 
Tracking Mack: Aug. 27
Aug. 27, 2009
Opening statement: We’ve had an outstanding camp, we believe. When you try to evaluate that from my chair, you look at guys being on time, guys being focused, coming to work every day. We had the one devastating injury with D.J. Grant that was really a non-contact injury out in the grass where he caught a ball and caught his foot in the grass and got shoved and hurt his knee, but other than that, everybody should be ready to practice on Monday. That would prepare them to start the season and that’s pretty good in camp even though we really hate it for D.J. He was a player that we need to continue to fight for us and get better because it was a position of need, but D.J. is doing fine, he had his operation and he’ll be back and hopefully ready to go this spring. But guys have really competed hard against each other. People say who won the offseason camp, the preseason camp, was it offense, was it defense? Really what happens is your defense is at a great advantage in camp and unless your defense is beating your offense some at camp, you’re not in very good shape because the offensive lineman can’t cut, they can’t even cut off, so they can’t get low in many cases the way you practice and the way you scrimmage, and the defense sees what you do every day, so your defense better have an advantage. The defense has been more consistent than the offense in this camp, the offense has been good and we think we’ll be really good. Defensively, (the guys) are a year older. You start looking at Kheeston Randall who has made as big of a jump, he and Sam Acho have come as far as anybody I’ve ever seen from spring to fall. They’re both impact players right now. We really like what we see. We’ve said Lamarr Houston just needs to play like he does every play because he’s got a chance to be really, really good and like the other great players we’ve had. Sergio has just been amazing in camp. He’s dominated every day, we can’t block him offensively and it’s been fun to watch him. He’s had great spirit and he’s a guy that’s just disrupted the offense. I know they’re looking forward to blocking some other defensive ends other than him.
We start looking at the linebackers, Jared Norton was slowed when he came in, but we think he’s in good shape and ready to go. Roddrick Muckelroy has had an outstanding camp. All three young linebackers are better and ready to play now because Jared was limited with his shoulder, so that gave them more work, and then you start looking at the secondary. We are as deep in the secondary right now as we’ve been. The reason Christian (Scott) and Blake (Gideon) and Earl (Thomas) are all starters is Blake was limited some because of his shoulder surgery back in the spring, and he did his rehab in the summer, and we’ve been more careful with him as well. You start looking offensively, there are five receivers right now, and in some cases six when you count Dan Buckner who is playing flex, and he’s been maybe the biggest surprise on offense coming in and playing flex receiver at tight end. He made an outstanding catch down the middle last night, and he got a touchdown catch on a two-point play really, so it was a two-point conversion after a touchdown that was as good as I’ve ever seen, so he continues to really build at that position. Greg Smith had his best night last night since he’s been here. He actually had good competition with Sergio the entire night and we competed ones against ones and had a dress rehearsal. (We’re) concerned about the backup offensive line. Right now the starters are doing fine; Chris Hall has been the best player. He’s been the most consistent player up front and he’s a guy that comes ready to play every day and you see as you look at the depth chart, David Snow is listed as a starter at both guards and he’s a backup center. So he and (Michael) Huey and he and Charlie Tanner would be competing every day for that spot, so David Snow is right in the mix, but we still have to look at the backups in that position. Fozzy (Whittaker) got dinged up a little bit again and missed some work, so Vondrell (McGee) took over the starting tailback spot and Cody Johnson, who came in we felt like a little bit less than what we wanted in conditioning, he’s come on and had an outstanding camp, so right now, those two would be ready to go. Fozzy will be back Monday, and he’ll be ready to start working his way back in, but if we played today, Vondrell would be the starting tailback and step up. Garrett Gilbert is still the second-team quarterback. Colt’s had an outstanding camp as you would figure. Garrett still has a lot of work to do, but we feel like that we see the promise he showed in high school there. Kickoff returns right now, you will see on the depth chart that we’ll alternate. We would have Jordan Shipley with Christian Scott, and then we would have Malcolm Williams, and he would be with Aaron Williams. So we have a big guy that can help protect the other guy and we have two fast guys in there, so we feel like we have four guys all that can touch the ball and have a chance to score. Now the guys that aren’t on this list are guys that are right now not in the top two. It doesn’t mean that D.J. Monroe still doesn’t have a package, and it doesn’t meant that a guy like DeSean Hales won’t be playing, this is a two-deep if we were starting to play on Monday and that’s what this is all about. On sophomore safety Christian Scott: Christian is one of the most physical players on our football team. At safety, he’s really improved his ability to cover. He was an offensive player in high school, so as an offensive player in high school, Christian played quarterback, running back and wide receiver. He played a little safety, but he didn’t play in the schemes like we have in high school because his emphasis was on offense, and we just see him getting better each day. But he and Earl and Blake Gideon will knock you out, and really Nolan Brewster, so all four safeties are really physical and that’s what we need down the middle. On competition at corner and depth on both sides of the ball: The best thing about the eight defensive backs, Deon and Curtis could start today, they both have for us, and so you could start any of the eight and be fine. What we are trying to do is get 22 starters on each side of the ball. We’ve got that on defense. We feel like there’s not that much difference in the guys on defense. The backup defensive tackles, defensive line, we’re trying to get them to where they are at the same level as the starters but everywhere else, there’s not really that much difference. The backup offensive line is where we are concerned. That’s where we have to figure out how to get 12 guys instead of seven. On having guys to rotate regularly in the secondary: There’s no doubt, and you will play nickel and dime some, so that’s why when we start getting a depth chart, I know people get frustrated with the either-or, they want a starter. It’s not the old days, you’ve got to have depth and you’ve got to have guys that can play, so we’ve moved out of, “He is the starter,” because if a guy gets hurt at Texas right now, we take care of him. We get him out of the way and say move on over, we’ll take care of you emotionally, we’ll get you well, but somebody else has to step. Tillman Holloway probably said it the best here when he quit playing and we won more games the next year. He said, “Coach, I thought it was about us, our team, we were the best, you would never do that good again,” he said. “The train just keeps on rolling.” Somebody else is going to hop up and play if you’re not ready. On the rejuvenated energy with camp winding down: Yesterday’s scrimmage was tough because they’re exhausted, coaches are exhausted, you are trying to have a dress rehearsal for the Louisiana-Monroe game, and you’re out there a long time. Still, you’re doing situations and you could tell, especially the freshmen, they are just whipped. They’ve never been through anything like this. Then you have students coming in on campus, yesterday was the first day of class, and in my notes from previous years, yesterday’s scrimmage is usually a disaster when it comes to football, and last night was pretty good. It wasn’t bad based on the end-of-camp scrimmages. They have some new hope, they will practice today and then they’ll be off after class Friday. They’ll come back Sunday night. We have so many that have class on Monday we’re considering practicing Monday morning at 6 (a.m.), so we may have to go, but we’ll actually meet them in the morning at 6:00 to go over the practice film today because we have the women’s clinic tonight and the coaches will not be able to visit with the players and they have study hall. So with school starting, this is unusual for us. We normally have school starting next Wednesday or we played last week, so to have school a week early is I think an advantage for us because there were team changes and it’s difficult for young people to change with that routine. That’s also why we’re releasing the depth chart today instead of next Monday. We felt like any time you release the depth chart, you’ve got some chemistry, morale issues on your team because you are changing people’s place, and as much as you talk to the young people and their parents, some are not going to understand it as well. You all are going to have big discussions about what you like about it, what you don’t like about it, and all of that to us seemed to be better done today and tomorrow and Saturday than it does next Monday when we have to think about the game. On junior running back Vondrell McGee: Vondrell’s had an outstanding camp. He’s been really good, he’s tough, he’s 205 pounds probably, he’s in really good shape, he’s catching the ball and he’s just a warrior. We’re excited about watching him play. He’s tough as nails. On Colt McCoy’s progression during the offseason: He’s an amazing young man. I don’t think he’s changed really. He doesn’t read what anybody writes during the season. He doesn’t even watch TV and he doesn’t get on the Internet. Last year, I remember some young man came up on our team and asked him to sign a cover of Sports Illustrated at midseason, maybe the week of the Oklahoma game or something, it was a critical point, and he said “Hey, please, I don’t even want to see it. Wait until after the season and I’ll sign anything you want, I’ll do anything you want.” He walked into Greg Davis’ office once last year and SportsCenter was on and he said, “Coach, can you turn that off? I don’t need any distractions, I’ve got to be focused on football.” I think he only needs three hours to graduate, so he’s got full football time now to watch film, so we think he’ll do as well as he did last year or better. We’re excited about what we’ve seen. On improvement in McCoy’s game: There are really probably three areas, and number one would be that he’s so much stronger than before. Every day after practice I see him go in there and lift weights, as tired as he is in camp, it’s just been amazing to watch him. His leadership, as good as it was last year, it’s flowing now through the entire team. He goes in and talks to the defense and the special teams, and he wants to affect everybody. He’s down there high-fiving a defensive back that will get a tipped ball or something, so he’s really into the team now and not in to just the offense. Thirdly, just doing a better job of taking care of the ball, not forcing the ball and making sure you take what’s there and you drop the ball off, because quarterbacks like big numbers, and they like to hit the deep one and it’s hard to make sure you’re patient enough to drop the ball off, and he’s doing a good job of that as well. On the offensive line: I think it can be really good. I don’t think it’s going to be what some Texas fans want – the old traditional line up and knock you in the face. They were one of the best pass-protecting offensive lines in the country last year and what I’m seeing, we said we worked on four-minute offense a whole lot in the running game, but until we do that in a game, we can’t sit here and say it’s going to be better. We have to look at that and we’re running against what I think will be a great defense, not a good defense, so I think that still the jury is out, but I think the offense is going to be really good, it is every year around here just about. On being under center now: When were thinking about that, the tight end will affect that. How much will Greg Smith play? What does Dan Buckner bring to you? Because you can be up under with flex or not, but what we will be is a multiple offense, a multiple spread offense that will be quick tempo and that we’re going to try and move up and down the field like we did last year and make sure that we don’t take a breath. You can run the option from under the center, which we will do, or you can run option from shotgun. We’re trying to run the same plays as much as we can from a lot of different sets and still at the same time not challenge our offensive line because people are blitzing so much more than ever before. If you have multiple schemes up front, that’s why most people went to zone blocking probably five years ago. Everybody started blitzing because they couldn’t stop people in spread offenses with base defense, so they’re moving around everywhere and they’re bringing it everywhere and you’re all over the place, so you have to be simple in what you do and look complicated. On the running backs: I deal with personnel as much as anything I do during the ballgame. If Vondrell is making yards, he’ll get a bunch of [carries]. If he’s not, we’re going to change it up and put somebody else in there because I really believe that you change the tempo of something that’s not working. If we’re up under the center every time and it’s working, we’ll stay up under there until they make us quit. We have a thing, RSP, repeat successful plays, and we’re going to keep doing what we do until they stop it, and if they stop it, there should be something good off of it. On preparing the backup quarterback: It’s really difficult because [Gilbert] is playing with a second-team offensive line that struggled, and he’s playing most of the time against a second-team defense, and there’s not much drop-off from the first-team defense. He’s seeing every blitz known to man, so it’s a very difficult transition. What we will need to do from today on with Garrett is simplify it with him because we put in the entire package offensively against the entire package defensively, and all of a sudden he gets overloaded to a point that now you narrow down and say, “These are the packages that will be best for Garrett.” That’s one of the best things that Greg (Davis) and the offensive staff do. They do what they need to do to win, they feature the guys they need to feature, but we’re going to have a package for Garrett that will be good for Garrett, and it may not be Colt’s right now. We thought we got ahead of ourselves a little bit with Colt in his redshirt sophomore year, and we got him more than he was ready for with some inexperience up front and probably hurt him, and therefore hurt us because there were more turnovers than we should have had, and we won’t make the same mistake with Garrett. On freshman defensive end Alex Okafor: He’s playing really well. We’re excited about Alex and if he continues to grow, he’s a guy that will have an impact this year for us as a true freshman. That’s very difficult to say, but just because he was here in the spring, he can do some of the things like Blake Gideon did for us last year, he will be out on the field early. On junior wide receiver John Chiles: John is ahead most of the receivers as a runner because that’s what he did so well at quarterback. He’s really getting better at route running and he’s catching the ball so much better than he did in the spring. I think everybody will be excited to see John and the progress he’s made and he’s got such a good attitude, and he’s working really hard. I don’t think you would say his route running is as good as Jordan Shipley’s because Jordan is as good as anyone in the country, but I don’t think there will be a lot of difference in his route running and some of the other receivers. He’s come a long way. We can put him in the game and throw the ball downfield with him now, where in the spring, that would have been difficult. On senior center Chris Hall: Chris is just amazing to us, his attitude every day. He’s got that smile every day. If he gets knocked down, he gets up and pats the guy on the head and says great job and runs back and smiles. It’s just amazing how he’s got such strong faith, but what an attitude he’s got. He moved to left tackle two days ago and didn’t miss anything, hadn’t been out there but one day. So we could put him at left or right tackle and not miss one beat. It’s just amazing how good of a player he really is. He will sit and talk to any kids that want to talk to him. He’s obviously at all the Bible studies and runs them because he’s a preacher, but he’s a wonderful human being and a great role model for all of us. He’s tough as nails; he just smiles when he hits you. |
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