|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 6, 2013Mack BrownCOACH BROWN: We have a smaller class, 15 guys, we think a really good class. Some of the guys today have asked me why only 15 recruits. You go back, you can only sign 28 in a class. We had 28 last year. You can sign 50 over a two‑year period. We had 22 three years ago. You have to stay at 85 or under when the guys report in August. We had 16 to get to 85, so we have 84 scholarships now. We'll have one available if something happens like an Alex King, where a guy graduates or wants to change in his fifth‑year and come to school or a guy wants to transfer or something like that that pops up. John Bianco did some research. Last time we had a class this small was in 2005. We had 14 signees at that time. Nine of the players started. They all earned rights to go to NFL camp. Seven of them are on the rosters this past season. I think sometimes in smaller classes, you do a better job of your evaluation. And they really come in and talked to them that had a chip on their shoulder because they're not as highly ranked, they fight harder to play well. Then when we start asking about where guys will play, you have the same guys that can play in many different places as they possibly can because it gives them a better chance to be successful. We all get excited about signing day. We had some top‑ranked signing classes that haven't panned out. We need to evaluate the class four or five years from now and see who is playing. A lot of times perception is not reality with these guys. Our jobs is to fit our needs. You're never really sure where we're going to play. As we watch the video, we'll tell you what some of these guys are. 34 of the 28 signees of 2011 and '12 played as true freshman. 48 signees in those class, 20 of those returns returned with starting experience in 2013. Probably the highlight of this class‑‑ we got some speed that we needed, but the highlight is the offensive line, averaging 6'5" and over 300 pounds. They can move their feet. I think you'll see some speed and skill positions as well at the other places. When we start talking about defensive linemen, why didn't you get any, we're going to move Hassan Ridgeway from defensive end to defensive tackle, and we signed three others last year. It wasn't a position of need for us this year. Hassan looks great, he's moving quickly. We knew we were going to do that probably by bowl practice because that's where we played him most of the time. Defensive end we're moving Caleb Bluiett back to defensive end because he was an outstanding defensive end last year. That will help us in both of those positions. With tight end, we're moving John Harris into a flex tight end position. He'll still play some wide receiver, but he can double at tight end as well. Next year we'll have to do a better job of getting more defensive linemen and tackles. We have a bunch of linebackers coming up in our junior class. Next year we'll have to get some more secondary guys. We still want to get some more speed guys at receiver because we've got to get back to our upper 40 and 50 points a game offensively in this league. To do that, you have to have great speed at wide receiver. We think we helped ourselves some in this class, but we feel like that's another issue. You also go back and think about our three guys that will probably be drafted, the highest in the draft this year, Marquise Goodwin didn't sign a scholarship. He was recruited for track. Alex Okafor was projected as a really good football player. Nobody even knew who Kenny Vaccaro was. He'll be a first‑round draft choice. He wasn't highly recruited. He played receiver in high school. Here he ends up on top. Marquise wasn't talked about on this day, and Kenny Vaccaro, very little was talked about. It just shows you that today is not as important as what happens after today. We've learned that over the last few years when we had classes ranked in the top five and some of them didn't pan out. Our job as coaches is to take the 15 we've got and a high percentage of them end up playing at the University of Texas. When you look at what's important, the classes over the last three years have been very, very good as a group. It should give us a chance to have a really good football team next year. We have a small senior class next year, but a really big junior and sophomore class, and a smaller freshmen class. The strength of this football team now are the sophomores and juniors that have played so much the last few years. We have 19 returning starters as I said, so I think we have a chance to be very good. The off‑season program, we met a lot with our strength staff and coaches, we met a lot with our training staff because we felt like we had too many injuries over the last couple years and tried to figure out why. Part of it's youth, part of it's not enough depth. The depth area is an area we really want to improve in because we are going to be an up‑tempo offense. We're not getting into spring practice stuff, just to see where we're headed. We want to run a similar offense, but do it from no‑huddle, try to keep the same personnel on the field. In fact, we changed so much personnel over the last couple of years that we felt like it gave defenses a chance to match with us in packages. So we're trying to get a group on the field and keep them on the field and run a lot of different plays and formations from the same personnel so the defense cannot rest, because in the last quarter against Oregon State, they got tired. We feel also by going up‑tempo in practice, because most of our league is a tempo league now, we will be more ready on defense to play at that pace as well because they're going to see it every day in practice. We found when people are snapping the ball 15, 18 seconds, it's very hard to try to get that picture in practice with a scout team, so we need to be doing it every day against each other. Still got to be physical, still have to run the football, still have similar plays, still have all the numbers. We're not changing our offense, we're changing our tempo. We're really excited about it. That's one reason Larry Porter fit where we're headed. We wanted to do tempo most of the Oregon State game, but we couldn't because we weren't ready for it. We only had five or six plays. Our coaches were limited in that package. When we decided to do it in the second half it really helped us. I think the kids are excited about it as well. You try to get your fast guys in space, continue to do a better job with your vertical passing game. When your numbers fit, you have to be physical. With Colt's offense, we got behind. There are 13 high school student‑athletes and two junior college student‑athletes in this group. We have to do a better job with our junior college athletes earlier in the spring because some of the guys couldn't get in school. It was late in the process before we could get all the transcripts. This is Chevoski Collins. He's played quarterback, wide receiver, defensive back, corner, he's played safety. Being an all‑around athlete, he's very good on special teams. He is Cedric Reed's cousin. He can run. He's tough. He and I decided before he committed that what he will do is come in and look at both sides of the ball. He'll look at being a defensive back. Duane will try him at corner end safety. At the same time he can come and play offense because of what you see right here. He's got great speed. He's been a young man we've had in camp three years. He really likes the University of Texas. He's always been excited about coming here. He was very highly recruited, but I don't think he ever wavered in what he really wanted to do. He's been a defensive back more in camp for us than receiver, so he probably knows Duane better than he would Darrell Wyatt. But we're trying to upgrade our speed across the board and he helps us do that. Antwuan Davis, one of the fastest young men in the country. Great in track. He just wants to play football. He can play corner, safety. In high school he was a runningback, a kick returner. As I said, he's powerful, strong. He's another young man that has been in camp every year that we've been here that he was eligible to be in camp. Just love the kid, love the smile. He could have gone anywhere in America and he never questioned that he wanted to be at the University of Texas. But he's real fast and real strong. He works as hard in the weight room as anybody I've ever been around. He really is dedicated to being a great player. As I said, he'll win a lot of things in track this spring, but we're projecting him as a corner or safety. Duane has watched him for four years. So we've known a lot about Antwuan. We're trying to talk to all of the guys about special teams. We just got to continue to get better. We talk about it all the time. You can see here again he doesn't have good speed, he's got great speed. I think we timed him at 4.3 in our camp. He's big and physical, but he's fast. So he's a guy that can play safety or corner. In our league, you're getting so many five wideouts, you're going to have to play nickel and dime more and more. Deoundrei Davis is a big‑time player we feel like. He's tall. He can run. He's another guy, his mother said he was talking about the Longhorns when he was three years old. One of the first words he talked about. He's really physical. He can run. He's tall. He's rangy. He's the type of linebacker you want in this league because he can play Sam, Mike, play in space, cover backs, probably can cover receivers. We feel like he has a chance to be really good. Right now in the Big 12, it is a speed game, as we all know. Rami Hammad, 6'5". He was 320 when he came in to visit. He's very, very physical. Alex De La Torre's dad coached him. He saw him last spring. Coach De La Torre didn't get in there till late. He was 270 pounds when he first saw him. He did everything Coach De La Torre told him to do. He got stronger, bigger, in great shape. You can see here he's really, really powerful. We were very, very fortunate to find him and find him late and follow his progress. He wanted to come to Texas very badly. Actually recruited us and talked to us. We've been so impressed with him on his visit because he's just so physical. He reminds me a lot of Kasey Studdard. He's a guy that is going to take you and be physical. Desmond Harrison is from the Houston area. He's so athletic. He's big. Got long arms. We think he has a chance to be a great tackle at this level, not a good tackle. You see he's got so much athletic ability, he knocks one down, but he can run downfield and knock another one down. We feel like he can come in and help us immediately. A lot of his family is in Houston. His mom lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. For a big man, he's got great feet and he can really run. He will be in June with the other high school guys. They pull him so much, it's unique to have a guy so much pulling on the corner. Naashon Hughes, his brother plays for us. 6'4", 250. Can play inside or outside because of his length with his arms and his speed and the ability to play some safety. He can be in there instead of your nickel back because he plays so well in space. There's no telling how big he can get. He's a guy that's got long arms and can really run, very quick. We knew a lot about him because of the family and his brother. We feel like the upside with him is very good. He's been around us all the time with his brother here. Hopefully his brother's knee will be well so he can play in spring as well. Here is an example of how he can cover because of his experience in the secondary and still get around the ball. Another guy that's probably taller than 6'2", Erik Huhn. He played with Malcolm Brown.  He's a guy that's very, very physical. Has a physical presence in the secondary. Can play up around the line of scrimmage. But he can cover. He's just a guy that makes some great plays in this video. We didn't jump on him as early as some others. He was being recruited by everybody in the country. He really wanted to be here. He kept talking to us about it. He did come to our camp. Because they played so much zone, Duane wanted to lock him up man‑to‑man. He covered some of the best receivers in camp. You can see he's a real big hitter. His brother plays at El Paso. He's got good hands. Tall. Length, range. He can really run. A big hitter in the middle, which is what we're looking for at safety. Darius James, some had him rated the number one center in the country. He'll probably play guard for us, but he can play all five spots. 6'5", 350. He can just run. He's so athletic. I think this is the best group of offensive linemen from top to bottom we've ever signed. Give Stacy and the staff credit because they worked hard. We want to continue to get big guys but did continue to move their feet. Darius can really run and could have gone anywhere in America he really wanted to. We've got to get so we can run the ball against the tough defenses. We feel with last year's group and this year's group we're getting closer to making that happen. I think some of these guys will mix in there next year. Montrel Meander is a guy we saw from the spring. Under the radar being from Amarillo. He improved so much from spring till now. He's one of the faster kids in the state. 6'3". Plays basketball, runs track. We liked the young man when we got him on campus. A guy that likes the University of Texas and wants to be here. He played safety.  He's listed for us as an athlete. We feel like he can give you plays like this in space. He can run the speed sweeps, big enough to block. He's a guy that can gain so much more strength in the weight room, but he's tall and fast. We feel like with the three we brought in last year and the three we brought in this year we really upgraded our speed. Hard to tackle. It's funny, he was kind of under the radar and he ends up being one of the best players we've got coming in. Likes to play on special teams. Loves to play. We're happy we got him. Jake Oliver. Unique that Jake's dad was a football player at Texas A&M, his mom was there also, his sister is at A&M and his brother is at Oklahoma. He's a big, strong receiver, great blocker. Broke Jordan Shipley's national catching record. Has excellent hands, but also really, really fast. He runs great routes. You can tell he's a coach's son. He's a guy that you can move around as a blocker, especially a great catcher in the red zone with his height because he's really tall. From Jesuit High School. He's a fun kid. Enjoyed being around him throughout the entire process. We talk about some of the ones that change their minds, flip‑flop. Most of these kids didn't take another visit, they wanted to come to Texas. That's where we had our most success. Really good body control in a crowd. Kent Perkins, no other visits, just wanted to come to Texas. 6'5", 310 now. Looks like the other guys now. Great feet, good package. Blocks with good leverage. We feel like he has a chance to be a special player. He will be a tackle for us. Can really run. None of these kids you have to worry about in recruiting because they want to be here. Q. Did he play right tackle in high school? COACH BROWN: I think so. I didn't ask, but they don't pass it much. Jake Raulerson is a guy that played everywhere in high school. I talked to him a few minutes ago at our team meeting. He's already up to about 268. We look at him at both places right now in the offensive line first. He can really run, very aggressive as you'll watch him throughout this video. Very bright young man. Very driven. He's done an outstanding job in our off‑season program. He and I really haven't sat down to talk about it. He played offensive line in the All‑American All‑Star Game. I think that's what he liked. We wanted a stronger presence at tight end with our blocking. Geoff Swaim is 6'4", probably 256. He can run. He played fullback, H back. Bryan Harsin, knew those coaches very well. Did not get offered great scholarships out of high school. As we watched him, he's exactly what we're looking for to be more physical at the line of scrimmage. He's working really well in the off‑season program. We can't wait to get him out there and watch him work. I think he's gotten the other tight ends' attention with how physical he's been in this video. Tyrone Swoopes is in camp. He's already up to 250. His body fat is very little, so he's in great shape. But he's big at about 6'5", 250. He can run. Guys have been impressed with him in the workouts. Can't use the ball around us, so we haven't seen him throw or do any of those things yet. But he and Connor Brewer and Jalen Overstreet, should be interesting watching them compete this spring. Tyrone seems to be fitting in very well. Q. Is he less polished than your other quarterbacks when they came in out of high school? COACH BROWN: You know, I've never been on the field with him. I could give you an answer, but it wouldn't be one I knew. Q. (No microphone.) COACH BROWN: Didn't look any different than he was. He's tightened his body up some. Bennie and Jeff think he's doing really well. Jacorey Warrick, great student, his stepdad was in our band. He's another guy that wanted to come to Texas his whole life. Got good speed, good hands. A special teams guy. I know I've said 'speed' a lot in here, but that's what we're looking for. Our game has become speed in this league. Somebody asked me if these offensive linemen would fit in our scheme. I think they'd fit in any scheme. Big, fast, strong, not bad. Jacorey had a lot of offers. Again, he wanted to come to Texas. He didn't really want to look around. Spring game is on the 31st, which is Easter, which we do not like. I think for the second time we've been here, it just pops up with the way our spring break figures out. So we're going to go ahead and bite the bullet and do it at 3:00 this day, understanding we would rather not do it on that day. But it fits the schedule for their academics, lets us break spring practice up where they have a chance to rest their bodies. Questions. Q. Any potential for any late signees? COACH BROWN: We've got one scholarship left that we could use if we wanted to. The problem you have, if you use it, it has to be somebody really good. If you had somebody transferred in like Alex King, it wouldn't cost you next year. You want to keep your numbers up so you don't have a smaller class the next year. Like we talked about last year, you can sign this many, but understand he better be better than the one you get next year. That's where Hassan Ridgeway helps us. Bryce Cottrell is really good. We wouldn't have thought that on this day last year. He's gained weight. He's really a quick pass‑rusher. He can be a special player in this league. Last year at this time we wouldn't have known that. Q. You talked about it in film. Why can you say this line class is so good? COACH BROWN: I've just never seen guys this big with these kind of feet. Every one of them are big with feet. You usually don't have five guys that can move like that. We have three seniors starting in the offensive line next year. We're going to need to replace those guys over the next couple years. I think these guys are something. Stacy kept talking about we need to cover up defensive lines. We haven't been able to do that yet. Last year's class was good. Donald Hawkins, but two young ones in Curtis Riser and Kennedy Estelle. We add those three, but those two young ones to this group of five, all of a sudden you're starting to see what he's talking about. It is a big, physical offensive line with feet. We still need to be able to run the ball in those games where the defense is good, crowding the line of scrimmage. We've been able to run the ball much better. We haven't been able to run it in some of the games we have to. Q. When you look at how your offensive line is now, is there any comparison? COACH BROWN: No. I think Stacy has done an amazing job. We had seven available for him in spring practice to even coach. Now maybe he's going to have two deep for the first time of really good players, maybe a third deep. My wish would be that we play it two deep, get it back to where we had it, where we have some depth and we're not fighting these injuries. I'm really going to push the guys to try to get these young guys with a second team offensive line and force them to play. If we're going to be tempo like we are, no‑huddle, you're going to have big guys running all over the field. You're going to have to be in great shape or have two deep. Q. Tempo, no‑huddle, is that a middle ground like spread at one end like Oregon, and what Alabama does at the other end? COACH BROWN: You still want to be physical. We're not going to be the option type team like Oregon, but we're going to run their tempo. We want to be similar to the things we've been doing, but we want to do it with no‑huddle and with the same players. I thought in watching the last two years, as much as we packaged things, as we were sending in different personnel groupings, they were sending in personnel groupings. And what I saw for us, our big guys would be looking over at us, West Virginia is snapping the ball. I just think that's where football's headed. You still want to be physical, and some people aren't. I think that's what's getting them beat. So we're going to keep our physical presence. We're going to run the football, but at the same time we're going to do it without huddling and try to do it with the same personnel. Oklahoma did it in '08 and they scored a bunch of points, because what we're seeing is defensive coordinators can't call defenses. They look at their wristband, call a defense. The kids are looking down, the ball is being snapped. You can't substitute, call defenses because the ball is being snapped so quickly that it's changed our game completely. We're going to get right in the middle of it. Q. Oklahoma State do that? COACH BROWN: Oklahoma State does. I thought Todd did as good a job staying physical and running no‑huddle as anybody. We'll head more in that direction. Q. With Tyrone, his skill set, is that what you're looking for going forward at quarterback or he was the best guy you found this year? COACH BROWN: What you're looking for is a quarterback that can move. You look at Andrew Luck, Russell Wilson, RG3, rookies in the NFL that made the playoffs. I think a whole lot of reason is because those guys made plays with their feet. We want to get to making sure our quarterback can move. Q. What was the level of negative recruiting? You lost some players that committed. Was that just the nature of the beast, negative recruiting? COACH BROWN: Yes. Q. How hard is it to find guys like Perkins and how hard is it to keep other guys? COACH BROWN: I think we can answer both questions at the same time. What's happening to us now, we already have seven commitments for a year from now. Some of these kids we're going to have to keep a year and a half. If one of them backs out you in December, it really hurts you. What I've talked to our coaches about is you have to do a better job of making sure you trust the parents and that you don't talk one into coming. If he decides to come now, if you get a commitment, it better be because he's wanting to come, not because you recruited him and talked him into it. I've talked to some other coaches. There's been more people flipping around the last two years than ever. A lot think it's because of social media. You can get two kids. Everybody gets in his head. Unlike our guys, a lot of guys recruit for their school, they get in these kids' head, and a lot of it is not true. It's easier to get to him. You can get to a young man through Twitter. High school coach doesn't know it. Mom may not know it. It's just different. I think the thing we will do, we've allowed a couple of kids to commit and still look around the last couple years. We're going to go back and say, We're not doing that anymore. If you're committed to us, you're committed. If you're going to go look, we're going to go look. There's coaches backing out more on kids and kids are scared. It's dog‑eat‑dog out there right now. What we found is the 15 that we got are very passionate about being at Texas. That's what you want. Very honestly if you think about it, if a young person tells you they're coming, the parents tell you they're coming, they don't, you wouldn't want them to be here, very honestly. It may be disappointing on the day it happens, but you want people that will look you in the eye and tell you the truth and you want people that want to be at your school. That's important. When somebody decides to back out on you, you have to go look for somebody else's. That's what happens in this world. I think everybody understands it. That's the nature of the beast right now. Q. Seems like you've been on the road a lot the last month or so. What's the change in philosophy there? COACH BROWN: The biggest thing was when we started offering juniors last summer, since the head coaches cannot go out in the spring, I've been to just about every school with a junior that we're looking at over the last three weeks, and think that's very, very important for me to have that presence in the high schools. It wasn't as important before because we didn't offer people till junior day. Gosh, now we're offering last summer. We're offering in August. I like to go to the school, see the coach. The other thing is that if you get a commitment, you'd like for the high school coach to help you keep it. We're going to make sure the high school coach buys into the commitment as well. I need to see those guys, shake their hand, tell them we're not backing out on kids. If we're not, if your young man and his parents want to commit to us, we want you to commit, too, that he's going to stay with us. Q. Any number Raulerson needs to get to before he can help you? COACH BROWN: I'll talk to Stacy, Jeff, Bennie, or nutritionist. I told him he'll probably be 275 by fall. He may end up being about 290. He has to see how much he can weigh and still be effective. He don't want him to lose his quickness and explosiveness, because he's got both those things and he's tireless now. You don't want to ask him what he ate for dinner because you'll get it, all of it. Q. (No microphone.) COACH BROWN: We're going to play with three and four wide receivers a lot. We have to be very careful. Sometimes in here I go fast and probably don't say it exactly like you all hear it. Then John or Bill bring it to me, That's not what I meant, might be what I said. John will still play wide receiver, but he'll move into the flex position because we'll have more ability to interchange the wide receivers. John is about 222, 224. We'd like for him to be able to come in tight and play flexed, still have the ability to move out to wide receiver, whether it's a flex wide receiver or a split end. If he can do that, it really helps us reach our goal of keeping the same players on the field and going from three‑wides to two‑wides or four‑wides. Q. With all the talent coming on the offensive line, you have five starters there. Do you tell them that jobs are open? COACH BROWN: You stay 16 years, you guys go back and repeat things I said in '98 I changed or some. All of our jobs are always open. They really are. If a guy is loafing or doesn't play well, I just don't come in and say it every day. I should say it every day. Very honestly, we're going to play the best players. These guys will have a summer. Jake will be here all spring. The other guys will have a summer. With the AFCA, we've talked to the NCAA, I'd love to see coaches be able to visit with their players more in the summer. I think you'd do a better job of getting them ready, watching film. We can't do any of that. It hurts an offensive lineman. We're lucky because we have an older offensive line, because Mason Walters and Trey Hopkins can work with these kids. Same schemes, just a different tempo. David is older, Case is older, they can help the young quarterbacks more. We haven't had that the last couple years. Some of our best players have been the youngest ones. Now we have older players. Kids were laughing, cutting up, picking at each other watching these videos. The whole team is working out every morning at 6 except for Wednesday. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, they're working from 6 o'clock to 7:30. They're getting after each other. There's more accountability out there that you need to pick it up. We're making them go back. If one guy is slacking a little bit, they're really getting after each other. We're seeing more leadership than we have the last two years. I think it's going to be great next year. Q. (Question regarding recruiting rules.) COACH BROWN: I was in favor of having the ability to text with seniors. I thought we went a little too far. If you look at right now what we're looking at, it's a very difficult time in my estimation for athletic directors. We now can have a media guide that has unlimited number of pages, pictures, they can be color. We can send out any posters we want, unlimited numbers. I'm not sure the high school coaches are going to want to be getting all this stuff anyway. We can send any note cards out. All of that changed. As of August 1st, we can text or call any junior or senior we want at any time. In talking to a lot of the high school coaches around, they're worried now we can call them as much as you all. You all get comments from them. If he don't think the comment is fair, we can call them immediately and ask them, where we've never been able to do that before. At the same time coaches won't have to call the high school coach anymore. The high school coaches are concerned that more people will have the ability to get to the kids without going through them and they're going to lose some control of their program. I'm not sure that we didn't go a little bit too fast and a little bit too far. We all have to figure out why. You also can have everybody in your building recruit now on campus. You also can have a head coach and nine assistants recruiting off campus instead of seven. I can be out all the time without having an assistant come in when I go out. But anybody in our building, Ken, starting in August, can be a recruiter. He can't leave the campus, but he can call a high school coach. You also have no regulations on the number of personnel people you can have. People are going to start hiring a whole lot of personnel people. Maybe even some NFL personnel people, to start handling some of their recruiting on campus and looking at videos. I think we'll see in a year, we'll get some sense into some of this stuff that's out there now. Q. A commit looks around, are you saying you'll pull an offer? If so, is that something you've done before? COACH BROWN: I've done it before, yes. I think, again, we're in a world where there's different circumstances that come up all the time. For me to sit here and say in every case it's going to happen while I'm coaching in the future, you lock me into it, you say, He lied, I'm not going to do that. What we'll tell guys, Don't commit to us unless it's over and you want to come. Then the message we get, if you're committed to us and you're looking, that's a simple message, we're going to look, too. If we find somebody as good as you that wants to come, you're looking around, we'll take them. I think that's fair. I've done to before. My job is to do what's best for the University of Texas and get the guys that want to be here. Guys can change their minds. If you start looking, to me you're looking for something different than you've got. I'm going to look for something different than I've got. Q. Have you given any thought or decided if you're going to restructure your recruiting in terms of the personnel you're going to add? COACH BROWN: We're all over the place right now, all of us are. We got to talk to athletic directors, coaches, leagues. Everybody has to figure out how do we put some sense into this. None of us have been home. Now we'll have to sit down. I've asked the offensive staff and the defensive staff to give me a proposal of what they think based on what other people are doing out there. I've asked Arthur Johnson and that staff outside of coaches to give me a proposal, see what they think. I'm putting together thoughts that I feel are very important. Then we're going to have to go to DeLoss. If you hire new people, then in one year is the rule going to change and you have to fire everybody. It's a tough time right now to try to figure out where we're all headed. Q. Are you going to hire new people? COACH BROWN: I don't know. Really, I'm honest. We met this morning and said, Arthur, you and DeLoss and Butch have to help us. I think right now probably the athletic directors are trying to put some sense into this and talk to each other and say where we're headed and can we all get on the same page, and the coaches have been so busy that we haven't been home. Now a lot of people are going to start looking at this to see what we do. It's the biggest change in my coaching career as far as across the board in recruiting. Q. The texting part? COACH BROWN: I think right now the personnel. For everybody to be able to recruit in your building has never happened. As far as I understand it, Jeff Madden and Bennie can get on the call and phone people. Q. Have other schools hired people? COACH BROWN: Yes. Q. (No microphone.) COACH BROWN: I think basketball. They changed all the basketball rules last year and gave them more freedom. Very honestly, some of the schools have been making calls anyway, and you do it with another phone other than a university phone and nobody can find it. I think what the NCAA is trying to do, they're really trying, and what they're trying to do is say, If everybody can call all the time, then it takes the advantage from those that are breaking the rules. If everybody with text, I'm getting asked at junior days, Why don't you ever text me? I'm saying, You can't, it's against the rules. They're shocked. So I think that's where the NCAA is going. If we can't find out who is texting and calling extra, let's throw that rule out, allow even to do it, then it's not an advantage by those not going by the rules. Q. (No microphone.) COACH BROWN: I think it was, but now it's not. It's changed so much. The way I'm understanding it, it's not the same. Q. As far as the defensive tackles that you didn't get, any common denominator there? How would you evaluate? COACH BROWN: I'm not going to talk about who we didn't get. Q. (No microphone.) COACH BROWN: I think we're in great shape. Malcolm Brown is really good for the young ones. We've got the older ones. I think we'll found that Paul Boyette and Alex Norman are going to be really good players. We're excited about watching them this spring. Hassan Ridgeway is as talented as just about anybody we've seen in a while. We're excited about watching him. You take a 270 defensive end, he gets to 306, doesn't lose any speed, in this league where people are spread, you have screens, you have draws, you don't need the big, slow guy in there anymore, he can't play. You take him out of the game with these spread offenses. Q. One of the things you were disappointed in last fall, defensive tackles play. COACH BROWN: I thought the defensive tackles played better than the linebackers. I was disappointed in our linebacker year. I thought they played better at the end of the year, great against Oregon State, but I don't think they played well here. Q. Antwuan Davis remind you of any of your former DBs here? The thought of him not doing track, does that help you? COACH BROWN: The first part is, the thought of him not doing track is he is really committed to coming in here and wanting to play. It's very important to him, because he's great in track. What a lot of our guys have done is get established in football, then go run track later. Right now Sheroid Evans is involved in football. Sheroid wants to play football. He's in every off‑season program, every spring practice. He's never done that before. I think that will really help him. Q. With Antwuan, does he remind you of any of your former DBs? COACH BROWN: I could sit here and make something up that sounds good, but I'd really rather not do that. I think in a year maybe I can do that. Q. What are your thoughts on Major's situation? Have you lost any faith in him as your coordinator? COACH BROWN: No. He made a poor decision four years ago. He rectified it with his family, with the university. He's done exactly what he's told to do. I know he's remorseful and has moved forward. Q. There's a lot of good quarterbacks this year. Can you talk about why you elected to go with Tyrone Swoopes? COACH BROWN: We think he's good. Bryan Harsin is at Arkansas State. You can call him and ask him. He is the one that had the lead vote in that group and he's gone. Q. Did you ever consider letting Major go? COACH BROWN: No, I did not consider letting him go. I'm not going to talk about that anymore. Let's talk about recruiting. Q. Will spring practice be open to the media and public? COACH BROWN: Haven't even talked about it. We've had our hands full with recruiting. Q. We'd like to see some spring practice. I can speak for all of us. COACH BROWN: That's a shocker (laughter). It would be right during golf time. Q. (No microphone.) COACH BROWN: Yes. Q. Can you talk about the decision to bring them back? COACH BROWN: On the team? They were not charged. So like any other situation in that case, when a young man is not charged, we bring them back on the team. If they've done something to embarrass our team or university, we put them through some harsh discipline. Q. (No microphone.) COACH BROWN: I don't know. Probably losing a runningback in late December and hiring a new runningback coach that didn't happen till January, moving Major to quarterbacks, probably affected the runningback recruiting some. One thing that happens, it's why at our position when a guy backs out late, if he backs out early, you're fine, but if you tell every runningback in the state that you're going to take one and you took one, then all of them get mad at you, then he backs out, it makes it a little tougher on you. That's why it's really important that guys that commit to us hang in there with us. Q. (No microphone.) COACH BROWN: I don't think he could have much because he didn't really get here. You have about three weeks. I think he'll be a really good recruiter in the future, but most of what we got was already done when he got here. Q. (No microphone.) COACH BROWN: I don't think it says anything. It says that five we looked at decided they didn't want to come. I think last year we had two. Year before that we had two. If you look at it, it's happening across the country. I've tried to look at the guys and see why. I think it's always different. You try to ask why and that. What I've asked our coaches and myself to do is let's make sure that one is committed before he commits. That's a hard, difficult thing to do, because they all are when they commit. But I think I've said it before. Lou Holtz said it the best, worry about the ones you get. You have them for five years, 365 days a year. Don't worry about the ones you didn't get. I don't want anybody here that doesn't want to be here. Q. (No microphone.) COACH BROWN: That he could play man. We're in a league where they're going to spread you out so much, there's going to be times you have to play man. If he's going to be a safety, he's going to be locked up on a fast guy. That was the question. They played so much zone, Duane in his mind had to get him on the grass and he loved what he saw. Q. It's tough to project this out, a guy with his kind of frame, is he somebody that could grow into a linebacker in the future? COACH BROWN: It's tough to project that out. We signed him as a safety. I don't know how much they'll grow. I think those things are all suspect. You just don't know. Q. Are your junior day philosophies changing in termination of the way recruiting has changed? COACH BROWN: I don't know. I don't think a lot. I think we're pretty much who we've been. It's changing in that we've got seven commitments going into it and we've never had public commitments going like that going into junior day. I know we're going to explain the rules to the families very carefully. I know that we're going to ask the families not to commit to us if there's any chance that they might want to go somewhere else and visit because we think it's not best for them, it's not best for us. Those are really not changes, but I think there would be a bigger emphasis on that right now than maybe last year. Q. What are your philosophies on freshmen? How have they changed since you started? Are they more college ready now? COACH BROWN: I really think because when the NCAA allowed us to bring them in in June, that changed everything. They're in better shape. They work with your older players all summer. The older players can actually coach them. Because of all that, they're away from home, so you have a lot less homesickness during a two‑a‑day period than you used to have. You have fewer two‑a‑days. You have more teaching, fewer double practices. I really feel like the major thing is that they get more time, even some coming in January, but even the guys that come in June are much more prepared to work against the older guys than when they used to come in four days before, they were out of shape, they didn't know. These kids are so sophisticated, they're doing seven‑on‑sevens, 11‑on‑11s in the summer. If the older ones will help the younger ones, let them get involved, they're a lot more ready to play than guys before that. I can't remember when it happened, might have been seven years ago. It's changed everything. The thing you still can't do is you can't teach a freshman back to block in the summer. The big linebackers are blitzing them. You can teach every play, the drills, the techniques, because the older guys do that. I think we're a lot further ahead. The NCAA really helped kids get ahead in school, get the transition from home, get to know the players better, by doing that than probably anything else we've done in this business. Q. Is there anything you're going to move forward to try to push through? COACH BROWN: I think because Coach Taft asked me when they put me in that position, everybody is supposed to have something passionate, I think trying to get these rules settled would be the biggest thing I wanted to as president. We need to know how many quality control guys we can have, how many guys are in the recruiting room. It should be the same at Texas and the same at East Carolina. Let's all have a number. If you can't get that many, if you can't pay for that many, that's fine, but that's the number you could if you have it. To me, instead of having a media guide that can have 35,000 pages, let's put some sense into it. We can count the pages, so that has to go by the rules. I understand the rule about the unlimited calls. I don't know that I'd have done that for juniors because you all are calling them every day, we're calling them every day. We're really being a distraction for high school coaches. Recruiting is getting bigger in some cases than their teams. That's what I'm hearing from them. So I don't know. I think there's some things there. But I would like for all of us to have rules we can make people follow. I'd like for it to be all the same for every school, then I'd like to see us have to follow them. Q. Early signing day? COACH BROWN: I've always thought early signing day would be good because then you don't have so many flip at the end. If you have a guy committed, you can sign him in December, he doesn't want to sign, he's sending you a message. It would keep a whole lot of this flipping from happening. A lot of coaches think if a Texas can sign 25 guys, you have 20 signed on your early signing date, you take your 10 coaches and go recruit everybody else to get five more or start looking at juniors. That's the problem with early signing days. I understand that. I would love to see five years of eligibility. For us having to play Jalen Overstreet that ballgame and have him lose that year of eligibility. He said he would play. His parents said, We trust you. What an awful thing for us if we would have put him in that game. We could have played him against New Mexico. But I don't see why those things are an issue. Then you don't have medicals. Then you don't have redshirting. What you've got is you've got a certain number of scholarships that everybody can have. If you run one off, it costs you. I think it's safer for kids. Right now you can have 15 medicals, the hide guys, the shove guys. We could have played Jalen and cost him a year of eligibility. I've never done that in my life. I was worried about that during that ballgame, I'm glad David stayed healthy. Let the young ones go out there and play five or 10 plays, give them a chance, because a lot of kids are devastated by redshirting. We found the ones that play have better grades than the ones that don't because they're involved. They're on the field. They're out there participating. That's what they've been doing. And redshirting is really, really hard on a lot of kids. In some cases you don't even get better because you're depressed because you're not out there and you have to tell your buddies, I'm sorry, I'm not playing. Aren't you good enough? They're afraid to go home, afraid to be seen. It's a very difficult thing. I'd love to see a few of those things done that I think would really help kids. Q. Your thoughts on Ricky going into the Texas sports Hall of Fame? Are you wondering what took so long? COACH BROWN: A lot of times they wait till you quit playing. Ricky is so deserving. I really enjoyed that a couple years ago. The guys in here that vote on it have done such a tremendous job. It's such an honor now to get in because you look at the people that are in. I think Ricky Williams fits right in the middle of that class and is a guy that has given us thrills in this state. Regardless of where he's from, he needs to be in the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in my estimation. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|