Not a whole lot to report today since media only had 15 minutes, but here’s what I have.
The drills I got to see were OL driving drills, 1st and 2nd team hurry up offense, and defensive skeleton drills.
For the Hurry-Up Drill:
1st team offense
QB – Shane Beuchele
RB – Kyle Porter
WR – Lil’ Jordan Humphrey, Devin Duvernay, Jerrod Heard
TE – Andrew Beck
LT – Connor Williams
LG – Patrick Vahe
C – Jake McMillon
RG – Elijah Rodriguez
RT – Tristan Nickelson
2nd team offense
QB – Sam Ehlinger
RB – Tristian Houston and Toneil Carter
WR – John Burt, Collin Johnson, Reggie Hemphill-Mapps
TE – Garrett Gray
LT – J.P. Urquidez
LG – Alex Anderson
C – Terrell Cuney
RG – Patrick Hudson
RT – Denzel Okafor
Few notes:
Reggie Hemphill-Mapps actually lined up in the 2 back and ran the ball on a zone read
They ran mostly pretty simple plays, like 5-wide stick, RPO’s, zone-reads, and a few screens. (Perhaps when I get to a bigger screen I’ll break down the plays a bit more if y’all would like).
For defense wasn’t able to really get the DL but I know:
1’s – Poona Ford, Malcolm Roach, and Chris Nelson and they move them all around the line.
2’s – DeAndre Christmas, Gerald Wilbon, and Charles Omenihu
LBs
1’s – Malik Jefferson, Breckyn Hager, and Naashon Hughes
2’s – Jeffrey McCulloch, Anthony Wheeler, and Edwin Freeman
CBs
1’s – Holton Hill and Kris Boyd
2’s – Davante Davis (now #18) and Eric Cuffee
3’s – Donovan Duvernay
Safeties
1’s – DeShon Elliott and Brandon Jones
2’s – John Bonney and Jason Hall
Nickels
1’s – P.J. Locke
2’s – Chris Brown
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Only a couple of updates. One, Zach Shackelford had surgery on his ankle today. Multiple high ankle sprains from what I understand. High ankle sprain tears a ligament in between your tibia and fibula. They put a wire in there, called a high-wire or something like that. All indications are that went well. Hoping to have back full speed and not having to worry about that ever again by training camp. And then, DeAndre Christmas has pubalgia. People call it a sport hernia… Google that. He’s going to finish out spring and then go get that thing fixed up in Philadelphia the week after the Spring Game.
Tom Herman’s Press Conference
Saw some turbo tempo today. How fast are y’all pushing this thing?
I think it’s really good to… man that’s an intense question… I think it’s always good to practice at that tempo because then when you want to use that tempo in a game it’s not foreign. *sirens in the background* It’s not like a fire drill out there. It’s actually practices over and over again. But again, we’re not ever going to be one of those teams that wants to run a hundred ten plays a game. We’re going to be an up-tempo team that varies the tempo to keep the defense off balance.
On what he’s seen from Kyle Porter
Knock on wood he’s seizing [the opportunity of not being the one hurt] right now. He was player of the game in the scrimmage Saturday. He runs hard. It’s really hard to run against our defense, and we know that. The offensive line is taking a while to adjust to that, which is good. By the time fall camp rolls around there won’t be a front or a blitz that has ever been invented they haven’t seen. Until then, it’s taking them a while. Kyle never complains, never asks for a play off, always runs full speed. He makes yards as he’s getting tackled. He never gets driven backwards. So he’s been a joy to be around this fall.
On WRs
That whole position group has got to get tougher. Really talented, but really not physically tough.
I was talking to Colt McCoy out there at practice today. We were talking about wideouts, and he was ooing and aweing at how beautiful they looked out on the field, until I said they have work to do in the toughness department.
Again, I won’t tell you guys anything I haven’t told my guys. These guys have heard that from me… Trust me, I’ve told the wide receivers. I’ve told Coach Mehringer. I’ve told Coach Beck. They need to get tougher, and they’re working on it. They want to.
This is from a guy who’s coached wideouts for five years, so I kind of know the stereotypical personality of a wide receiver. It’s not very conducive to our culture. Coach Mehringer is getting that out of them, slowly but surely.
I asked Colt did you ever know or be around some of those tough wideouts, and he said, “Oh yeah. Quan Cosby and Jordan Shipley. Those are some bad dudes.†And so, my challenge to our wideouts right now is go be a Quan Cosby or Jordan Shipley.
On Kyle Porter being social media-less
I love it. I think it’s cool any time a guy can go old school.
Is he off? No social media, no Instagram, no snapchat? (Nope) Myspace? Reddit? None of that stuff?
I think that’s fantastic. That’s like a unicorn these days. You don’t see a 19 or 20-year-old kid without any social media. I applaud him for that.
On who needs more work and who doesn’t
Not to coach speak with you, but we all need to work. Saturday was not great. We had a long team meeting today to address a lot of it. We put up ten clips on the video screen, offense and defense, of sub-maximal effort. When we’re in a live scrimmage situation it is unacceptable to give anything other than your maximum effort.
We just need to keep playing, instill in them and applaud and praise those that do well, those that exemplify our culture and point out those that don’t. We need to make sure they’re being taught what the expectations are around here every single play.
On defense holding an edge over the offense
I’d hope it’d be that way through eight practices. I use the analogy, and Coah Orlando may disagree with me, on defense ten guys may screw up and one guy makes a great play and you’ve got a TFL or sack or whatever. On offense you can have ten guys do perfect and one guy screws up and you get a TFL or a sack.
Defense is about running to the football and having a really bad attitude when you get there, taking a shot and not being afraid to miss a tackle know ten other guys are right behind you sprinting their tails off to have your back. Where offense is much more choreographed. That choreography takes a lot longer.
Short answer, yes the defense certainly has had the edge here in scrimmage situations, but I’ve seen some signs of life from the offense here lately.
On who’s impressed
Poona Ford and PJ Locke. Those guys, you can feel it. Especially Poona Ford when he’s playing the 0-nose. Whew. He’s a handful for any center.
And PJ, just from his energy and play making ability.
On RTs
We’ve got to find a guy who can just snatch that position. And right now they’re battling taking equal amounts of reps with the one’s and two’s. Really nobody has separated themselves. We need to find a 4th tackle. We’re working guys around with JP and some of those guys.
Usually if you go into a season and you’ve got your starting five, you’ve got a back-up inside guy and a back-up tackle. So seven, maybe eight. If there’s teams out there that feel good about putting out their 9th or 10th O-Lineman out there, I want to meet them and see what they’re doing because I’ve never been around that. Even on our National Championship team at Ohio State we had one back-up inside guy and one back-up tackle.
On DeShon Elliott
Well he’s an effort guy. His speed has impressed me. His ability to process this defense is very complex for a guy who’s in the back end. He’s done a really good job of processing and getting better each and every practice.
On B-Backer Position
In order to be as multiple as we want to be from an odd front to a 4-down front to our third down package, that guy’s got to be a hybrid pass rusher, linebacker, and cover guy. He’s got to be able to take on blocks from tackles and tight-ends, but also drop into coverage and reroute a slot receiver and play man-to-man on a tight end. Those are the things that make that position so unique. I’ve been happy with how we’re progressing with the two guys there, Naashon Hughes and Jeffrey McCulloch. I’ve noticed them more as the weeks go on.
On McCulloch
Usually guys that are that cerebral are not the toughest cats, to be honest with you. With physicality he’s no we’re near a finished product, but he definitely not scared. He’ll throw his stuff in there and do the dirty work. That was good to see here the last few times we’ve put the pads on.
On Lil’Jordan Humphrey being with the 1’s and Reggie Hemphill-Mapps being with the 2’s
Reggie has got great speed and quickness. You can tell he’s played high school football at a very high level because he’s got a knack for route running and finding open windows in zones.
The thing that stands out about LJ Humphrey is his size. It’s tough when that guys bodies you up if you’re a corner or a safety. It’s tough to get around him.
On guys coming in the summer that could make instant impact
No, because I don’t know what type of shape they’re going to be in.
They better be in great shape and they better have worked out and our coached better have been feeding them the information that they need, but no, I’m not that good of a prognosticator.
On Bill Belichick coming to practice
He is going to speak to our staff and certainly we’ll try to get him in front of our team before practice. He’s scheduled to spend a couple hours with our staff. It’s a tribute to what the University of Texas is. It’s a tribute to the guys who’ve played for us, not just at the University of Texas, but us as a coaching staff and guys who’ve gone here, the Malcolm Browns of the world, that Coach Belichick would think enough of us to want to do that. Again, it’s our privilege to give that back to the high school coaches in state. It’ll be, according to Jan Allgood, the most attended high school spring plan that we’ve ever had here, which is a testament to obviously his draw power, but also our relationships with the high school coaches and their feeling welcome to come here to Austin.