Mack Said Things Today!

About promising freshmen, pizza joint miscreants, our new sports nutritionist, satellite recruiting camps, injuries, and other miscellany.

The varsity guys are already buzzing about the freshmen class. They think they're really good. You can tell when they walk through and say, "Whoa, coach, this is a good bunch of players." That's exciting as we look at it.

That's heartening. They won't be thrown into the fire like the 2011 class, but we need them to fill out the depth chart in a number of spots.

A lot of people are doing satellite camps. That means you take your staff to Dallas or Houston for a few days, you go to East Texas, West Texas, San Antonio. A lot of people are doing that now. It's something we'll have to look at. We have always been concerned that if we did something like that, it might take away from some of the kids wanting to come to our camp on campus, and we'd rather have them here, have them around our facilities.

We're fortunate to be 0-3 hours from most of the good players, and I'll go ahead and say skip El Paso, but it might be tempting to hit East Texas. Maybe Lufkin? That puts you two hours from Beaumont, two hours from Tyler, and two hours from Shreveport (yes, I do want to mess with LSU). We'll hold it at the Lufkin Academy of Hair Design.

I've seen some people suggest that satellite camps might limit street agentry, but it won't. Kids don't use street agents to get rides to the places they want. Street agents tell kids where they're visiting and then take them there.

Recruiting has gone really well. This will be a smaller class. We're trying to finish the class as strong as we did last year. Obviously, last year there were a number of guys that changed their mind and committed to us late, so that can always happen.

RS-J and Robbie Rhodes on his mind.

As far as our current team, [CB] Quandre Diggs, [CB] Adrian Phillips, [TE] Greg Daniels, [DE] Jackson Jeffcoat, [WR] Bryant Jackson and [WR] Miles Onyegbule have not been released to work out with the strength staff and do everything, all the drills in the summer. They all are doing something. They can start. But probably only Bryant and Miles will not be full speed ahead when we start our camp.

I think Onyegbule has a decent shot at redshirting given our longer term plans for him.

Our three young men that got in trouble downtown a month or so ago are working to finish their disciplinary punishment as we speak. They will not miss a game. But they are paying hard for really being disrespectful to authority figures.

I agree with Mack's handling. I think a full game suspension for basically acting like entitled turds, but not really committing a tangible offense, would be a tad draconian. They're doing conditioning punishments and Mack gave them some grief.

Caleb Blueitt is working at tight end. He's a baseball player, a really good athlete. He's tall, hasn't played much there before, but we think he's a guy that can help us because we need to be more productive and create depth in our receiver and tight end position.

This, the Greg Daniels move, and the signing of the JUCO Swaim, tell you all you need to know about how the staff regards Tight End. If you haven't figured it out yet, Harsin is de facto TE coach now.

We also are working on a new position as such, Bryan and [co-offensive coordinator] Major [Applewhite] and [wide receivers coach] Darrell [Wyatt] are calling it "T and Z" right now, which is part tailback, part Z receiver, for [RB] D.J. Monroe and [ATH] Daje Johnson.

Labels. We know how they'll be used, in any event.

You've got guys like Thomas Ashcraft been waiting to play for a long time. He's in great shape. Had a really good spring. We're excited about him. You have Luke Poehlmann, who made so much progress after his knee operation. It's hard to come back in less than a year and be able to participate as Luke did last year. He can now actually help us and play tackle. We have all the young ones, too.

I've heard good things about our interior OL depth from several sources, so this is bueno. Poehlmann could really come through for us with a solid year at OT #3.

We have hired a sports dietician. It's something we've never had. We've had a consultant in place in the past. But Amy Culp has worked with our team as a consultant. Was just hired by our medical staff. She will be full speed ahead and something that just about everybody in the country now is using because we have to change the habits of some of the guys.

This is long overdue - basically negligent, given our huge support staff budget and Mad Dog's Oprah-inspired public epiphany that fried chicken does not aid athletic performance - but I'll wait-and-see on the hire. Nutritionists have just about the widest variability in competence of any profession on the planet. A really good one can be worth wins on your schedule, the bad ones are still babbling about the food pyramid. I hope she's awesome.

I talked to my buddies across the country that are coaching. They want to all pull [the players] off Twitter, Facebook, not let them play basketball, not let them do this, do that. They are human beings, and they're kids.

Short of racing Ducatis on I-35, they need to be able to be themselves and not automatons. Injuries are as likely to happen playing hoops as dragging tires.

RISE. It's their deal. It's theirs. One year we had one, and they didn't even remember what it was.

I laughed. That about sums it up.