Mack's press conferences are really not aimed at me but given the wholesale changes we've seen in staff accountability, conditioning, talent identification/recruitment and physicality, I thought I would dip into this one to see what Mack had to say.
Also, it's the off season we need something to talk about.
You can read this in its entirety over at Texas Sports.
Selected excerpts...
I think you can see the attitude of this team with how hard the guys are working and how physical they have been on the open practices on Friday and Saturday. It has been that way since the beginning. They have worked hard in the off-season program, they come on time to meetings, and I have been very impressed with their attitude. If they continue to work like this, this can be a really fun team for us to watch next fall.
Yup. Get with it or get out. Funny how young people respond.
Practice has been very physical and we have been able to do that because we have a little bit more depth than we had at this time last year. I remember [offensive line coach] Stacy Searels was playing with seven offensive linemen throughout spring that were scholarship guys.
Stacy remembers that too! Really like this guy and I'm reminded of the LSU guy's take. "In short, Texas got a good one."
Stacy is one of the best I have ever seen at moving guys around. He took [junior OG] Mason Walters yesterday and put him in at center for five plays. He moves them around and wants to see how they look. He is not worried about just the success they have in the spring, but he wants to see if he puts them in a position they are not comfortable with how they will respond to try and build up. We want two guys at each position, but if not maybe he can get a guy that can play two or three positions. Then if he has eight offensive linemen that can be considered starters, he will build his depth by changing positions.
Love to hear from some of our esteemed football minds on this. Obviously personell maximization is awesome but which guys are legitimate cross-training candidates obviously matters.
One of the things I told the coaches in the morning meeting was, we need to expose our concerns right now. You don’t want to go into the fall and say this is still a problem. If it is a problem right now let’s try to get it fixed in the second part of spring practice. If not, at least we will know it has to be fixed by a freshman or someone coming in the fall. Let’s not walk out of here with unanswered questions this spring.
Up or out.
There are two sections about kicking game. Go read those if you want. Our punting last year really cost us at times. Be nice to have somebody back there who is a weapon.
Justin Tucker. You beat A&M. You're gold in my book. Also, check this out... Yikes.
We haven’t had junior college players for quite awhile around here....
What they do bring is maturity. They bring the natural strength of a junior as compared to a freshman coming in.
As clear an indication that things have changed around the program. If you missed the Brandon Moore section in LonghornScott's FRI practice write up, go check that out now.
No bullshit, Brandon Moore is easily the strongest player that has been in a Texas uniform since Mike Williams (the offensive tackle) was drafted.
That was LHS, not Mack, but you can tell Mack is thinking the same thing.
On junior WR Mike Davis having a strong spring season: I’ve talked to Mike a lot since the season. For whatever reason I felt like he had lost a lot of confidence. And I don’t know why. You never know. He had some personal issues, family came up. And we forget sometimes that these are not professional football players. And even professional players have some troubles off the field that bother them. That doesn’t mean that it’s something really bad. It’s something in their family that the dynamics weren’t as good. Or some personal things affected them and bothered them. And I think those things happened to him. And then he has tremendous amount of pride. And then when he wasn’t playing as well, or dropped some balls, it bothered him. Lost some confidence. And then sometimes he had a pulled groin, or a hipflexer that hurt him some. And when things aren’t going well those things hurt you a lot more then when you’re playing great. I felt like he probably just got overloaded. Some players have senioritis. Some players have sophomore stuff that’s going on. And Mike had such a great freshman year. The expectations were so high. I think with all the change in the new it wasn’t as easy for him either. Because he expected the same out of himself the second year. But he made some great plays yesterday again. So I think he’s well on his way back to what we saw when he first got here, and even better. Because he’s in better shape. His confidence is really gaining. In fact, he told me his middle name is "Magic." He asked me if he could put "Magic Davis" on the back of his jersey. Because he wanted to hyphenate because that’s his middle name. And you all know the answer. He said it could just be for "Mike" if we put "M. Davis," but I said no.
That is such a great Mack Brown paragraph. Fatherly, caring, zen and the whole thing ends up like Jack Handey. More importantly, if Mike Davis is back, I'll get a Magic Davis personalized jersey and wear it while I watch the games.
On the tight ends: Still a concern. They’re getting better. We talked long and hard about them this morning. What we did, is we had a spread offense that we took a bunch of receivers and had them beef up and become tight ends. And now we’re probably going to have to start looking at a different type of tight end coming in. He may need to start at 240 [lbs] instead of start at 205 or 210. And at the same time, the [senior TE] D.J. Grant, the [senior TE] Barrett Matthews is blocking really well, but he was a high school tight end. We haven't seen what we want out of John "Stumpy" Pepys or Eric "Stumpy Joe" Childs. D.J. Grant, [sophomore TE] Darius Terrell, [RS freshman TE] M.J. McFarland were all receivers. And we’re looking at them as well. And we’ll have [sophomore TE] Greg Daniels in the fall, because he’ll miss this spring.
Cursed. Awaiting the Smythe Trophy.
On the potential of sophomore LB Steve Edmond: I think Steve can be really good. Steve is very quiet. He’s very bright. He’s not going to let you know he’s bright because he’s not going to talk to you. He won’t look at you in some cases. But he’s got great instincts. I think he might have been 254 pounds this morning when I looked. Because I know he was 261 when we started the offseason program. And at 254 he can run like a deer. In fact, [former Longhorn] Derrick Johnson came out and watched practice yesterday and spoke to the team at the end and said, "Who is that? He’s a great looking kid." But I watched him yesterday on a sweep, and he played it perfectly, bounced out and knocked [senior RB] Jeremy Hills out of bounds after a five-yard gain, and he shouldn’t have even gotten there. So I think Steve has a chance to be really good.
Possibly my favorite part. Great Mackisms and Steve Edmond launching seventh year senior Jeremy Hills into the stands. Steve - Mix in a lot of salads.
There's a lot more. Check it out and share your thoughts.