imagining Thomas and the two ladies that are his passenger coaches all crawling out of their traincar shell, and then getting back together to form some type of evil Sodor-Human/Train-Centipede...all speaking in that weird trans-Atlantic accent mumbling their way through their steamworks "fuel pumping"  

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Tex Long

Tex Long 4616

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On 5/22/2019 at 12:56 PM, markstanco said:
On 5/20/2019 at 11:10 PM, ChiTownDoc said:
LOL, it honestly looked like Mack and GD were OU plants for those few games.  A madden champ would have legit put on a better performance. 

Are you saying a madden champ should be an OC?

whynotboth.jpg

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LTtxfan

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Thx to Machinator for finding this article....  

http://footballscoop.com/news/demons-love-human-nature-tom-herman-builds-championship-level-culture/

 

"On demons, love and human nature: How Tom Herman builds a championship-level culture"

By Zach Barnett -  June 14, 2019

Tom Herman has asked himself the same question that novelists and political leaders alike have spent centuries pondering — what motivates people, fear or love? “I believe love wins every time,” Herman said.   And in his program, love is spelled T-I-M-E.

“Our position coaches should spend more time with their players than anyone in the country,” Herman told an audience of Texas high school coaches at the Angelo Football Clinic on Wednesday. “We hold the position coach responsible for everything in that young man’s life. If he’s making bad grades, losing weight, I don’t yell at the academic staff, I yell at the position coach.”   Herman won a national championship as an offensive coordinator, but now as a head coach he’s a step removed from game-planning — in fact, he brought along wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator Drew Mehringer to lead the Xs and Os portion of his presentation — while he focuses on the big-picture issues of the program. Herman likes to say he’s a graduate of Urban Meyer’s Head Coaching Fellowship Program, and that was evident on Wednesday.

“You can drill the psychology of your student-athletes just like you drill an on-the-field drill. It’s just that, it’s a drill,” Herman said. “You’ve got to stay consistent.”    Herman’s greatest opponent, he says, is not Oklahoma, or LSU, or (insert reminder that Texas no longer plays Texas A&M here). It’s human nature.  “People ask me what I really do. I fight like hell against human nature every day. As human beings, we gravitate toward things that are easy, convenient, self-serving, pain free. To build a winning football team, we have to do things that are difficult, that aren’t convenient, that are selfless, that are painful,” he said. “We all have that demon in our head. The great ones have found ways to beat that guy more times than that guy beats them. The guys that can push through that and not listen.”

Another ally of the demon of human nature is noise — positive noise and negative noise. Texas saw both ends in 2018, a season in which the Longhorns opened by losing to Maryland and closed by beating Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. When he first got to Austin, Herman found himself sending a contradictory message, telling players not to listen to what people say while at the same time proving them wrong. Hence, now Texas lives by the mantra, “Prove Us Right.”    “The best we know how to tune out the noise is to tune up the volume within our building, of our teammates and coaches,” he said. “It’s about proving to our teammates and to ourselves that our way of doing things was the right way, regardless of what the outside noise says about us.”

Herman boiled his culture down into three major categories:

  • Core values
  • Pillars of the program
  • Plan to win

The five core values are a staple of Meyer’s culture. In fact, Herman joked that Texas saved money on signage upon his arrival, because Charlie Strong, a Meyer disciple from his Florida days, had them plastered on the walls throughout the Longhorns’ facility. Those five core values aren’t new to anyone (Honesty, Treating women with respect, No drugs, No stealing, No weapons) but, Herman said, all five bullet points funneled back to point No. 1. “Be honest with yourself, be honest with your teammates, be honest with your coaches and usually you’ll be okay,” he said.

Herman says he has a 1-strike policy in regards to treating women with respect, perhaps in a lesson he learned from watching Meyer’s mistakes. Herman doesn’t try to save people, because he recognizes he’s a football coach, not a mental health professional. “If you put your hands on a woman, I’m not equipped to counsel you out of that,” he said.

The pillars of the program are broken into four parts:

  • A 1-0 mentality
  • Competitive focus
  • Physical and mental toughness
  • Unit pride

Nearly every coach in every level of football stresses a focus on the here-and-now above the far-and-then — Never will you hear a coach say, “We’re mainly focused on our season finale above everything else” — and as such here’s how Herman defines a 1-0 mentality: “If, over the course of the day, I haven’t done something to make myself a better coach, a better father, a better husband, then why did I get out of bed that day?”   To define competitive focus, Herman referenced Kenny Guiton, a Houston native (Herman made sure to mention that he didn’t just come from Houston, but to state specifically that he played at Aldine Eisenhower High School) who played backup quarterback for Ohio State’s undefeated 2012 team.   In the ninth game of that season, Ohio State hosted Purdue, lost starting quarterback Braxton Miller to injury, and found itself trailing the Boilermakers 22-14 with the ball on its own 39-yard line and 47 seconds left in regulation. Guiton maneuvered the Buckeyes into the end zone with three seconds to spare and then, to push the game to overtime, he completed a 2-point pass that, though the Buckeyes’ starters practiced it each week throughout the season, Guiton himself had never physically repped, not even once.

Ohio State won the game in overtime, and Guiton is now the wide receivers coach at Louisiana Tech.

On physical and mental toughness, Herman said, “I tell our guys all the time, there’s never been a champion that, when the confetti’s falling and the reporter asks, ‘Coach, tell us how you won this game?’ ‘We out-finnessed everybody,'” he said. “This game is physical. The great teams embrace that. I get it, you’ve got to have speed, you’ve got to have skilled athletes, but they’ve better be physical… It takes no talent to go run and hit on defense. It takes a lot of effort, and it’s painful, but (the great teams) fly around to the echo of the whistle.”   Unit pride, to Herman, funnels back to his original point: love, built through time. “It’s basically that you love your unit so much that it’s impossible for you to take any steps that would let them down. If you love someone, really, truly love someone, you’ll go to the ends of the earth to make them proud.”

Herman’s plan to win is also broken into four legs:

  • Play great defense
  • Win the turnover battle
  • Score and prevent touchdowns in the red zone
  • Win the special teams battle

Herman believes great defense is not just the responsibility of his ends, tackles, linebackers, safeties and cornerbacks. Great defense is a team-wide responsibility, starting with taking care of the ball on offense and preventing big returns on punts and kickoffs.  In the same vein, ball security is not just an offensive player’s problem. “We go crazy teaching ball security to our defensive players,” Herman said. “Twenty-eight times a year a ball is going to be in a defensive player’s hands. There’s nothing more demoralizing than fumbling a turnover away.”

Borrowing another Meyer-ism, Herman creates buy-in on special teams by making it a prerequisite to see the field on offense or defense. “If you’re an offensive skill player, you’re not allowed to touch the football unless you start on one unit of special team,” he said. Here, Herman can cite another Ohio State example, where a future NFL leading rusher burst on the scene by making an emphatic tackle on a 2013 kickoff.

So there, in 30 minutes or so, is the thesis statement for how Tom Herman builds the culture that sustains a championship-level college football program. It’s the players’ and coaches’ jobs to execute it, and his job to enforce it, through generating buy-in all the way from the starting quarterback to the part-time academic counselor. “Our job is to make sure that everybody that lays hands on your student-athlete has the same standards that you do in your football program. You can’t have a rule in your football program that says you’ve got to be sitting in a team meeting room five minutes early or your late, then let him show up four minutes late to a tutoring meeting,” Herman said.   “Your messages better be concise and they better be aligned through every area that touches your student-athlete.”

Herman believes in this culture-building formula like he believes in oxygen. But, he told the assembled high school coaches, he recently came upon a problem — he’s never been a third-year head coach before. The juniors and seniors in his program are now hearing him repeat the same talking points, the same phrases, the same speeches at the same time of year, for the third straight year. Isn’t this a problem? Won’t players start to tune him out? Shouldn’t he change his message up?  

To navigate this problem, Herman called a friend in the business who knows how to build a culture that lasts.   “I called Dabo and he said something I’ll never forget: If they can mock you, what you say and how you say it, that means they’ve listened. Do I need guest speakers, a new message? No. They’re listening. If they know what you’re about to say before you say it, that’s a good thing. That’s a really good thing.”   

Championship-winning cultures, it seems, don’t go stale, they build upon themselves with repetition and reinforcement. All it takes is T-I-M-E.

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LTtxfan

LTtxfan 49909

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"Herman believes in this culture-building formula like he believes in oxygen. But, he told the assembled high school coaches, he recently came upon a problem — he’s never been a third-year head coach before. The juniors and seniors in his program are now hearing him repeat the same talking points, the same phrases, the same speeches at the same time of year, for the third straight year. Isn’t this a problem? Won’t players start to tune him out? Shouldn’t he change his message up?"  

"To navigate this problem, Herman called a friend in the business who knows how to build a culture that lasts.   “I called Dabo and he said something I’ll never forget: If they can mock you, what you say and how you say it, that means they’ve listened. Do I need guest speakers, a new message? No. They’re listening. If they know what you’re about to say before you say it, that’s a good thing. That’s a really good thing.”   

---------------------------------------------------

So taking the Dabo theme further since Herman does visit with Dabo, hopefully Herman talks with Dabo about building and handling changes to his Staff.

Dabo became interim Head Coach 2008 and took over full-time 2009.

2008.  4-3

2009.  9-5

2010.  6-7

2011.  10-4.       Morris 1st yr as OC

2012.  11-2.        Venables 2st yr as DC

2013.   11-2

2014.    10-3

2015.    14-1.   Runner-up to Nat'l Champ

2016.     14-1.   Nat'l Champs

2017.     12-2.    Lost to Bama in Semi's CFP

2018.      15-0.   Nat'l Champs

 

Dabo added Morris prior to 2011 season, and Venables prior to 2012, and the Clemson program took off.

 

Edited by LTtxfan
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Machinator

Machinator 32102

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5 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

It’s the adding of better coaches that we haven’t seen yet and don’t know if herman can do. 

He added Hand. The analysts are also impressive on sheer volume if nothing else.

More accurately, we don't know what it takes for Herman to subtract and replace underachieving assistants.

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Eggo

Eggo 4026

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Dabo added better coaches when it looked his progression after 3 years was stalling out. After two seasons, there's an upward trend and it's unclear if that same slump is coming for Texas with its current staff. Why would he be looking for the arbitrarily "better coaches," particularly when they've been doing well with recruiting? If this year is a big underperformance, that feels like the time to make changes.

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LTtxfan

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3 hours ago, Eggo said:

Dabo added better coaches when it looked his progression after 3 years was stalling out. After two seasons, there's an upward trend and it's unclear if that same slump is coming for Texas with its current staff. Why would he be looking for the arbitrarily "better coaches," particularly when they've been doing well with recruiting? If this year is a big underperformance, that feels like the time to make changes.

 @Eggo guess you aren't watching the ongoing struggles at DL and RB recruiting for Texas for both 2019 and 2020 Classes.  It's pretty much a consensus on the Surly recruiting thread that Giles, Warehime, Mehringer, Meekins and Drayton are all significantly holding back recruiting for Texas.  

Herman has already made a few staff changes to help Texas get more competitive.  The analysts staff was bolstered by adding Fedora and Beaty.  Adding Samples to help Carrington has really helped expand Texas recruiting in the DFW area -- a huge way to really hurt blOU's recruiting.

Dabo started making adjustments to his Clemson coaching staff after a couple of years as Head Coach at Clemson... Herman needs to do the same for the 2020 season in order for Texas to really step up and compete with Clemson and Bama for National Championships.  

Just check out what Herman will have to compete against..... Clemson's Unbelievable 2020 Recruiting Class..

https://www.si.com/college-football/2019/07/03/clemson-recruiting-football-dabo-swinney

"Clemson's 2020 Recruiting Class Means the Dynasty-Building Will Continue"

"Clemson is leading the way for a top ranking in the 2020 class, with a half-dozen, five-star commitments already in the fold." 

 

Edited by LTtxfan
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Tex Long

Tex Long 4616

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For national recruiting, MensaTom definitely needs help. He - we - have problems that Dabo does not. For one thing, not many OOS recruits even know what state Clemson is in, and the ones who do are pretty much under the impression that south Carolina is the southern part of the state of Carolina. 

There's also the "winning every single game" thing, which Dabo finally achieved, thanks to the cheating refs who allowed Clemson to escape from Collie Station with a W. 

Rebranding "Texas" may be as simple as winning every single game for the next couple of years, so that's where I'd be heading, were I in MensaTom's boots.

Edited by Tex Long
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texifornia

texifornia 58786

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10 minutes ago, Tex Long said:

For national recruiting, MensaTom definitely needs help. He - we - have problems that Dabo does not. For one thing, not many OOS recruits even know what state Clemson is in, and the ones who do are pretty much under the impression that south Carolina is the southern part of the state of Carolina.

...and you're arguing that being a total unknown entity except for five years of being good at football is a good thing for national recruiting?

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Tex Long

Tex Long 4616

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12 minutes ago, texifornia said:

...and you're arguing that being a total unknown entity except for five years of being good at football is a good thing for national recruiting?

As opposed to an entity with various biases driven by (sometimes) erroneous information and envy? Why, yes, yes I am.

Am I also arguing the "just win, baby" card? Why, yes, yes I am.

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LTtxfan

LTtxfan 49909

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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, LTtxfan said:

 @Eggo guess you aren't watching the ongoing struggles at DL and RB recruiting for Texas for both 2019 and 2020 Classes.  It's pretty much a consensus on the Surly recruiting thread that Giles, Warehime, Mehringer, Meekins and Drayton are all significantly holding back recruiting for Texas.  

 

To further validate Surly's unhappiness with current 2020 recruiting -- Here's a sample post from recruiting thread an hour ago by @Walden Ponderer :

"Who here would pay $9.95 to read weekly regurgitations of "The coaches aren't telling me anything, the kid is playing mind games with me, and his family is all over the map. Recruiting is going badly at the moment because Giles is lazy, Mehringer is a dork, and Warehime's farts announce his presence two minutes before he enters a room. Don't even get us started on Drayton. Maybe it will get better, maybe it won't. $9.95 please.  

My guess is, fewer people would pay for that than pay for the whiny shit they write now."

Thx @Walden Ponderer 

 

Culture:   Herman MUST improve recruiting by making changes to his current coaching staff for 2020...

Edited by LTtxfan
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Eggo

Eggo 4026

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Hopefully Drayton proves himself to be the guy we thought he was when he was hired and turns Ingram into a Zeke-ish freak. That would offset a lot of the issues people seem to have with him as a recruiter. 

 

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TheMailBox357

TheMailBox357 213

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7 hours ago, LTtxfan said:

 @Eggo guess you aren't watching the ongoing struggles at DL and RB recruiting for Texas for both 2019 and 2020 Classes.  It's pretty much a consensus on the Surly recruiting thread that Giles, Warehime, Mehringer, Meekins and Drayton are all significantly holding back recruiting for Texas.  

Herman has already made a few staff changes to help Texas get more competitive.  The analysts staff was bolstered by adding Fedora and Beaty.  Adding Samples to help Carrington has really helped expand Texas recruiting in the DFW area -- a huge way to really hurt blOU's recruiting.

Dabo started making adjustments to his Clemson coaching staff after a couple of years as Head Coach at Clemson... Herman needs to do the same for the 2020 season in order for Texas to really step up and compete with Clemson and Bama for National Championships.  

Just check out what Herman will have to compete against..... Clemson's Unbelievable 2020 Recruiting Class..

https://www.si.com/college-football/2019/07/03/clemson-recruiting-football-dabo-swinney

"Clemson's 2020 Recruiting Class Means the Dynasty-Building Will Continue"

"Clemson is leading the way for a top ranking in the 2020 class, with a half-dozen, five-star commitments already in the fold." 

 

Is the Beatty hire official?

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Jkwellborn

Jkwellborn 7006

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Hopefully Drayton proves himself to be the guy we thought he was when he was hired and turns Ingram into a Zeke-ish freak. That would offset a lot of the issues people seem to have with him as a recruiter. 
 

I thought the RB coach was basically a good recruiter? I mean, can you teach patience, vision, balance and speed?
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Machinator

Machinator 32102

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16 minutes ago, Jkwellborn said:


I thought the RB coach was basically a good recruiter? I mean, can you teach patience, vision, balance and speed?

You can't just come out and say that, we need material to endlessly debate in the recruiting thread that's not cheese-related.

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Grippe

Grippe 323

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Posted (edited)
On 5/20/2019 at 11:32 PM, Sejjr said:

You should probably avoid VW, Mercedes, IBM, Ford, Bayer, Kodak, Porsche, and Coca Cola while you are at it.

Nothing changes. Fucking Nazis.

Apollo and other NASA rockets. (WVB)

Edited by Grippe
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Goodman

Goodman 3280

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On 7/8/2019 at 7:13 PM, LTtxfan said:

"Herman believes in this culture-building formula like he believes in oxygen. But, he told the assembled high school coaches, he recently came upon a problem — he’s never been a third-year head coach before. The juniors and seniors in his program are now hearing him repeat the same talking points, the same phrases, the same speeches at the same time of year, for the third straight year. Isn’t this a problem? Won’t players start to tune him out? Shouldn’t he change his message up?"  

"To navigate this problem, Herman called a friend in the business who knows how to build a culture that lasts.   “I called Dabo and he said something I’ll never forget: If they can mock you, what you say and how you say it, that means they’ve listened. Do I need guest speakers, a new message? No. They’re listening. If they know what you’re about to say before you say it, that’s a good thing. That’s a really good thing.”   

---------------------------------------------------

So taking the Dabo theme further since Herman does visit with Dabo, hopefully Herman talks with Dabo about building and handling changes to his Staff.

Dabo became interim Head Coach 2008 and took over full-time 2009.

2008.  4-3

2009.  9-5

2010.  6-7

2011.  10-4.       Morris 1st yr as OC

2012.  11-2.        Venables 2st yr as DC

2013.   11-2

2014.    10-3

2015.    14-1.   Runner-up to Nat'l Champ

2016.     14-1.   Nat'l Champs

2017.     12-2.    Lost to Bama in Semi's CFP

2018.      15-0.   Nat'l Champs

 

Dabo added Morris prior to 2011 season, and Venables prior to 2012, and the Clemson program took off.

 

Jesus LT, im OD'ing over here. Thanks for posting these.

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LTtxfan

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Herman's pre-fall camp message to Texas: 'Redefine your best' 

https://247sports.com/college/texas/Article/Texas-Longhorns-football-Tom-Herman-fall-camp-speech-redefine-your-best-134124204/  

 

“Redefine your best,” Herman said, as seen in the above video. “You need to strain and redefine your best. Push yourself to what you previously thought was your best go past it. And what you have done for the last three years has helped us to get on the edge of greatness, the edge of elite. It’s going to be much more about (your head) and about (your heart) — much, much more.

“Training camp is about developing so that when the opportunity comes, we can keep climbing that ladder. You are on the edge, on the edge of elite. This year’s team the expectation is pay the price, all the way.”

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LTtxfan

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Tom Herman sets the table for the remainder of Texas fall camp

https://247sports.com/college/texas/LongFormArticle/Texas-Longhorns-football-2019-season-Tom-Herman-fall-camp-explosive-plays-culture-Sugar-Bowl-national-championship-Sam-Ehlinger-134171404/#134171404_1

7. 'THE FEW THAT AREN’T, THEY GET EXPOSED BY THEIR PEERS'

To say that every single player on the roster has fully bought into the program would be an overstatement, Herman said. With that said, Herman isn’t concerned about the select few who might be hesitant to jump  in the boat due to the overwhelming majority of the players who have no problem enforcing the program’s culture and standards.  “The few that aren’t, they get exposed by their peers and they’re learning every day on the importance of it,” Herman said. “The majority of the team is and they understand our expectations. This group is a joy to coach right now.”

As a sign of how much buy-in Herman has, 61 the 80 players in the program who were eligible to be a part of the Champions Club qualified. Asked how he’ll know if all 22 starters for the opener are going to be guys who are bought in, Herman said indicated that process will take care of itself.  “We will by the time we jog out for the first game,” Herman said. “We’re not going to put a guy out there that’s not completely bought in.”

8. 'CULTURE ISN’T STATIC'

The atmosphere around the practice field is an extension of last season when the coaches spent more time coaching than they did in 2017 while veterans within each position group policed their peers. Herman has talked far less about culture leading up to his season as opposed to the previous two, but that doesn’t mean fostering the established culture has been put on the back burner.  “Culture isn’t static,” Herman said. “It’s ever-evolving. There’s no such thing as a culturally attitude and action, right?. You’re either getting better or you’re getting worse. What you’re doing is either helping our culture or hurting it.”

The group Herman said most has to be under the thumb of the coaching staff and the veterans are the newcomers, particularly the summer enrollees who didn’t experience spring practice. Although the nation’s No. 3-ranked class in the 2019 recruiting cycle looks the part, they still need to learn what’s expected of them on the practice field before any of them can think about climbing up the depth chart.  “Physically, they look great,” Herman said. “You can tell they’ve had a good eight-week session with Coach McKnight. Their heads are spinning from a speed-of-the-game standpoint and just the intensity of practice standpoint, but I really do think their physical development looks really good. We’ve got to focus on the intensity of practice and then, obviously, the scheme.”

 

Edited by LTtxfan
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Jkwellborn

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This is the thing that pissed me off about Mack. I get it class is important and everything.  But, Tom doesn’t take shit from anybody.  Our team is always fucking ready to play under him.  I wish we didn’t play down to our opponent, but I love beating ass in the big games.

If the team is playing down to the opponent, then they aren’t always ready to play. He gets them up for the big games though.
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