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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSJuly 25, 2007Mack BrownSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS CHARLIE FISS: Ready for our final interview session, University of Texas. Coach, you didn't have far to come today to San Antonio. Tell us about your team as you begin to start thinking about starting the fall camp. COACH MACK BROWN: It's an exciting time for us. It's amazing we're starting our tenth year. I was talking to Derek Lokey and Colt McCoy and Frank Okam and Limas Sweed, and I asked them how old they were when I came to Texas. They were 10 or 11 years old. So it shows the recruits were 6. So it's been a good 10 years, it's been a lot of fun, there's been a real high standard set at our place now. We're excited about the new stadium addition. We have a lot of question marks with our team. We have a chance to be good. Our biggest question mark seems to be that we've got some talented guys coming back with experience. We've got some talented guys that haven't played a lot. And we've got to do a great job of trying to mix those two together and get them to be able to connect and get the right chemistry. And the longer I do this, I see the point of summer workouts, because it's an opportunity for the coaches to get out of the way and for the players to build the leadership and camaraderie on their team and I thought two years ago we did a great job of that in the summer. The kids did last year. It didn't seem to be as good to me. And this year we really won't know until we get back. But that's one of your biggest question marks is how has your team pulled together and then obviously we have to do a great job of deciding who plays and what schemes are best as we get ready to start the season. We've got some experience on the offensive line, experience in punting and experience in the secondary, and all those -- and experienced at back-up quarterback and we have to figure out who is going to be the back-up tailback and back-up tight end. We have a lot to do but there's talented guys to do it. We'll start on it immediately. We'll leave today and our staff will go to south Texas for three days for a coach's retreat where we'll start or continue to discuss all of those things. Q. Coach, could you talk a little bit about when you got to Coach Mac Duff, what were you looking for when Coach Chizik left for Iowa State? How long did it take you to do that process and what were you looking for after Coach Chizik left? COACH MACK BROWN: We've been through a unique situation with our defensive coordinators. We had Carl Reese for a number of years, and he did a great job for us. Then Carl went to Missouri to fish and hunt. Then we didn't really know where we were going or what we were doing and we came off a disappointing loss in the Holiday Bowl to Washington State. So we hired Greg Robinson from the NFL. It was a little bit of a change from what we've done in the past. We thought Greg did a great job for us. He didn't stay very long, but when he came back, he and Dick Tomey came in together and helped us change attitudes and bring new ideas and get more of an NFL philosophy with our defense. And talk more about turnovers even than we were. And then they became head coaches immediately, which was great. And then Gene Chizik, who I really considered the year before, came and Duane Akina was there as a co-coordinator for both Greg Robinson and both Gene Chizik. And I thought Gene did a great job for us. And he and Duane got along and had a tremendous chemistry together. When Gene decided to go to Iowa State, it was obviously right at the end of the year. Duane had earned the right to call the defenses. We felt like we would let him do it in the bowl game and see if he liked it because he's got five children, real strong commitment to his family and been a while since he called defenses. We kept the young graduate assistant, Jeff Koontz, with him and I thought he did a tremendous job not only devising a game plan for the Iowa game but also for turning the trend of some early trouble into a great second-half game plan. So I was really, really impressed. So after that we had to -- when we made the decision that he was the guy, we really hired Greg Robinson and let him call the defenses instead of Duane because we felt like that would give us the strongest staff overall. And Duane agreed with that. We did the same thing when we hired Gene Chizik, and this time we were able to find what we thought was the perfect fit with Larry Mac Duff because he had 14 years with Duane. They were co-coordinators at Arizona and worked together at Hawaii. And we also felt that like their philosophies were so similar that we could keep the same strength in our staff, add a kicking game coordinator from the NFL because we like to improve what we're doing in the kicking game, and also give Duane some more support as he got ready to call defenses for the first time in a long time. Q. Mack, you talked about mixing new guys with some veterans. Can you talk a bit about getting Derek Lokey back on the field and what it means to you as a leadership standpoint? COACH MACK BROWN: I thought Derek was probably our biggest loss of the year. There's a point where we don't want to talk about injuries anymore because it's like an excuse. But we lost some power in our short yardage and goal line on offense, because he'll go back to a fullback position. And he's just such a dominant leader. He's a four-point student, he just got married, tough as nails. And then same thing on defense. When we committed Derek and signed him, he didn't have a lot of other scholarship offers. We thought he was a really good football player. He's become great football player for us. He's tough, he likes to play. He continues to make plays, and all of that is evident by the fact when he broke his leg last year and hurt his knee, got up and walked off the field, so I thought he was fine. He walked into the dressing room before he would let the doctors even check it. After he got inside, he came back out on crutches and he said, Coach, they wouldn't let me play. He told me he tore his ligaments and hurt his knee, then he's walking and getting ready to practice in bowl practice and we wouldn't let him. Then he came out, did just about everything in the spring. He's the toughness and the attitude and the senior leadership that we need to lead this team. I don't think there's a better football player, total combination of person, character, grades and leadership and ability than Derek Lokey in the country. Q. What do you need to see early in camp to make a decision on the back-up quarterback between Sherrod and Chiles? Is it a matter of with Chiles that he can do so many other things that he has to do a lot for you not to red shirt him? COACH MACK BROWN: It's a real question mark for us, partly because it changed the direction of our season last year. And it's a little bit more on our minds right now, because when Colt got hurt we didn't play as well. It wasn't anyone's fault. We probably needed to play him more. We have to figure out how to get the other guy in the game more. It's hard to get three guys in much less two. So we've really got to see which of those two guys is separated the most from the other one over the summer and just see which one can throw the ball the best and run the huddle the best. Both guys have great running ability. But it will be the guy that can get the ball to the right guys in the air and protect the ball. Because your back-up quarterback needs to make some plays, but he's got to be able to protect the football. Both are talented, both are nice young men. Both are driven. But it will be the chemistry with the team and it will be fun to watch. We've got to do the same thing at running back. We've got to do the same thing, like I said, at tight end and the same thing at secondary. So right now for us there's some real key positions in the back-up roles that are important for us. Q. Talk about the secondary a little bit, Bobino's role in that secondary? The secondary a little bit, Bobino's role in the secondary, linebacker? COACH MACK BROWN: You mean Drew? I was wondering if Bobino got moved. I was mad at somebody for moving that sucker. He's a little short to play the corner and has great speed. (Laughter) What we see in the secondary is five really experienced or six really experienced players that haven't started much yet. You look at Drew Kelson. Drew has been the ultimate team guy for us. He's perfect for me as a coach because we get somebody hurt at running back, Drew steps in, plays running back. We need help at linebacker, Drew stands up, wins a national championship at linebacker. At safety Drew is going to move back to safety. Drew has been the ultimate team guy. He's never griped a day, just makes good grades. He smiles, he works his rear end off and plays good for us. And I'm excited about his senior year. But if you take the guys that are involved, you've got Ishie Oduegwu, hasn't played much, hasn't been healthy. Erick Jackson hasn't played a lot except special teams because he hasn't been healthy. And then you have Marcus Griffin and Drew inside -- I may forget some guys because I don't have the sheet in front of me. But you've got guys like Deon Beasley who got his feet wet a little bit last year and will continue to play now. You've got Ryan Palmer, who has paid his dues and waited a long time, and Brandon Foster, who the guys say looks great now, and a host of guys with just less experience that are really talented. So Duane and I have to do a great job of making sure that we can get the right guys on the field and have the right chemistry to connect as an overall football team. You even look at our linebackers. You take Drew out of the linebacker spot, you still have guys that have won a national championship at linebacker and you have very talented young line backers behind them. So we're actually going to talk to our defensive staff this week about the possibility of trying to look at playing two deep but maybe playing one complete defense for 11 plays and take them out and put an entire other defense in for 11 plays so we can develop more depth and find out how good some of those young ones are. Q. How do you feel about small town guys, are they good guys? COACH MACK BROWN: Well, some of them are. (Laughter) Ones that stay healthy. (Laughter) Q. Mack, a minute ago you talked about your back-up quarterback? COACH MACK BROWN: It's amazing what a year of confidence does to a young quarterback. I'm sorry, where are we? Q. Back a minute ago you talked about your back-up quarterbacks, you mentioned running the huddle. How did the huddle presence and how much was that a factor in Colt's success last year? COACH MACK BROWN: Last year at this time we didn't even know who would be the quarterback, very honestly. So obviously Colt didn't know and our team didn't know. And a team without an established quarterback is usually a team that's got some question marks because you're just not sure how it's all going to work. We knew what Colt did in high school. We knew he was as good as anybody we had seen and he won -- he went to state championship, basketball, football, he did everything we wanted, we just didn't know how soon he could take it to the big stage. So one of the reasons that we went no huddle offense as much as we did last year was we wanted to take some of the pressure off of him of being the youngest guy in the huddle with a bunch of guys that just won the national championship. When you're standing out giving them hand signals it's a lot easier than if you're saying keep your mouth shut, get your head up when you're looking at Kasey Studdard and Justin Blalock, Lyle Sendlein, who are three, four years older than you. But right now we feel like Colt has complete control of this football team. He has great confidence as you can just see. And he is having more fun right now than he was this time last year. He's anticipating playing good and winning and being a team guy instead of who's going to start. And that's a great relief for us from this time last year. CHARLIE FISS: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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