“No sir, you can’t relax,” Ebner said. “An off day is another guy’s blessing. So I just try to go in with the same mentality every day. You can’t let the fatigue catch up to you at practice and all these long meetings. You’ve got to come in focused and you can’t worry about the rest of the world.”

While all three veteran backs will get their share of carries, Nixon would like to see one player emerge as the go-to back.

“I would like for one guy to be the guy, but we just have so much depth,” Nixon said. “We’ve got a couple guys who I really feel confident in. You’re going to see all three of them every single game. And guys like Abram Smith and Craig Williams once he gets healthy, and our freshman backs, we have a lot of depth at the position, a lot of guys that I feel confident that they can go in and make explosive plays for us.”

While the Bears will miss gifted receiver Jalen Hurd who was a third-round pick by the San Francisco 49ers, rangy senior Denzel Mims should be one of the top receivers in the Big 12 after making 55 catches for 794 yards and a team-high eight touchdowns last season.