Each week, Horns247 delivers its VIP insider notes package, The Eyes of Texas, giving Texas fans a sneak-peek into the inner workings around the University of Texas. As the Longhorns prepare for the upcoming football season with Friday’s start of fall camp, this week's edition is jammed packed with the latest insider football nuggets, including a position breakdown ahead of preseason practice, struggles summer enrollees overcame in offseason training, updates on the Longhorns' stadium renovation and much more!

With that said, welcome to The Eyes of Texas.

There will be a lot of information coming out of Tom Herman, assistant coaches and players over the coming days about how workouts went over the summer, etc.

But let’s do a quick position-by-position breakdown about what we’re hearing heading into the start of camp on Friday. (Players report on Thursday.)

Quarterback

Had an interesting conversation with someone connected to the team Wednesday, and one of the first things discussed was how the four-man competition at quarterback had helped everyone over the summer.

“No one’s conceding anything. Sam Ehlinger knows there’s competition now, and that’s a good thing,” the source said. “Last year, it was just two quarterbacks trying to stay healthy.”

The source said Shane Buechele has done nothing but earned respect from his teammates for the work he’s put in this summer. And more than one source said if Texas can run the ball on a consistent basis this season, Buechele becomes a different quarterback throwing the ball, because he can use play-action to set his feet and air it out deep.

More praise coming in for early enrollee freshmen Cameron Rising and Casey Thompson, whom Herman said, “They belong.” … There will be a fifth quarterback in drills wearing No. 18 when camp starts on Friday: preferred walk-on Tremayne Prudhomme (6-foot-1, 185 pounds) of Aldine Davis.

Running Back

I’ve heard Cal graduate transfer Tre Watson might have been behind on his rehab following a torn ACL last September. … Meanwhile, four-year junior running back Kirk Johnson, who had off-season ankle surgery that he hopes will free him of several ailments he’s had (hamstring, ankle and knee injuries), appears ready for camp.

Wide Receiver

The story continues to be the re-emergence of burner Devin Duvernay, who had a great spring and has stretched that into a great summer. … Lil'Jordan Humphrey, who has had focus issues and was suspended for last year’s Texas Bowl, has been the picture of focus this summer and figures to be a big part of the offense in 2018. … Collin Johnson has exerted himself as more of a leader. … Al'Vonte Woodard (6-foot-1, 205 pounds) came in and quickly moved ahead of Brennan Eagles (6-foot-3, 225 pounds). … D'Shawn Jamison (5-foot-10,180 pounds), recruited primarily as a defensive back in the 2018 class, is also working as a “speed slot” receiver. … Malcolm Epps (6-foot-5, 230 pounds), who was recruited as a tight end, has been getting work at the “big slot” receiver position as a possible backup to Humphrey (6-foot-4, 225 pounds). … Coaches are excited to see if “preferred” walk-on slot receiver Travis West (6-foot-0, 175 pounds), of Dallas’ Woodrow Wilson, could develop into something.

Tight End

Cade Brewer is back from his rehab for an ACL suffered last November. … The sense is if Andrew Beck, who has had two serious foot injuries, can stay healthy, Beck, Brewer and redshirt freshman Reese Leitao, who is 250 pounds, could all contribute in 2018 at a position that struggled to gain traction or help the running game in 2017.

Offensive Line

Our intel says Rice grad transfer left tackle Calvin Anderson (6-foot-5, 300 pounds) and true freshman Junior Angilau have been, by far, the best of the newcomers. Both will be able to help immediately when the season starts with Anderson a likely starter and Angilau likely in the two-deep at either guard or tackle on the right side.

Defensive Line

We’re hearing freshman defensive tackle Keondre Coburn has been much more beloved by teammates than he was by strength coach Yancy McKnight. Why? Coburn reported to Texas in June weighing more than 350 pounds, we’re told. He’s already gotten his weight down by more than 20 pounds (he’s listed at 6-foot-3, 330 pounds). And probably still has 15 more to go.

Linebacker

Perhaps the best news of the summer: weak side linebacker Gary Johnson is recovered from his hip injury (adductor longus) and is ready to run and hit — the two things he does best. … Early enrollee freshman Ayodele Adeoye (6-foot-1, 250 pounds) had a good summer in the weight room and continues to be impressive at inside linebacker. Look for him to make an impact right away in the two-deep when the season starts, I’m told.

Safety

Maybe the deepest position on the team with Brandon Jones, P.J. Locke, John Bonney, Caden Sterns, B.J. Foster, DeMarvion Overshown and Chris Brown. Coaches will have to decide in camp who best fits where.

Cornerback

Everyone is expecting an All-Big 12 year from Kris Boyd, but there’s a sense the light bulb has gone on and stayed on for senior Davante Davis, who’s even more physically impressive (6-foot-2, 205) than Kris Boyd (6-foot-0, 195 pounds). … And it’s not going to take long for freshmen corners Anthony Cook (6-foot-0, 190 pounds) and Jalen Green (6-foot-0, 185 pounds) to get on the field based on the fearless play and work ethic they’re already showing, I’m told.

Kicker

Don’t be surprised if freshman kicker Cameron Dicker gets a look at handling the long field goal attempts while senior Joshua Rowland perhaps handles extra points, I’m told heading into camp.

Punter

Freshman Ryan Bujcevski, cousin of Ray Guy Award winner Michael Dickson, has been inconsistent. But when he’s good, he’s really good, I’m told.

Long Snapper

It’s not easy to get in “preferred” walk-ons at Texas, because the university hasn’t relaxed the academic standards for walk-ons the way Texas/NCAA does for scholarship athletes. But the coaching staff is excited about the arrival of long snapper Justin Mader (6-foot-1, 225 pounds) of Magnolia, who could be the heir apparent to senior snapper Jak Holbrook (5-foot-11, 205 pounds). — Chip Brown

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I checked in with a few team sources at the end of offseason conditioning to see how the Longhorns summer enrollees performed throughout the summer months. As Chip Brown reported in The Eyes last week, one key note coming out of the summer was the apparent position change of 2018 tight end signee Malcolm Epps, who is expected to get a look at receiver.

But how did the enrollees perform during their first summer conditioning program under the direction of strength and conditioning coach Yancy McKnight? Let’s just say they made some progress, which was absolutely necessary.

A handful of the summer enrollees were very far behind with their weight training at the start of summer, to the point that McKnight and the strength staff questioned if some of the players ever lifted weights in high school, according to a team source. In fact, the source told Horns247 there were instances early on where McKnight was so fed up that he kicked out some of the players from workouts, and told them to go back to their dorm room due to their inability to keep up with the team.

The positive news is the summer enrollees were able to surpass the initial shock of a college football weight-training program and made strides as the summer wore on.

McKnight, who Tom Herman once referred to as his coaching “soul mate,” recently earned a lot of praise from both the Longhorns and the public after a video surfaced showing sophomore linebacker Marqez Bimage squatting 700 pounds— a 250-pound gain from his max squat of 450 pounds just one year ago. — Taylor Estes

Texas offensive lineman Patrick Vahe will finish his career on the Forty Acres having played for a different offensive line coach in each of his four seasons.

Jerrod Heard is entering his third year as a wide receiver and in that time he’s seen four different coaches have the title next to their name of being his position coach.

Those are two examples that point to how much coaching instability there has been on the Forty Acres during the current decade. During his press conference at the Texas High School Coach Association convention in San Antonio last week, Horns247 asked Herman about the importance of bringing all nine members of his original Texas staff back for a second season.

“I don’t think it can be understated,” Herman said.

Whether it’s Herman, Tim Beck or Herb Hand who winds up calling plays on offense, which has been one of the offseason's hot-button topics regarding the Texas coaching staff, Herman’s pro-spread system is the first time the Longhorns will be using the same offensive system in consecutive seasons since 2011 and 2012, which were the only two seasons serving as the program’s play-caller for Bryan Harsin. From the downhill offense Mack Brown’s staff voted to go to for the 2010 season, to the Harsin offense, to one year of Major Applewhite as the play-caller, to 15 largely forgettable games of the Shawn Watson era, to 11 games with Jay Norvell calling plays to Sterlin Gilbert bringing the veer-and-shoot offense to town, to Herman’s arrival, this is only the second offseason during the current decade when the Longhorns haven’t tried to reinvent themselves offensively.

That’s made it virtually impossible to recruit to any sort of offensive system, something Herman has been able to do with 2018 and 2019 classes. The Longhorns need to be able to know what kind of talent to bring onboard to fit the specific roles within Herman’s system if things are ever going to get headed in the right direction on that side of the ball.

The need for staff continuty was a big reason why Herman chose to bring back Beck and other assistant coaches who took their lumps in the court of public opinion for the performance (or lack thereof) of the offense and their respective units. In making the decision to not make any staff changes, Herman also exhibited belief in himself that he could help the men he hired to turn Texas around improve the job performance by being better in his role of coaching the assistants.

Herman has said many times that one thing he misses about no longer being a position coach is what it was like in the meeting room and the relationships that developed between him and his players between his coaching stops at Texas Lutheran, Sam Houston State, Texas State, Rice, Iowa State and Ohio State. Wanting to maintain that level of comraderie and to continue to foster the kinds of relationships he established in meeting rooms along a road that started in Seguin, Texas and ended in Columbus, Ohio before he took the head coaching job at the University of Houston, Herman has pointed to the assistant coaches on his staff being his de facto position group.

The good news for the Longhorns is Herman feels the unit he's responsible for coaching up got better in the offseason.

“If we’re not performing up to standards, it’s not my job just to immediately dismiss somebody,” Herman said. “It’s my job to coach them and I think we’ve done a really good job — our coaches have taken to heart our two mantras for this offseason, which was develop and finish. We’ve got a lot of coaches who have developed themselves and, obviously, bringing in one of the best O-line coaches in the country doesn’t hurt.”

This is the first offseason since 2012 when no coaching changes were made in terms of staff members being let go, which was the last time Texas won at least nine games (9-4 in Brown’s penultimate season on the job). While bringing back all of the members of his initial staff and hiring Hand don't on their own guarantee the Longhorns will enjoy a great deal of success in 2018, Hand becoming the 41st different assistant coach the program has had since the start of the 2010 season and the 53-48 record the Longhorns have posted during that window suggest Herman might be better off going to battle with the same crew as opposed to being the latest Texas head coach to reshuffle the deck. — Jeff Howe

One of the recruiting rules changes the NCAA has made in recent years that's received two enthusiastic thumbs up from Tom Herman is the addition of the Early Signing Period in December. While Herman said during his THSCA press conference that he loves the Early Signing Period due to the advantages it gives signees to get better acquainted with their college of choice earlier in the recruiting calendar, the Texas head coach continues to be outspoken when it comes to expressing his desire to see reform when it comes to spring official visits.

During a Touchdown Club of Houston luncheon in May, Herman said the strain on current players who have to host recruits (in some cases requiring a trip back to campus during their downtime) was one of the things he didn’t like about official visits being conducted in the spring and early summer. Texas also ran into the issue this spring and summer of being bound by the visit count of 56 for the academic year, meaning the Longhorns had fewer visit invitations they could extend than some of their Big 12 and regional foes they regularly tangle with in recruiting.

While those are things the schools themselves will likely have to adjust to with no NCAA reform on the radar, one piece of legislation Herman would like to see come down the pike would be anything that allows head coaches to be out on the road beyond just the winter recruiting window. As he told Horns247, Herman said he’d like to get to know recruits before they make an official visit to the Forty Acres, something he’d be in violation of NCAA rules for doing when he does get to go out on the road.

“We’re allowed out in December and January and we can only talk to that year’s class,” Herman said. “Now we have all of these spring official visits. So, by letter of the law, as a head coach you can’t even talk to a kid off of your campus by the time he comes on an official visit. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.”

Among the head coaches from within the state of Texas who were also voiced their support of being able to spend more time on the road when asked in San Antonio by Horns247 were Seth Littrell of North Texas and Jimbo Fisher of Texas A&M. As was the case with those coaches, Herman feels there’s a disservice being done when it comes to establishing the coach-player relationship with the rules prohibiting what should be a critical step in the recruiting process from taking place.

“We’ve got to find some kind of balance there with head coach contact,” Herman said. “Our assistants can’t even talk to them off campus, let alone the head coach even see them. If we’re going to continue with the spring official visits, we need to find some better way of building these relationships, too.” — Jeff Howe

When Tom Herman discusses the advantages the NCAA’s newly-implemented redshirt rule, which allows players to participate in up to four games without using a season of eligibility, there are two different situations involving current Texas players he often brings up.

One is that the Longhorns could have potentially played tight end Andrew Beck in the Academy Sports + Outdoors Texas Bowl had the four-game window been available for the Longhorns to use. The second is that coaches across the country can now make sure what happened to Denzel Okafor and Lil'Jordan Humphrey in 2016 doesn’t happen to other players going forward.

“There’s a lot of learning curve to this, but I think it’s the right thing to allow these kids that experience,” Herman said. “I mean, could you imagine if Denzel Okafor was a redshirt sophomore instead of a true junior? Or (Lil’Jordan) Humphrey, a guy that played very sparingly as a true freshman? Some of these guys, their development into their senior year would’ve been off the charts.”

To Herman’s point, according to Pro Football Focus, Humphrey logged 26 total snaps on offense as a true freshman under Charlie Strong when he bounced back and forth between wide receiver to running back and saw action as a special teams contributor. Okafor only saw action for 15 snaps as Strong’s offensive staff burned the Lewisville product’s redshirt to use him as a jumbo tight end in short-yardage situations.

The challenge in navigating the four-game window, Herman said, will come for teams that have a conference championship game, a bowl game and possibly a national championship game tacked onto their schedule following a 12-game regular season. That’s a bridge most coaches will likely cross when they get there, but the scenario took Herman down a road where he pointed out how tricky it can be on determining when it might be best for a true freshman to get their first game action.

“Then it’s like, when do you play them? Game 10? Game 11? Game 12?” Herman said. “When is the right time?”

One item that hasn’t been touched on that could make calls even tougher for coaches as the season progresses is the fact that while there’s a potential for programs to play more players, the travel squad size for conference road games hasn’t changed (the Big 12, for example, allows teams to only dress 70 players).

Shouldn’t that change at some point?

“Probably,” Herman said. “That’s something I hadn’t thought about, to be honest with you. It does make sense — if the possibility of more guys playing exists then you should be able to travel (with more players).” — Jeff Howe

Tom Herman is beyond thankful to have an athletic director like Chris Del Conte share his vision that the Texas football facilities needed a facelift yesterday. As Chip Brown reported in last week’s edition of The Eyes of Texas, Del Conte has already raised more than $100 million and is set to go before the University of Texas System Board of Regents this month to get approval to begin work on the long-await project in the south end of Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, which is tentatively scheduled for next summer.

The immediate impact Del Conte has made, Herman said, will give Texas football facilities in the not-too-distant future that will rival structures of any college football program across the country.

“He came in and said that football has got to be more important around here in terms of facility upgrades,” Herman said.

Though Herman mentioned Del Conte’s arrival has been a godsend for the football program, the head coach acknowledged that the south end zone project is far from the final touch to making the football facilities on the Forty Acres among the nation's elite as they were during the halcyon days of the Mack Brown era.

“We’ve got a (practice) bubble that’s 20-something years old — it’s great to have, but we’ve got some issues practice facility-wise,” Herman said.

The practice facility conversation directly impacts something Herman and Del Conte both want, which is a natural grass playing surface at DKR. As Herman put it, one can’t happen without the other.

“I think until we have a turf area near our facility — our locker room, training room and weight room — for the offseason,” Herman said. “We do all of our offseason training in the stadium. You’re so limited on time — you only get eight hours a week in the offseason — so to walk or bus to Denius every day … Monday through Friday we’re doing something on a field.

“I think both of us would prefer natural grass,” he added. “But we’ve got to figure out an offseason training mechanism to make sure we’ve got convenience when it comes to training in the offseason, too.” — Jeff Howe

Typically, the college football arms race refers to the need for programs to have the best facilities to not only equip their players with the best locker rooms, weight rooms and other amenities — they're also there to impress recruits during campus visits. The arms race is now extending to gear and two schools Texas routinely finds itself battling against to land the state’s best prospects — Oklahoma and Texas A&M — are doing what they can to make sure they’ve got an edge.

During his press conference at the THSCA convention, Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher said he’s as involved as he can be with Adidas to make sure the Aggies have the latest and greatest the apparel company has to offer when it comes to uniforms from head to toe (cleats, gloves, etc.) and what Texas A&M players can wear on campus to show off to recruits. That’s not a problem for Texas A&M, which owns the third-largest college apparel agreement with Adidas (an annual value of $4.06 million according to Forbes) behind Louisville and Miami, making them one of the three-stripe brand’s top clients.

“That’s the world we’re in,” Fisher told Horns247. “It’s not the reason they don’t go, but it can be one of the reasons why they do go.”

Lincoln Riley and Oklahoma made the offseason switch to the Jordan Brand, one of only four schools in the country (Florida, Michigan and North Carolina are the others) to have iconic Jumpman logo on game uniforms and apparel. Riley told Horns247 the move to the Jordan Brand has been exciting and is something he felt would set the Sooners apart from other programs in recruiting, even if not all Oklahoma supporters are onboard with the change.

“You’re never going to make 100 percent of the people happy,” Riley said. “I’m sure there’s some people are wondering why we have a basketball guy on a football uniform, but the most important thing is our players. If they like it, if they enjoy it, that’s the trump card.”

While Texas A&M is one of numerous Adidas schools and Oklahoma doesn’t have exclusivity to the Jordan Brand, Texas has the benefit of being tied to Kevin Durant, who has his own branded line of apparel with Nike. Ranking No. 7 on ESPN’s latest World Fame 100 (behind only Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James, Lionel Messi, Neymar, Roger Federer and Tiger Woods), Durant has an appeal that resonates with recruits that the Longhorns appear ready to use to their advantage with both current and prospective student-athletes for the first time since the Longhorns entered their new agreement with Nike that ranks as third-most valuable apparel deal for any program in the country according to Forbes (value of $9.76 million annually) in 2017.

As far as the football program is concerned, Tom Herman is prepared to go all in as much as he can on using the Durant-branded gear as something that can set the Longhorns apart from other schools. While the players have had the KD logo visible on their apparel, so too have the Texas coaches — Herb Hand took the stage for a lecture on offensive line play at the THSCA convention with the KD logo extremely visible on the sleeve of his polo shirt.

That’s only a small sample of what Herman has in mind to maximize the logo and the brand name of one of the world’s most recognizable athletes that can be customized exclusively to fit to the needs of various Texas athletic programs.

“I’m all for making the KD brand as visible as possible,” Herman told Horns247 during his THSCA press conference. “He’s a two-time world champion, he’s a two-time, back-to-back Finals MVP, he’s one of the top five players in the NBA, he loves the University of Texas and kids love wearing his stuff. So we’re going to continue to brand a lot out apparel with his logo and his design team.”

Before anyone gets ahead of themselves on it being a matter of time before the KD logo winds up on a burnt orange or icy jersey when the Longhorns take the field, Herman suggested it would be wise to tap the brakes on any such assumption.

“To say that it’ll get as far as uniforms? I don’t know,” Herman said. “Ask me again in a couple of years.” — Jeff Howe