On Tuesday, the Texas football program sent its coordinators out to meet with the media.
Unless an appearance in front of a microphone is mandated by a bowl game, UT head coach Steve Sarkisian does not allow his assistants to participate in press conferences during the season. Texas, though, usually does make its coordinators available at the beginning of fall camp each year. So with football practices set to begin at Texas on Wednesday, offensive coordinator Kyle Flood, defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski and special teams coordinator Jeff Banks spoke on Tuesday.
Here are three things that stood out about Flood’s press conference. In addition to being an offensive coordinator, Banks is also the coach of UT’s offensive linemen:
Texas has experience on its offensive line
Former UT right tackle Christian Jones is now an Arizona Cardinal, but Texas still has plenty of experience on its offensive line. In fact, Texas returns four starters on the offensive line in left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr., center Jake Majors and guards Hayden Conner and DJ Campbell. Junior Cameron Williams enters camp as Jones’ presumed heir, but Flood added that Texas has eight or nine linemen who have notable experience since Williams started once last year, Connor Robertson filled in for an injured Majors against Oklahoma, Cole Hutson has started in the past and the 300-pound Malik Agbo was used as a situational tight end in 2023.
“I think (that experience will) raise the bar and raise expectations to play at a really high level,” Flood said. “Those kinds of expectations are a privilege, you have to earn those expectations. I think these guys have and I think they’ve got high expectations of themselves as well. We’ve got high standards in that room as a position group, and we’re looking forward to the next month of trying to make sure that we do everything we need to do to get ready for the season.”
What did Texas try to improve with its offensive line?
Asked what Texas tried to improve with its offensive line this offseason, Flood responded that “there are always specific things for the players. We try to have an individualized program for each of those guys to get better and that’s why we do the evaluations at the end of the year. But ultimately, whatever position you’re playing, it’s the mastery of the skill set to play the position, it’s the mastery of the fundamentals at your position. So are there little nuanced differences between somebody who plays left tackle and somebody who plays center? Sure there are. Does each player have something that we want them to get a little bit better at? Sure. Sometimes that is changing your body. Sometimes it’s something like that or sometimes it might be something specific from a blocking standpoint, run or pass or screens. But when we go into the offseason it’s never like hey, we’ve got to make sure we do this. I don’t think you can be that narrow-minded when you’re doing it. I want these guys to be better than all of it.”
What about the young guys?
On Tuesday, Flood was asked about the freshmen offensive linemen who enrolled early and went through spring drills at Texas. Might players like Brandon Baker, who was a five-star prospect in high school, and four-star interior lineman Daniel Cruz contend for playing time in 2024?
“We’re really excited about both those guys. When they’ll impact us, I don’t know. I think it’ll be sooner than later,” Flood said. “Both of them love football. Both of them are really good teammates. I know that sounds like kind of a cliche answer, but if you don’t have those two things, it’s hard to really become great in that room right now because it’s such a good room. So they’re very talented. They’re everything we thought they would be from a football standpoint in recruiting.
“They’ve picked up the offense really well for freshmen and now this training camp becomes the ultimate test of how well they picked it up. All the other times a year when you’re learning an offense, you have an install and then maybe you have a day off. You have an install, then maybe you have a couple of days off. Well in training camp, it’s day after day after day. Those first four installs come at you really fast. So now is really for all the freshmen really on offense, we’ll find out how well they’ve mastered what we’ve been doing all offseason because it’ll start to pile up really quick if they haven’t.”
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas offensive coordinator Kyle Flood speaks at press conference
Austin American-Statesman
