Texas Longhorns College Football Pregame Quote, 11/25/2019

Obviously disappointed in the last couple of weeks, not just in the outcome but in how we lost those games, but my message is the team is we are not where we had expected to be. We haven’t played to our standard. We haven’t coached to our standard, but none of that matters this week. Because this week we owe it to our senior class, who has done so much for this program since we got here, I know, to put us in a position to be successful moving forward, and, you know, there’s nobody in that locker room that should not feel a debt of gratitude toward them and want to be able to repay that my making their Senior Day really, really memorable.

So obviously short week. Difficult on the coaches and players. We did not practice yesterday, as you know, we normally have light practice on Sundays. We just met, watched the film from the previous game, and tried, you know, 30 minutes of just an intro on what we knew as coaches.

Then with us practicing today, last night was a long night for the coaching staff, just trying to formulate a game plan as well as early this morning so that we could have a good practice this afternoon and have a semblance of at least our first and second down game plan to go against Texas Tech.

Injury update: Juwan Mitchell aggravated a hamstring issue he’s been dealing with during pregame. Anthony Cook is still going to be out. Obviously Cade Brewer is still out but he is recovering, should have him back for the bowl game. Sam Cosmi sprained his ankle, so he will be very limited today. Devin Duvernay had a contusion on his knee that’s really swelled up, so he’s going to be limited today.

Jalen Green is ‚Äì had an ankle sprain. He’s questionable. Keaontay Ingram is improving from his ankle sprain. Collin Johnson is probably bowl game. DeMarvion Overshown, another ankle sprain that we’re hoping will improve throughout the course of the week. He will be limited today. Jordan Whittington we re-MRI’d his pelvic area. There is no abnormalities as far as anything unrelated to the pubalgia.

We have sent those pictures off to the doctor in Philadelphia and waiting for him to evaluate him. The last time we did it, obviously he said that everything looked great and cleared him to play. But J-Witt has been in a lot of pain so we’ve got to figure out what’s going on with him. Questions.

Coach, how is your head? Do you regret doing that? It’s gotten a lot of national attention. How is your head feeling? I see a red spot on there.

No. My head is fine. If the nation had been paying attention they would have realized, I did that my three years at Ohio State, two years every game at Houston so that was nothing new for me. Like I said, postgame, in my old age I had kind of gotten away from it. But I was pretty pumped up about the game and I know our guys were, too, and spur of the moment hit me.

It’s nothing ‚Äì I don’t know how many games that is, three years at Ohio State and two years at Houston, but it’s been happening quite a bit.

Tom, I don’t expect you to tell us everything that was said in a staff meeting, but walk us through why you feel the offense has lost it’s effectiveness the last month?

In the staff meeting, I said these are kids that are good kids and they’re going to want answers. In my opinion when you play such a unique defense back-to-back weeks, there is a fine line of saying, hey, we’ve got to ‚Äì some of our base stuff is not going to be good, right, you say we can’t do X, Y and Z because they’re going to be in position A, B and

C. So you say, okay, well then we need to do D, E and

F. I think when you veer too ‚Äì again, there’s got to be some of that. There has to be, or else you’re not going to move the ball.

But there has to be a fine line to where it becomes too much that you can’t get taught in the course of a week. Obviously we did ‚Äì we thought the plan was great. We asked ‚Äì I remember asking Sam, he’s like, Coach, I love it, it’s great. I feel better about it than Iowa State, and we didn’t do a good enough job as coaches of getting that plan executed.

I think we have not done a good job as a staff of walking that line, of making adjustments based on the uniqueness of that defensive structure and still being able to execute at a very high level.

You mentioned the 80-10-10 after the game on Sunday. When you look at the negative side of that 10%, what do you have to do over the next month to make sure that number doesn’t balloon, become any bigger than that in your locker room?

I think the biggest thing ‚Äì because the middle 80 can kind of gravitate toward one or the other, so we have to rely on the top 10 to go grab those guys that are maybe trying to dip their toe, if you will, into the defiant and disinterested crew and make sure they pull ’em back out of that.

I think that’s the biggest thing. Again, relationships, making sure that these guys understand that we want what’s best for them. We’re trying to win for them. We’re on their side.

Coach, the play calling, I know you have a say-so within the play calling but in previous ventures, I think you call them from the press box so I was wondering if you could walk me through the collaborative effort how it goes from back down to you and how you guys figure it out and what kind of audible can Sam run within that?

A lot of them are ‚Äì we do more than any other year, we put some on Sam and he’s handled it really, really well. He’s super sharp. In today’s day and age ‚Äì used to be you could lineup in a formation, look back to the sideline, see when they were in and call a play and the defense wouldn’t move. Nowadays they’re checking when we’re checking, especially pressure checks versus blitz have to come from the quarterback, or else they’re just going to check out of that. We give him pressure checks all year he’s done a great job with.

And a lot of the communication is, again, pre snap, what are they in? Is it a look-back play where we’ve got to give Sam information, and the press box has a much better view of that obviously than I do.

Then in between series, you know, there’s talk of, okay, this is working because of this. Let’s do this more. Then you kind of have a mini script if you will for the next series and the next series and then obviously third down throws a wrench in that especially when you’re not efficient on first and second down and it’s third and long, versus a drop 18, especially. That’s kinda the dynamics.

And you have the final say so on the play that’s being called?

Absolutely, yeah.

The other thing is that you guys have recruited at a high level over the past few years but you’ve had issues this year. Do you feel like the staffer has done a good enough job of developing that high-level talent that you guys have been able to bring in?

No, no, we haven’t, I haven’t, the players haven’t. We’re all in this together, but at the end of the day the buck stops with me. So that is a big charge of mine in the off-season is to find a way to get these guys better developed and put them in better positions to succeed and also then comes the part where the players gotta decide, you know, I want to take the steps that are necessary to be developed.

Tom, how much is the short week going to mess with your schedule as far as practices are concerned? And are the players going to be going home, the players that could get home for Thanksgiving? Or are you guys going to be doing it together?

It’s a big hindrance in terms of what I mentioned earlier, the fact that we’re having to game plan into the wee hours of a Sunday night after just getting back from a road game, and then Monday morning, and then the kids having to practice on a Monday, which is a big change in routine because it’s a huge class day. In fact, we will have some players miss practice today because of class conflicts.

So then Tuesday will be like a normal Wednesday practice, and then we will wake up Wednesday morning. We will practice Wednesday morning, like a Thursday, and then the kids will be free to go home, whatever, until Thursday morning. Late morning, they will report back, we will have our family Fridays on Thanksgiving Day, and one thing that I’m really proud of that we do here, and we did it at Houston, too, the travel squad players that will be in the hotel on Thursday night, we invite all their families to have dinner with us so we have a true family dinner, Thanksgiving dinner in the hotel with the travel squad.

In years past ‚Äì hundreds of family members ‚Äì yeah, it’s probably over 100 family members have joined us in that. They will all say goodbye to their families on Thursday night and we will resume our normal family Friday schedule after that. I think the kids and the families really, really appreciate us allowing them to at least have some semblance of a Thanksgiving meal with their son.

Then the travel squad guys ‚Äì nontravel squad guys, I should say, the guys that won’t be going to the hotel, they have the option Wednesday right after practice, they can go home, not be back until Sunday, or they can come back for the game Friday, if they choose.

Coach, I wanted to ask what is it like, stepping into a program and trying to win over players who were recruited under a previous regime? What’s that like for you?

We’re past that, I think, we’ve got one class left that were recruited from a previous regime. For the most part they’re bought in. Five of our ‚Äì we have a small senior class, I think, if you include Parker Braun; it’s only ten scholarship guys, something like that, and to say that five of them are captains, you know, and all the other ones are completely bought in. That process was years ago.

Tom, this is one of the toughest stretches you’ve gone through as a head coach. All coaches have mentors. Who is your mentor, and who is your Mr. Miyagi and have you reached out to him?

Coach Brown, certainly, just because he knows this place. Coach Davis, I think, having Larry Fedora in the building every day has been really beneficial for me.

So those are the ones that ‚Äì my wife. The circle is small, I can tell you that. They’ve been good help along the way.

(No microphone.)

We played phone to go. I’m planning on hopefully getting ahold of him today.

Tom, you’re a tough-minded guy, I think you tell the kids in recruiting, I’m not going to be your friend, I’m going to try to coach you to be the best football player you can be?

I don’t, but you can think that.

Any of these characteristics, please feel free to correct, but as a sometimes “bad cop” head coach, have you done a good enough job of showing the players how much you care? They always talk about you can coach the hell out of ’em, as long as they know you care. Who are the guys on your staff that maybe are the guys who the players can go to when they feel like you’re breathing fire on ’em? Because you’ve got to have the guys that are your lieutenants who your players can fell -¬≠

Yeah, my job is to protect the culture, not feelings, but I do think ‚Äì again, this comes up anytime you’re not experiencing the success that you want, the vocal minority gets a lot of the attention. Go ask Sam Ehlinger if he thinks I’m bad cop, or Collin Johnson, or Devin Duvernay, or Malcolm Roach or Joseph Ossai or Keaontay Ingram. The list goes on and on of guys that know and understand how much I care about each and every one of our players, and it’s important to me.

As I’ve said many times, the best way that I describe -¬≠the one word I think that’s so critical to understanding our program is “parental.”

We are going to shower them, I mean shower them with unconditional love. We’re going to be there in times of need. We’re going to provide them with every tool and resource there is to be successful, but we’re also, much like Abe parent should, I hope, you see less and less of it these days, but we’re going to hold them to a very high standard, and when that standard is not met, we’re going to, A, hold them accountable and, B, teach them, like a good parent, how not to make that mistake again.

I didn’t like ‚Äì I don’t know what your relationship was with your dad when you were a teenager or other people with their parents when they were teenagers, but my mom was not my friend, my mom was my mom. I think that as coaches, maybe that’s where that gets misconstrued a little bit. Our job is to be parental and with that comes a lot of love, sometimes tough love, too.

They’ve, for the most part, been very receptive to that love, but, yeah, we certainly ‚Äì I mean, again, holding people to a standard that’s set to me is not playing bad cop, that’s my job. It doesn’t mean when I hold someone accountable for something that they are doing that is going against the things that we believe in as a program that I don’t love them. That’s, I think, the youth today gets that a little bit confused. Coach Herman scolded me so how can he tell me he loves me? Right? I don’t know about your parents but my mom scolded me plenty of times and I never once doubted her love for me.

That’s probably the best way I can describe it. I hope that sinks in. I would just caution anyone that believes that the vocal minority somehow happens to be the voice of the team, because it’s not. You and I have had a few discussions about this before, and there’s a lot of guys in there that would do anything for this program, for myself as the head coach for their position coach. Yeah, those lieutenants, the assistant coaches, the Kevin Washingtons of the world, Yancy McKnight. We’ve all got to have great relationships with them for this to succeed.

Do you feel like you and the staff and the whole support staff collectively, y’all have not squeezed enough talent out of two top-five recruiting classes, the first class was ranked 25th, that y’all should be squeezing more out of this group collectively?

Yes.

And at the same time, though, it’s a fine line to walk. Coaches are responsible for it but the players have to be responsible, too?

Correct.

How do you manage that?

You evaluate. Again, we’ve got a saying around here and I learned it from Coach Meyer and is it stuck with me and made sense because I’ve been on staffs where position coaches aren’t getting the response from a player that they want and they say oh that friggin kid, that kid, that kid, that kid, no, that coach. You’re the adult. You’re the one that does this for a living. So we’re never going to blame the players.

It’s our job. We recruited them and their personalities, so it’s our job to find the right buttons to push, if you will. If you’ve giving them these tools and the young man is not using those tools, then it’s still your job to then educate them on why it’s important to use those tools. There are so many ways that you can work it, but there is a definite fine line between leading the horse to water but you can’t make him drink. I don’t know, take

(No microphone.)

Dunk his head in the water or lead him to a different trough, figure something else out! We’ve got to figure out this off-season where we failed in that area and make sure that that doesn’t happen again.

Tom, I know that goals change weekly now, and as much as you didn’t want this to be the case it’s for a winning record in the regular season. On the flip side, Tech can’t get to a bowl, so maybe they come in not tight, trying to get to a bowl, loose, and what are the challenges of both those aspects?

I don’t know that we will be tight. I would imagine they will be lose. At Texas regardless of your record we’re going to get everybody’s best shot. I heard Coach Rhule’s postgame press conference. Their linebacker had surgery on his hand on Monday and was practicing on Tuesday. Couple other key members of their team, you know, early in the week, the trainers were like there is no way this kid is going to play and they found ways to play.

That’s a credit to him and his staff and his players and their fortitude. So we know we’re going to get Texas Tech’s best shot, and they’re going to be loose. I think the biggest motivation is the winning record. We’re already going to a bowl game, the whole nine. It’s gotta be the people, those seniors, and really paying tribute in a way to what they have truly meant to the foundation that has been set here.

Tom, at 6-5, how shaken are you and why are you still the right man for this job?

I’m not shaken. Obviously in big-time evaluation mode of everything throughout our program. I’m not going to bury my head in the sand. It’s my job to make sure that we play to the level that is expected at the University of Texas.

Am I the right man to do it? I believe I am, yeah. You’re asking me, I don’t know ‚Äì did you expect me to say, no, I’m not and walk off and drop the mic or something?

You have never gone through anything quite like this, have you?

The first year here? That was pretty tough. Pretty tough.

Whenever something happens to Junior, what’s the rationale behind moving Derek inside, your starting right tackle, to right guard and bringing in Denzel instead of maybe keeping Derek at right tackle and bringing somebody else in to right guard?

Just because of the reps. Derek is much more capable mentally and from a skill set level to play. He’s our Swiss Army knife. He’s our back-up center, too. It’s to get the best six on the field, and we tried Denzel at guard, saw him at training camp. He can do it, but he has proven over the course of time that he’s better ‚Äì that’s a better option. Because we’ve tried it the other way, and this way seems to be the better option in terms of production.

The senior class, it’s such a small group. How did they leave an impression on you? For such a small group I’m guessing you admire them tremendously?

Yes. Well they stayed. When we got here. They were young. They bought in. Some took ‚Äì a couple took longer than others but for the most part this crew when you say “jump” they ask how high. They don’t want to know why am I jumping? Jump where? They don’t ask questions. They’re unbelievable soldiers for the program. We will forever be indebted to them because of their ‚Äì and their development. You look -¬≠and I know Collin has been hurt most of the season but you look at him as a true sophomore to the level he was playing at toward the end of last year and then this year, and Devin Duvernay and Zach Shackelford. I mean, the list goes on and on of these seniors that have really, really developed in our three years here, not just from a skill set standpoint but emotionally and from a leadership standpoint.

Happy Thanksgiving, Coach. What are you thankful for and do you have a favorite Thanksgiving food that you like?

I am extremely thankful for the health of my family, my wife and three kids. I’m thankful for this team and for their fortitude. I’m thankful that ‚Äì I think I said it postgame, when the game was for all intents and purposes over, to play as hard as our defense did on fourth down to get that stop and to jog our starters out there with 43 seconds left and still wanting to score, that told me a lot about this team and to be thankful for, for that fortitude.

I’m thankful for the people in my life that are honest with me and that love me. Family and friends that are there for me.

My favorite food. When I was a kid, my grandma and her sisters and brothers they used to make ‚Äì we used to have ravioli on Thanksgiving, I think they still do and it was literally hand stuffed and crisped down raviolis, that I think they spent a whole week folding these raviolis and homemade sauce and all that stuff. I haven’t had that in a while because I hadn’t been back to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving in quite some time, but growing up I looked forward to those raviolis like nobody’s business.