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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSJuly 24, 2012Mack BrownDALLAS, TEXAS THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Mack Brown from Texas. Coach, welcome and your opening comments. COACH BROWN: Well, I'm sitting in a red chair; I don't do that very often from the Big 12. We have three players here today: Mason Walters, who is an offensive lineman that's about 6'6", 325; we have Carrington Byndom, who is an outstanding defensive back for us last year that made the huge interception in the A&M game for a touchdown that kind of turned the game; and we have Jordan Hicks, who will be one of the leaders for us at linebacker, and you'll get to visit with them. I asked the ladies to come in; if I had any hard questions, I would let them support me. So we'll just ask them to step up and answer any questions that we need here. Got my back. Questions? Q. I'd like to ask the cheerleaders who they want to quarterback the Longhorns this year. COACH BROWN: They would want the worst one. I think that would be without question. There aren't any Longhorn cheerleaders in that group there. Q. How confident are you with‑‑ comfortable and confident with David Ash going into the 2012 season? COACH BROWN: Last year at this time I sat here and we had four. And there was a lot of concern about trying to get four guys prepared for a new offense. So at the same time Gilbert gets hurt in the second ballgame, David Ash steps up as a true freshman, Case McCoy jumps in, and Connor Wood and wood transfers, so it was all over the place. What we have done now, we have two older guys that have been through a year with Bryan Harsin and Major Applewhite offense. They both won significant games, one against‑‑ Case against A&M in College Station at the end of the year, David Ash in the Bowl game against Cal. So we're coming in at a much better place this year than we were last year. They left spring practice even. In talking to the guys last night, they've had a very competitive summer, and both of them are in the mix and we should have a great battle at that position in preseason. If you sit there and you say we'd rather have Vince Young, we'd rather have Colt McCoy, there's no question those are two of the best quarterbacks to ever play college football. You'd like to have that luxury. But even then, if they get hurt like Colt did in the national championship game, you're usually inexperienced in the backup role. Two is more difficult if the chemistry isn't working well. Right now David and Case are getting along really well. They're worried more from what I hear about winning than they are playing, and I feel like that one of those guys will separate himself some in preseason and it will give us the other guy to come off the bench and play if need be. Connor Brewer was there for the spring. We got to watch Connor some. They've said he's had a great summer. And we haven't really seen Jalen Overstreet. We'll get to see him in preseason camp. You wouldn't think the freshman would get in the mix, but there could be an injury. They could have come in and do something really special for us. But obviously that's a key to us being better is we need to play better at quarterback. And I think that means we need to have more explosive plays from that position and at the same time we need to protect the ball better. Q. Mack, what do you need from Jordan Hicks this year? And could you talk just about how he's progressed since he got to Austin? COACH BROWN: We had a great defense last year by the end of the year, and our defense was really led by seniors. We lose Kheeston Randall up front, who did a great job for us, you lose Emmanuel Acho and Keenan Robinson in the middle, and you lose Blake Gideon from the back end, and you've got to be strong down the middle to be great on defense. So the question mark will be who will be the guy to step up and take the leadership role that Kheeston had in the front. You figure Alex Okafor and Jackson Jeffcoat will be right there. Linebacker, the oldest one and the most experienced one is Jordan Hicks, and he's played in some big ball games and played very well for us. He's stayed healthy and he needs to be the leader in the middle of that defense and kind of captain of the defense for us. I think he understands that role and that's one of the reasons he's here today. Q. Can you talk a little bit about what Carrington Byndom brings to your defense, and is he flying a little bit under the radar as far as the national scene is going at this point? COACH BROWN: Yes. Carrington will be one of the best defensive backs that we've had. He's smart. He's in great condition. He's very confident. He doesn't say a whole lot. And that probably has hurt him some on the national scene. But he played a lot as a freshman for us. He started and had an outstanding year last year for us. He's a guy that can intercept the ball. He can make plays. He's physical. And I think that he will end up being one of the better defensive backs in the country this year. Q. Mack, as you look at your defense, as you look at the running backs, do you need your quarterback to give you those Vince Young, Colt McCoy performances, or have things changed a little bit? What are your expectations? What do you need from your quarterbacks? COACH BROWN: When we lost Colt at Kansas State the first year when we were in great shape to be in the conference championship game, I think we lost him after eight plays to the same injury he had at the national championship game. Cost us a chance to play for the championship that we're. The national championship game, the fifth play of the game same injury, at the goal line, puts him out of the ballgame. You go back look at our BCS games we haven't run the ball as well as we needed to in those games. I thought Colt was so good and so accurate that we became a softer offensive football team from a running standpoint. We were throwing the ball on third and four, and I wanted to bring the toughness back, because also in those BCS games we didn't stop the run very well against Alabama. We didn't stop the run very well against Ohio State. We didn't stop the run very well against USC. So I want us to get so we are a more physical football team from top to bottom. And I also don't want to have it where the success of our football team is totally on one person's shoulders for him to have a great day, not a good day, or for him to be healthy and to do that we've got to get better around the two quarterbacks. So we'd still like to have those plays out of our quarterback like we had with Vince and Colt, but we'd like to be in a position where if one of them isn't able to play that day, that we can still have the same success as an offensive team. Q. You mentioned‑‑ you said one of these guys‑‑ we think one of these guys will separate himself some. What indications do you have at this point that that will happen between David and Case? COACH BROWN: I've got 37years that says it will probably happen, one way or the other. And usually the players will choose them for you if not. You bring in key players and ask what they think. But usually somebody will tweak an ankle or somebody will have a sore shoulder, and it may not just be by performance that it separates. If it doesn't separate, you choose one to start the game. If he doesn't play well, you put the other one in. And I remember one year that Coach Taft at Baylor was running quarterbacks in every play and had a really good team. I remember he would run them in every play and put a different one on the goal line short yardage package. It is what it is. And I think what we've gotta do is maximize their abilities to run our football team by utilizing both of them at this time. Q. You mentioned the fact of a need for some increased physicality. I'm curious, you rival the two JUCO kids, Hawkins and Moore, what that's going to help out immediately. COACH BROWN: Bo Davis and Stacy Searels came in from Alabama and Georgia. Bo coaches our defensive line and Stacy coaches our offensive line. Both of them had relationships with these young men and with their coaches in junior college. And we feel like right now it is working for both of them. They both had a good semester academically, from what it sounds, they both had very good summers, and both of them will either start or get significant playing time. Q. Mack, you mentioned the running game and how you wanted to see a little bit more toughness there. And how would you define toughness and how does that‑‑ how does that contribute to the team's identity? COACH BROWN: I think toughness on offense is the ability to move the ball either by throwing it or running it, and therefore confidence. And especially we did not play well in the red zone last year. You better be tough on short yardage and goal line and tough in the red zone. You can't just throw it all the time and be successful. The knock against the, quote, throwing teams for years has been that the field shrinks as you get closer to that goal line. It's harder to score without being able to run. So that's one element. The other thing is being able to stop our defense, stop the other team's rushing game and making that team one dimensional, because it's hard to win if you're one dimensional. And we always felt like even with Mike Leach's teams, if we took away the screen game and the draw game, we had a chance to win the game. If you allowed him to run the ball and throw the screens and you had to plant your feet and stop, to stop that element of the game, he was going to beat you behind you and beat you deep. So trying to be tough enough to make a team one dimensional. The other thing is we go back to the biggest difference in football games is turnover ratio, and you need the big hits. You need to stop the run on first down so you can put pressure on the quarterback, put him in a very difficult position, and strip some balls or force some interceptions, and if you allow people to stay along with the chains and have normal down and distance, it's really, really hard to force turnovers. Q. Coach, can you tell us a little bit about Mike Davis? It's been a while since coming out of high school, he was highly recruited. Freshman year was okay, sophomore year he went a little up front. Can you let us know what you think of the progression to get him going? COACH BROWN: Mike had an outstanding freshman year until he hurt his knee. And we thought he was on target to be one of the great players that we've had at Texas at wide receiver. And last year he had a lot of personal things pop up and it just didn't work as well for him. It's harder for receivers when you're playing four quarterbacks. It's harder for them to feel the guy and get the chemistry with the guy. That's one thing we're working to find out right now. But Mike had a good spring. He's getting his confidence back. He's blocking better. His relationship is good with Darrell Wyatt, our new receiver coach. So we really need Mike to step up and have a great year, and we feel like he will. When you talk about your players in the summer, the NCAA says I can only have casual conversation with our coaches and players, who is working out and who is doing well. Not even working out. You can't ask. Last night you just asked the players, and they gave you casual comments about, yeah, Mike's got his confidence back and he's doing well and those type of things. But we'll know more in the next ten days. But we need our receivers to step up in general. We need the three young receivers, Caleb Jones, Marcus Johnson, and Kendall Sanders, to play well. And then we've got Marquise jumping in the Olympics on the 4th, and we report the 5th, so hopefully he'll be back with a gold medal in the first part of that week. So maybe he can get more time than he got last year. Q. Mack, will you have a change in offensive philosophy this year, because it goes against the grain in the spread‑happy league, or because you have great running backs and inexperienced quarterbacks? COACH BROWN: I think yes. I think what we'll do is we'll try to be balanced. We'll play to our confidence. We'll play to the guys that are performing the best and making the plays, but we felt like the biggest thing when we rushed the ball for 441yards against Texas Tech and Kansas back to back last year and then lost both backs the next week with Missouri and lost Fozzy Whittaker and we were not able to throw the ball well enough to hang in there, and John Harris got hurt and Jaxon Shipley got hurt. We were pretty much crippled across the board in a lot of those different areas. We feel like to win our league, which is what we want to do, we've got to be balanced and we've got to be able to throw it as well as run it. So we do not want to be a running football team. We'd like to be a team that can do both. And we feel like we've made so much progress in the running game that we can line up and run the ball just about every week. But you're not going to be able to do that continuously against really good defenses unless you can throw it and keep them off balance. Q. Mack, how much better do you think your defense can be in year two under Manny? COACH BROWN: I don't know. The question mark about our defense will be: Can a Steve Edmond replace a Keenan Robinson and will Jordan take that leadership role of Emmanuel Acho and will one of those defensive linemen step up. Because I thought Kheeston Randall had a great year. I thought he was drafted much lower than we thought he should, because we thought he was a much better player than he was drafted, and he's going to make the team and stay right there with them. So what we've got is really good players at those positions. We don't have that senior leadership. We only have two seniors that would start today on defense, and we probably have two seniors that will start on offense. So it will still be a really young football team so the leadership is going to have to come from within with some of the younger guys. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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