Head Coach Tom Herman



Opening remarks: Nothing major to report. Our guys are chomping at the bit to play on Saturday. It was a hot one out there today, but that's good. Our guys embrace the heat; it's who we are. We play football in Texas and not expect the heat to be an issue. Physical preparation is done and we'll continue to prepare mostly mentally tonight, all day tomorrow and tomorrow night.



On the players' schedule from Friday morning until game time: Well, it's before Friday at 3pm. Our starters and key backups will come in in the morning and get massages and treatment and then they'll go to class. Those will be scheduled around their classes, obviously. Then we'll come in in the afternoon and we'll meet, special teams will meet and then offense, defense will meet. We'll go outside and have, what we call, "Family Fridays" where we'll relax a little bit, play some games. The O-line plays dodgeball, the DBs play a game of whiffle ball against each other, the QBs play a little football against the running backs. We'll horse around a little bit, compete, get the juices flowing and then we'll have a walk-through, then we will have a substitution review for special teams and we'll go back in, shower up, and head over to the hotel, eat dinner, have a reflection for the guys who want to pray a little bit. Then we'll chill out. Watch games, watch movies, we'll have a movie available, play dominoes, play cards and all that stuff. Then Saturday morning will be here before we know it.



On if the team routine changes due to an earlier kick-off time: Just less walkthrough time on Saturday, but nothing will change from Friday on. The only thing that will change, obviously, is the 11am kickoff. You're getting up in the morning, we'll walk around the hotel, get the sleepies out of us. Go in, have a quick special teams review, eat breakfast, have a quick offense/defense walk through for about 20 minutes. Then we'll go put our jacket and tie on and head to the stadium.



On Shane Buechele 's week of practice: Really good. He's dialed in mentally, physically, again the physical stuff is not an issue. He's the most accurate guy I've coached. So throwing the football is not an issue. He's been running it when he needs to run it. He's been doing a really good job of protecting himself when we're throwing the football and getting us out of bad runs into good runs. Going through all of his game plan checks, so it's been good.



On Sam Ehlinger potentially coming in for Shane Buechele : Hard to say. I think the answer is yes. I think, after evaluating it, and talking about, well, can we redshirt him? At some point, the odds say you are going to need your backup quarterback, so even if it is mop up duty, it's still going to be in front of a huge crowd. We got to get to mop up duty. Winning is really, really hard. It'll be a success if we win by 1 or if we win by 15. But, should that scenario occur, I would imagine that, yeah, Sam (Ehlinger) would jog in there to get some reps.



On the tempo and speed of the offense: We'll be no huddle, but fairly moderate tempo I guess would be the best way to put it. I believe that offense and defense are not mutually exclusive. They have to work in tandem in terms of controlling the football. We have the ability to turn the gas on, so to speak, and go fast when we feel the need to go fast. The best way that I can describe it is that you should see our offensive tempo spike when we think it needs to spike but we're not just going to run plays to run plays and try to get 80, 90 plays a game.



On the way Breckyn Hager plays: Reckless, which is great for a defensive player. Throws his body around, has got one speed and that's full. So he's going to help us. I don't know if it'll be on first and second down or it'll be probably more specialized on third down or two minute or something like that. Right now he definitely does give us a burst of energy when he's in there just because of how hard he goes.



On if the team has recovered the past two weeks: I think so, yeah. Last week was a big week for that. On Thursday, we went with no pads. Friday was no pads. Last week was a mock game week, so whatever we did today we did last Thursday. We'll do tomorrow the having fun and playing the games, we did that last Friday. Saturday was just the mock game early in the morning. Sunday was off and we came back just half pads Monday and Tuesday and then no pads yesterday and today. Although it was hot and couldn't get in our indoor as we're repairing the air conditioning. But it's good to get out in the heat and be on the grass. I think our guys have recovered and recovery is still ongoing. We've got whatever it is, 41 hours or so, to make sure our bodies are in peak physical condition.



On if Maryland reminds him of any team he's faced in past two years: Not off the top of my head. They're similar to us. They're a spread team that runs the football. They're going to play 80 to 85 percent of the game with three wide outs, one tight end and one back. And they're going to use the tight end similar to us. So I think that's probably the team offensively they remind me the most of is us.



On the mindset that he wants the team to have on Saturday: Don't worry about mistakes. Don't try to be perfect. That's the thing I've been really preaching to them the last 24 hours, and I will the whole rest of the way preparing, is these guys want to do so good and they want to impress everybody and show everybody the new and improved Texas Football. But you've got to be relaxed to do that. You've got to be free to do that. You can't be tensed up and worrying about making mistakes. You've got to play 100 miles an hour and trust that your training is going to put you in the right position to make that play as long as you're going 100 miles an hour. I think just a team that takes the field and plays as hard as humanly possible every single play because they know the other 10 guys A) are doing it for them, and B) are counting on them to do it.