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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSJuly 25, 2006Mack BrownKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI COACH MACK BROWN: We're all excited about getting back to work and getting started. It's been a tremendous off-season for us. Our players have embraced and enjoyed the National Championship, as well as our staff. The state of Texas has been great. It's been fun to be around them. And now all of that is gone and we're four weeks from starting over and we have some unknowns and some question marks as you usually do in preseason, and the guys are really, really excited about opening practice on August the 7th. Q. Coach, I guess one thing that you worry about as a coach, will the hangover of a National Championship be a problem, the fact that is it Oklahoma, is it Texas, the Big 12 South? Is that a reality check for the players like it's over, last year is last year and this year is this year? COACH MACK BROWN: Dave, we also talked about that a lot. And we talked to a lot of different coaches that have won the National Championship and said help us with what happens after this, what did you do, what did you like and what would you do differently? And we decided to enjoy it and make sure that we did appreciate how hard we worked and what the team accomplished. And at the same time go back to work because we're the defending National Champs with a 20-game winning streak. After Vince left, it changed our position nationally because if he had returned, people would have thought that we would have had a great chance to repeat and now we're not even picked to win our division. But if you also look at the southern division in the Big 12, there's two National Championships that have come out of that division over the last six years. So we have a very, very difficult league and everybody is getting better. So we're excited about where we're starting. We have 16 returning starters coming back. But a lot of work to do. And after watching our guys in the spring and hearing the guys talk last night, there's been absolutely no complacency as they get ready to start the season. Q. Can you comment on Taylor's transfer (inaudible) today? COACH MACK BROWN: Yes, Ramonce has decided to transfer, and we first want to thank him for all he's done at the University of Texas and wish him good luck. Q. Can you update us on what your outlook is at quarterback? COACH MACK BROWN: Barry! I told Barry last night two years ago the Norman guy asked about the quarterbacks and here he is again. Barry, I thought Vince would come back, very honestly. I might have been the only one in America that did. And until a week after the game I really felt like he would come back for his senior year, because those were his plans. And I think he made the right decision, as you look back at it. He'll make a tremendous amount of money. He has a chance to lead a team like the Titans. So it worked out great for him. So what we've got is two really talented young quarterbacks who have not played in the ball game. Colt McCoy has been there for a year. He's a red-shirt freshman. Won a lot of games in high school. He was a coach's son from Jim Ned High School out in Tuscola in West Texas. So he had the advantage of being around our offense for a year. And we watched him and worked him for a year and he was around Vince for a year, but he's not played in a game. The other young man, Jevan Snead, is a senior in high school that came in January. Both of those young guys exceeded our expectations in the spring. They've shown great leadership. In talking to the guys last night, they really had a great summer, and they worked hard. So we've got a great supporting cast around them, but we also will not know who they are in practice. We'll have to wait until we put them in a pressure situation, in a ball game to learn more about them. So we'll have to play both guys if we were playing today, unless something changes between now and game time and we'll probably have to do a great job of evaluating who they are and what task difficulty they can handle as the season goes on. Q. Which quarterback do the players seem to rally around better? COACH MACK BROWN: We don't know yet. The question was which quarterback would the players rally around better. Colt's just been there longer. So it's a very difficult thing for Jevan to come in in January and be pushed right into the offense. But those are things that we'll have to find out on the run, which is the biggest question mark about our team. Q. Mack, what was it like trying to recruit quarterbacks the last couple of years with Vince being installed like he was? COACH MACK BROWN: Any time -- the question was how was it recruiting quarterbacks the last couple of years with Vince. Any time we would bring a quarterback recruit in, Vince would not miss a pass. Most unbelievable thing in my life. We asked to pull him out we had a young man, national player, really good, came to practice one day and Vince had been throwing the ball horribly about his sophomore year. He had ten straight in the scrimmage and Greg Davis called down from the press box and said, How is our recruit doing? He left after number six. So I told Vince, You just -- you waited until they would show up. So it was difficult, because -- and everybody, he told everybody the entire time he would be here five years, because that was his plan. And I thought that's what probably changed. And, again, you sure can't blame him. Q. Coach, with Vince's ability to improvise, do you have to have much more structure to your offense right now? COACH MACK BROWN: We won't have any more structure, but we probably won't have the 30 -- third down and 30 scrambles that we had for first downs. I called those on a regular basis and they were really exciting, so we'll probably take that over offense now. But we'll run the same offense. We'll emphasize different things and different people. When you've got a lot of your offensive line back, you've got Selvin Young and Jamaal Charles, with the experience and ability of those two guys. You've got all your receivers back. A couple of great prospects that are young at tightend. We will still run the same offense. We may run more zoning and less zone route, but we'll still have the ability to run the zone route it just won't be as dramatic as it was with Vince sometimes. Q. Mack, what would be your goal or timetable or hope to narrow it down to one quarterback? COACH MACK BROWN: Hey, if someone asked would you rather have one or two, you would rather have one and another one behind him with a lot of experience. There's no question about that. But you want two that can play in a ball game because at a place like the University of Texas, your quarterback getting hurt doesn't give you a right to lose the rest of the games. So depth is really, really important at our place, and we've got it in every other position except that one right now. So what we will do is work really, really hard to try to separate the two at some point, but understanding that because since you do not hit your quarterbacks during practice, that it will probably take game experience before we'll all know which one will lead the team more readily. One year we won 10 or 11 games at North Carolina and we had Mike Thomas and Jason Stanicek and the one we started stunk and the other one came in and played great. And it was every week. It was unbelievable to see that. And then we had some -- Chris in major situations here, and there were more coaches in Texas than they were in North Carolina. So you get more help here. So I'm more aware of that now than I was before. Q. With the potential question marks with quarterback heading into the season, what's the mindset of the defense knowing they may have additional pressure to carry the team? COACH MACK BROWN: It's been fun to watch our defense this spring. We feel we have the ability to have the best defense we've had since we've been at Texas. We've lost some good players, but the guys that want to step up. We know we'll have to run the ball better to take some pressure off the quarterbacks early. We know that we'll use more play action pass and simplify some. We will know that we've got to stop the run and force more turnovers, and we also know that we can do a better job in our kicking game even though it's been one of the best in the country. But one of the disappointing things, we had maybe the best secondary in the country last year, but we didn't intercept as many balls as we wanted to. We had our hands on a lot of balls we didn't intercept. With Tarell Brown and Michael Griffin and Aaron Ross coming back, we'll need to force those turnovers this year instead of coming close. Our defense knows we're going to have to step it up and play better than we do. Q. Who are some newcomers you expect to make an immediate impact? COACH MACK BROWN: Young tightend named Jermichael Finley that red-shirted last year that's really talented. We lost a great player in Dave Thomas. Jordan Shipley, young receiver who ruined his knee, and has missed two years basically because of that knee operation, should be back and full speed ahead and great shape. A young man named Myron Hardy is making improvements at receiver. Cedric Dockery, Adam Ulatoski and Chris Hall and Charlie Tanner, Dallas Griffin are all young offensive linemen that need to come on because we had the ability to play seven offensive linemen at any time last year. Bryan Orakpo has a lot of quickness at defensive end and we think he can help in our pass rush. We still need to get more pressure on the passer with four-man rush. A young man named Roy Miller is a defensive tackle that's come on like gangbusters playing well inside, and Aaron Lewis, another defensive end, physical player. Roddrick Muckelroy, young linebacker, came on, was red-shirted. And then we have to replace Michael Huff and Cedric Griffin, so you're looking at Michael Griffin's brother Marcus, his twin brother. You're looking at a young guy named Eric Jackson who hasn't played very much, Brandon Foster and Ryan Palmer. So there are a lot of those guys that are in positions that need to step up. A young kicker's coming in named Hunter Lawrence, one of the better in the country, so he'll have a chance to compete for a job as well. Q. Mack, after getting a chance to sit on the National Championship for six or seven months, has that changed your approach to coaching in any way after (inaudible)? COACH MACK BROWN: Has sitting on a National Championship for six or seven months changed my coaching philosophy, attitude any? I wouldn't think so, Tim. I've tried to figure some of those things out. I really, I don't think it sunk in for a long time and I'm not sure it has to this point because you do what you do everyday. And Roy Williams at North Carolina told me your friends will be happy and family will be happy and the perception will change about your coaching nationally and you won't understand it and you have to go back to work. And I think those things are true. Recruiting has been better since we won the National Championship. It was just a rush of a lot of young people that wanted to come to Texas. And probably over the last two years, but that's been good. But the kids are happy. They feel good. They're working harder than they've ever worked, and we've got more depth. And when you can win by enough points in games to play a lot of players, your team morale is so good. And four NFL teams offered guys on our staff and all four stayed. And all those things are really positive. But as far as you probably have more confidence. You probably have a better peace about yourself that you've accomplished one of those, as Coach Royal said, You check another one off your list that you'd like to have off the list, and really at the same time it doesn't change your life. And let me say this before you start. Five years ago Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno said, If you do this long enough, you'll win a National Championship and after you do, you'll want to win another one before the season starts the next year. I said, Let me tell you, it's a whole lot harder to win the second one than it is the first one. So that's kind of where we are. Q. What coaches did you talk to about how to handle it and what was some of their advice? COACH MACK BROWN: I can't remember, but Coach Royal. Bob, Stu, Steve Spurier, Phillip Fulmer, Lloyd Carr, a lot of guys you call or bump into and ask questions and basically they said, Be really, really careful with the amount of things you agree to do that are there because you won the National Championship and are not something that will help you keep winning. So what we tried to do, we did a few fun things. The White House was wonderful. It's something everybody needs to do in this business. It's wonderful for the kids and a great experience. And the President spent an hour and a half with the kids. That's a day they'll never forget. And I think probably looking back as a coach when you're watching your team walk down the steps of the White House to meet the President, that's pretty cool. That's something as a coach you dream about; and actually seeing the young guys do that, you say this is a neat day to ever to get to that point. And then you do a couple of other things. But our coaches and I decided that we would only speak for high school coaches or something that would help us in recruiting and that we weren't going to travel all over the place and spend all of our time being bragged on. We were going to go back to work. And at the same time we thought we didn't have to duck from a National Championship. Didn't have to act miserable. Act like we didn't enjoy it. We can enjoy the fact we won it but also work really hard to do it again. PETER IRWIN: Coach, thank you very much.
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