With a home game this weekend, the Austin Longhorn Club held their lunch meeting today. Here are my notes.
First up to speak was Coach David McWilliams, who talked about his remembrances of the 1963 national championship football team. These comments, as always, should be considered paraphrasing.
They told me I only had three minutes, but I don’t know any coach that can finish a speech in three minutes.
1961 was the most talented team I was on. Instead of three yards and a cloud of dust, it was eight yards and a cloud of dust.
Those of us who were sophomores got to play a lot when the seniors went out with a big lead early in the game. By the time we were seniors, we were very experienced.
Coach Royal didn’t want us ready on Tuesday or Wednesday. He wanted us ready on Saturday. And his practices built towards that.
What a great job Mack Brown and our assistant coaches has done pulling this team together.
I had another story I was going to tell, but can’t because the Longhorn Network is filming this.
I’d sure love to know what that story is.
The Oklahoma State game will be a recognition of Veteran’s Day. There is going to be a fly over of B-25s. It’ll take a bit longer for them to fly over than the usual fighters they send our way.
The main speaker for the day was running backs coach Larry Porter.
It has been a wild journey this year. It’s not been easy, but it’s been fun. The fun is due to the team coming together.
But the journey is not complete. There’s more to be accomplished.
I’d like to talk about our defense first. In the last six games, they’ve forced 16 turnovers. This has created great field position and given us momentum. It’s created energy and confidence.
Coach Porter then showed and discussed some clips of defensive big plays.
The other thing going on during this winning streak is the offensive line stepping up and providing great pass protection.
Then Coach showed some more clips.
Another thing that’s been big is finishing in the second half. We’ve faced a lot of adversity as a team.
We’ve continued to believe in each other and fight for each other.
More clips.
Also want to talk about the physical run game in short yardage situations. It’s not always been pretty, but allows us to impose our will on the opponent.
And more clips.
I don’t mean to suggest that the clips and commentary weren’t interesting. They certainly were. My discussion of them, however, probably wouldn’t be.
Coach then opened the floor to questions.
The media, at least, describes us as having three running backs. Will we have three this week? Who will be the third?
Overstreet will play some tailback, as will Daje.
Could you speak to the different characteristics of your running backs.
Mal is a power runner. A downhill guy. Joe has power, but also has some elusiveness.
Jalen, as he grows, has speed, good hands, and pretty good feet. Maybe not as much power, but has toughness.
That was it. They had some trouble getting the highlight film set up, so there wasn’t much Q&A.
I tried to get a question in about how Johnathan Gray was doing after the horrible achilles injury last weekend. They shut it down before I could ask, so I went up to talk to him afterwards.
Coach said that Gray is doing as well as can be expected, and that he spoke to Jonathan’s mom this morning (or he may have said yesterday, I don’t remember). He said that it’s tough, but they’re doing well.
I asked Coach to wish him a speedy and complete recovery and that we wanted him back on the field. Then I let the next guy in line talk to Coach.
The next and final Austin Longhorn Club is next Thursday, as the game is the following Thursday. The speaker is supposed to be Bo Davis, but you will have to catch it on the Longhorn Network. My daughter’s parent-child school lunch for Thanksgiving is that day, and not even the Longhorns could keep me away.