Offensive Coordinator Sterlin Gilbert

On how the team is doing now: It has been fast and furious since the day that we got here. That is kind of how we like it, but just as far as spring ball right now, it has been good. It has been a good process for us. Our guys are doing a great job of taking what we have given them from the install and carrying it to the field and execute it in a hurry.

On the installation process: There is no truth. It is kind of like grandma's pie, she just puts it together and it tastes good. That's kind of how it happened. There is not really a set up recipe for it. You just start installing and try to put the pieces together with personnel and seeing where guys fit.

On the quarterback situation: One of those three guys can and will. No one is winning the race. It is so early on, today was just day seven. When you are this early in install phase, you are getting a lot of reps with a lot of guys. I am still trying to figure them out and they are still trying to figure me out as well with every piece of the puzzle personnel wise from up front to receiver to the backs. You are just trying to evaluate and see in a hurry how the guys do what they do best and what they don't do so well. Then, you have to start going from there on how you call things and place things.

On what each quarterback brings to the team: Right now, the progression has been good from the first time that we went out on the field to here at day seven. That's my thing. I am just looking for steady progression from those guys that they are getting better. Every time we get to the practice field, every time they take a rep, if onto the next day in meetings, that's our thing right now is to not let mistakes or things we didn't know or didn't do right show up again over and over and over. You are really working to eliminate those things. But most important trying to notice those things early on in the install phase.

On grading players off the field: They have been great about that. They have put a lot of energy and effort into what we are doing. Those guys are putting in extra time, and all of our guys have done a great job of getting all the info, seeing the film of their iPad, and trying to process it outside of when they are with us.

On processing the information to your satisfaction: They are and they have been. The fortunate thing is I have a couple things to compare it to it is like anything when you have done something before you have something to compare it to. They are right on track with those other places that we have been with the install. They have picked it up, and that's on them as to all the time and energy that have put into it, their intelligence, and the willingness to be good.

On what is takes for a quarterback to be good in your system: They have to be intelligent. Obviously, they have to able to throw around and be accurate with the ball, and just understand what we do. If you are that intelligent and that high of a football IQ, and you equate those things then you have a guy that has a chance to be successful with what we do.

On the reason a quarterback would want this job: He has to understand how and exactly what we want to get accomplished. He is like any quarterback in the nation. He has to take care of the football. He understands where to deliver the football and how to deliver it, and there is no difference with our guy.

On knowing the number one quarterback by the end of the summer: I don't know. Coach [ Charlie Strong ] has been around those guys a little bit more than I have, so it is still early. I have only been on campus a few months now, and we didn't get to see these guys throw or do anything activity wise or much less a football in their hand until seven practices ago. For me, it is a little bit of newness. I am not in a hurry to do that. What we want is for these guys to be right, make sure we have the right guy, and make sure the other guys understand exactly what we want to do and how we want to get it executed and they go do it at a high level.

On the balance of expectations in practice: Coach [Strong] is great. There has been no difference from everywhere I have been, the amount of reps that we are getting in practice right now. Coach has been great with that. It has been a great mix and a great mesh.

On the excitement of putting your own vision together for this team: There is no doubt, it is just like anything, you get to go back and write your own letter and write your own editorial deal, and it is you. When you get a chance to do that you are going to take some pride in it and pull from those guys, but at the end of the day you have to make it you, and make your twists. So that aspect has been fun. Again with our offensive staff, there are a lot of great minds in there, guys that have had past success moving the football around and win a lot of games. You get that mess in there and there are no egos in the room. At the end of the day, our kids are going to be really good at football games.

On playing freshman: You play the best guy. I have been around where we have played some young guys and seen it been successful. You just play the best guy and the people around him have to raise their play and do their job as well.

On watching film from this team last year: No, clean slate for them all. I have not done that anywhere that I have been. I told those guys that were here, do not tell me anything negative or bad about these guys because I want them to have a clean slate. That's what I told them when I got here, that you have a clean slate. You have an opportunity if you are a non-starter, if you have not done something right, or if you have done it all right. It is still a clean slate. I don't know you until I get to know you. That has been a fun part of this process. We have been down to the weight room a lot obviously before spring ball started because it was all about relationships. At the start of a relationship, you have to have connections. We wanted to connect with these kids, be very familiar with these guys before we got on the field for spring football. We did that and we are still in the process of that. As you know the process of relationships are never ending. It does not stop. We are constantly trying to get to know these guys and let the guys know us.

On how similar the new Texas offense is to those he's coached in the past: They're similar. I would say they're real similar with what we did. We've got a base of what we do and all three of those guys had an opportunity to play in that base as well.

On the attitude he is seeing from his offensive line: Those guys have been great. Coach [Matt] Mattox, with what he does and what we do up front, we've got a physicality to us and those guys have done a really good job with that. They've got to continue to grow, continue to get better. They've done a great job in the weight room but those guys set the tone tempo-wise and physicality-wise. But they've done a great job.

On QB Tyrone Swoopes : Swoopes is big. He's got experience. He's got a lot of arm. He's a guy who cares and he's been around here. He carries some experience with him. He carries great leadership qualities about himself, and our guys respect him. He's made plays before. Those are the things I like about him when I see him everyday.

On when he has seen a quarterback 'click' with an offense: All three of those guys previously have been different. I can't say, "it was this many practices in." There just kind of becomes a time when that happens. At some point we'll get there and we're not at that point sitting here today.

On who in the offense has impressed him: Everyday is just evaluation and its about getting those guys better. You just have to think, the first day we went out there they didn't really know what was going on, so to say. It was the first time they'd done tempo and so nothing is just extremely clean. We're starting to get to the phase now where some things clean up and you get a little truer evaluation and you get to see guys execute what we're ask them to do, whether its in the run game or pass game. Some of those things are starting to clean up obviously as spring ball goes on. We got seven [practices] in today with what we got left.

On why this new offense has been so successful: I can't exactly put my thumb on that thing. I know there's been some quality coaches that have been around. There's also been quality athletes that have done it and there's been quality quarterbacks that have run it. I think you have those three and you throw them together then you've had a chance for this thing to be successful.

On how many of the plays being run in practice are 'good plays': Yeah, we don't come out there with 'x' amount of plays. I know at the end of the day when we go watch film and it pops up that this is how many plays we had I just know that that's about right. You're just trying to install tempo. Once you install tempo and it's a mindset, the schematic part of it starts to fall in that process as well.

On if the quality of plays goes down when trying to fit in a single practice: At times it is, because they're doing something they've never done before. They can't hardly breathe so they can't hardly think early on. So what you're trying to do is; "A", they've got to get in shape, which they're in the process of getting in shape. Then they've got to be able to think and execute and do all that in a quick period of time. It's just so new from what they've done. There's some steps to it to get where we want to go.

On if he is trying to keep the offenses time between plays around 8-10 seconds: I've never really counted it and no one's ever really come up to me and said, "Hey you're only snapping at this amount." There's a feel to it, and I can tell you when it feels fast and I can tell you when it feels slow. We've had a little bit of both this spring so the ultimate goal is where it always feels fast and it feels right and that they feel what I feel. So at times they've felt the tempo for a few plays of what we want to do and what we want to accomplish, but that's just got to be consistent.

On if it takes a few years for players to get comfortable with this style of offense: It can. If you go back a year or two you have a really good chance for that thing to kind of settle in. But you go back to the other places we've been, we've been successful year one and year two. There's no magic here with it but just those guys have to understand it in a hurry and get in shape in a hurry.

On what stands out about QB Shane Buechele : He's headsy. He's got a live arm about him. He carries himself well. He's got a high football IQ, competitive, and just a guy that he's urgent about what he does and how he does it. But he's got a lot of room for growth or improvement.

On if he's seeing the quarterbacks compete: Yeah, without a doubt they do, because they're rotating and they're getting reps. That's what I've told them, and what they know. They obviously know that everything they do is evaluated, every throw they make, every read they make. Everything that happens with them is an evaluation. Yeah, those guys are competing. They're competing everyday. And within that, those guys are helping each other understand and know what we're trying to accomplish and what we do. Absolutely they're competitive.

On who the best player is on the offense besides the quarterback: I don't know yet. I think we're still early with that. We're still trying to fit the pieces of where guys are going to fit and where guys are going to go.

On how he can tell a player will transfer a great performance in practice onto the playing field: That's a good question and sometimes you don't know what guys are going to do until those lights come on. It just goes back to, some of that we won't know until we get out there against Notre Dame. Some guys do a great job and practice and they don't do so well in a game or they're not great practice guys and they show up on Saturdays and they play lights out. I've seen both ends of the spectrum on that. But again, it's just about knowing a guy, getting an understanding of what he does, once we figure out what his strengths are, then just call the plays to his strength and setting that guy up to be successful every rep and with what he's doing.

On how much he uses a tight end in his offense: I don't have a percentage on it. When we need him. We like him out there because he brings a physicality to our game especially in the run game. You have a big guy out there with the ball in his hands there's a physicality aspect to that as well when he's running in the open field.

On what QB Jerrod Heard brings to the team: Speed. He's played a little bit so he's got some experience. He's a winner. He won a lot of football games in high school with the championships, so he understands and knows how to win. He spins the ball well. He's a guy, just like I've talked about, all three of those guys have done a great job of trying to understand and know exactly what we're doing on offense. Those guys have dived into their iPads, watched practice, asked questions, and all that. He's no different.

On why players like this offense: A lot of it is familiar to them, from what they did in high school. We just kind of talk about a spread. It's always a lot more fun when there's four receivers on the field as opposed to two or three. So from that standpoint, you're able to get a lot of speed guys on the field. But just the tempo of it, the pace of it. I mean, you go out there to a two-hour practice and you don't know that you went through a two-hour practice. The way we coach. We're coaching on the fly. We're coaching guys and getting them rolling, getting them going. Those guys being able to catch footballs and for running backs, we're going to hand those guys the ball as well. So from all ends of it, and those guys up front, there's times where they're not on the field for very long if we can do this thing right. So you add all that up and it's a fun system to play in.

On what's impressed him about freshman WR Collin Johnson : He's a big, tall guy. He's got really good ball skills, and his work ethic is second to none. He's a guy that's got a high football IQ as well and wants to be really good. Those things jump out at me instantly.

On what's impressed him about freshman OL Zach Shackelford : Everything I just said about Collin [Johnson], you could say about Shack. Weight room guy. Both of those guys are mature. You forget that three weeks from now, they should probably be going to prom and they're not. So they're really mature for their age and being able to come in for a semester. Especially doing what they're doing, with both of those guys competing for jobs.

On what Collin Johnson and Zach Shackelford can bring to practices two weeks before the spring game: Just a clear and better understanding of the offense, and just trying the mechanics of our tempo. Those two things are it. And then just leadership and hearing guys communicate and talk, the little stuff as far as drill, technique, and fundamental stuff. Those will be it.

On how much of the offense will depend on not having periods of practice to stop and fix things: Once they get done with us, they'll go home for a short period before they come back in the summer and at that point, that's where the leadership stuff and how we end has to carry over and translate into the summer. So that's where your leadership, that's where your guys with experience, those guys really have to step up and take ownership and lead the way, because we're not around much and can't be. So those guys have to do a great job. And that's why they have to know and understand before they leave we get out of spring ball that they know exactly what we're trying to get done fundamental-wise and technique-wise when they're here in the summer. And that it's getting done correctly.

On how critical the spacing is for the outside receivers: Well, they set the formation with their splits, so those guys are really in it with their width.

On getting accustomed to Austin: I like it. I'm from San Angelo, Texas. I've been familiar with Austin and I've been here before. Just like most towns in Texas I've lived in or been around, there's great food, there's great people, there's great churches. Obviously with the University of Texas here, there's a lot of things to do for all ages. Yeah, I've enjoyed it. And it's close to home.

On if he's prepared for the "pressure cooker" that is fall football: It is what it is. When you get in this profession, and it's always been this way, no one is going to put more pressure on me than I'm going to put on myself anyway. But at any level I've been at, you have to produce and you have to win. And you know that when you get into this profession. Whether you're here, or you're in East Texas, or you're in West Texas, or you're in the Panhandle, or South Texas - if you're not winning, then they're going to find somebody else to do it.

On the offensive line employing tight splits and if that results in a more powerful running game: Yeah, they're not as wide as those guys are. And yeah, I would say that it's more power.

On going on the road and the message he wants to spread to recruits about the offense: It goes back to the question about the offense being fun, and this offense is familiar to a lot of kids. I probably couldn't put a number on it, but you would like to say safely in the state of Texas that 80-plus percent probably are spread offenses. So when you go see a kid, or if you're evaluating him on film or they show up here and you're talking to him about offense, it's something that's very familiar to what they're doing and what they've had success in. So it's familiar with them. Again, just the way our attitude is around here with the family atmosphere, that's something we sell as well. Just being able to coach kids, and love them, and care about them and getting them a degree at the University of Texas.

On what he likes about the running backs: They're big. That's the first thing that probably jumps out at you. But they're determined. Those guys are doing a great job as well as far as picking up what we want to do offensively and the way we want to do it. But they obviously bring the physical aspect to it as well, which is their size. Both of those guys [ D'Onta Foreman and Chris Warren] have done a really great job. It's unfortunate that Kirk [Johnson] is banged up right now. It'd be nice to see him out there running around, because I know he's a guy with speed. It kind of brings a different dimension than those other two. But those two big guys have done a really good job.

On the inside receivers: As far as the competition of the job? Yeah, it's still wide open. I'm saying it for all of those receiver spots. And those guys - same thing. It's competitive every day. They know they're under evaluation and they know they have rep counts with what they're doing and what they're trying to execute.