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LARRY COKER: Well, I'll tell you, this has been really an exciting time for us as far as our recruiting class is concerned. First of all, I want to welcome the newest signee to our coaching staff, Tony Jeffery. Tony is coming back from the University of Houston. He finally got it right, came back home where he's supposed to be. I've never been anyplace where they invited me back, so I think that says a lot about you, Tony.
It's a great addition to our staff and he's got some really good young wide receivers to coach, and he's excited to be here, and we're excited to have him back. He's got a son, too, that I'm going to be recruiting some day. How old is Justus? He's six, so we'll get an early start on Justus. But it's great to have Tony back.
This class overall, I'll tell you, is probably, without a doubt, you'll see more size and speed than we've had. I looked at the video again, the highlights of the recruits, and it's an exciting group. There's some game breakers there. We've got definitely some size advantages that we haven't had before, and it's just an exciting group. I want to just say this about I'm going to say it about the coaches. The coaches did a fantastic job. Most of you kind of know how hard it is, and it's extremely tough, living on the road. Sometimes they get speeding tickets like Coach Popovich, is he here? Sometimes they do. But point being is they do a terrific job, and I'll tell you, a lot of this recruiting stuff is about relationships, and I'll tell you, the relationships these coaches have with the high school coaches, these recruits, I go in there and it's easy for me. I go in and I say, well, Coach So and So has done a great job, he's been here, he's been thorough, he's been with my players, and man, he can come back here any time he wants to. That says a lot. That says a lot. That says a lot about our University, says a lot about our coaching. You get players, I'll tell you, it's tougher. It's getting tougher because our schedule is tougher and we're recruiting better players, so when you recruit better players there's more competition to be recruited. They did a fantastic job.
And also, our entire University, our academics, Coach (Charlie) Dudley in the weight room, Coach (Travis) Reust in the weight room, also Coach Dudley, and also Lynn (Hickey) was there every weekend with our players, connected well with the mothers and the kids, and just they say it takes a village, this was a village. They did a great job, and we appreciate all the help we had.
We feel like we addressed offense and defense, got some quality in both areas.
We want to recruit Texas, and we have 27 players from the state of Texas. We're pleased about that. We think very good players, and 13 enrolled now for spring. So again, that's kind of exciting for us.
I'm just going to touch briefly, and you've got the biographies of the kids. You can go through those. If you have questions you can ask later. But some of the kids we've signed, Jess Anders, running back from Aledo High School. Jess I think won two state championships, Back-to-back state championships. Carl Austin is a safety. Baylen Baker, defensive tackle. Baylen was actually a tight end and defensive end and he moved to defensive tackle, and that's kind of the guys you like; got athleticism, got speed and those things and do a great job as far as being able to move.
La'Kel Bass, La'Kel is here with us now. He's a linebacker, which we definitely needed. Shane Block, Shane from Yukon, Oklahoma. Shane was coached by a former coach I worked with, a former defensive coordinator at Ohio State when we were together there. Shane was Bill Young, Bill was a high school coach at Yukon High School in Oklahoma and we recruited Shane. We think really a good signee here. You'll notice the size. We have got some really, big kids, and that's a good thing for us, and also they can move.
Joseph Brooks, defensive tackle, is here now from San Angelo. JaColbie Butler, cornerback, coming from Pearland. Gabe Casillas, Gabe is a junior college player. Gabe is an offensive tackle, and again, gives us a little more age and seasoning, and he has just done a fantastic job while he's been around, a good recruiter for us, and I think he's an excellent prospect. Dannon Cavil, Dannon is a he's a personality, quite a personality, a guy that you really like to be around. Dannon was from Madison High School, was signed to the University of Oklahoma, played there, and now he's transferred back here. We think we have a good one in Dannon. He's got size, 6'4", 215. We've got really some small guys that are very quick and fast, Dannon is that big guy and he's going to be a good one.
Some wide receivers again, Derrick Dick from College Station; Darryl Godfrey is a safety; Matthew Guidry, wide receiver; Peyton Hall from here in the city. I saw Peyton play on a Thursday night, and he's a terrific player. He's an exciting wide receiver, very difficult to cover. We're excited to have him.
Manny Harris, an interesting story, from the Killeen, Texas, area and the same high school that RG3 played at, and he broke all of RG3's records as a junior, and just a fantastic prospect. His dad made terrific ribs at the house. I knew that was a good deal because I'll tell you what I've done. I recruited a guy named CJ Spiller, went to Clemson. His dad was a cook, and he said, Coach, you come here and I'm going to fix you the best ribs. My barbecue is the best. And I go to the house and we had Kentucky Fried Chicken. I knew then we were in trouble. He went to Clemson and had a great career at Clemson. But Manny is just a terrific prospect and very mature young man and is going to be outstanding for us as a quarterback.
If you look at these games, some of these games that you saw, the final games, something was very, very familiar, and that was all these teams had outstanding quarterbacks. You think about the guys in the finals of the football and the finals of the NFL and you don't say, well, it's the NFL, but not all NFL teams have great quarterbacks. I think that was the key you saw in this game.
DeQuarius Henry, a defensive end; Avery Jackson, a cornerback; JaCorie Jones, cornerback; Ben Kane is here now from junior college; T.J. King is a defensive end, and T.J. committed to us last night about 10:30. He had a lot of places he could have gone, and called me last night on the phone and says, 'Coach, I'm coming.' Another good one because his family he had a lot of family in Louisiana and T.J. wanted to come here, family wanted him to go to Louisiana, which we can understand that, and called and came, wanted to come here, and he's going to be a fantastic player.
Vontrell Vontrell is here now, and Vontrell looks the part, doesn't he? He is a big young man. What does Vontrell weigh? How much does he weigh, Vontrell?
ERIC ROARK: He is 340.
LARRY COKER: He's big enough. He's big enough. Terrific young man. He's already asked about community service, those type things, wants to get involved with the community as well as play football. He's going to be a good one. C.J. Levine, safety for us; Andy Martel, very heavily recruited young man out of Richmond Foster.
Blaze Moorhead, Blaze is here now. Blaze is a grayshirt. Blaze reminds me a little bit of the guy No. 11 for the Patriots, the guy that nobody can cover, the little quick in and out routes; what's that guy's name? Yeah, Edelman. He's that type of guy; small, very quick and active, very good receiver. King Newton, son of Nate Newton, King is an outstanding defensive player. Zach Pare, Zach from Georgetown, an offensive lineman. Isaiah Santos; Isaiah is here now. Alex Snow, offensive lineman.
Halen Steward, Halen is a good story because we got him out of Florida. Coach Pop recruited him, and he's about a 260 pound fullback, can run. And the thing that sold me on him, he did a backflip, standing still, did a backflip, 260 pounds, and even at my weight I have trouble with that. But he's an outstanding young man, good home, and he's going to be a really good player for us because we play with a fullback, and we haven't had that type guy since Okotcha left, and he's going to be a good addition for us.
This guy Josiah Tauaefa, you should see film of this guy. He's something. He is really something. He is a missile. He is a missile. His dad in fact, his dad can tear a phone book in half, and I was going to do that, but I forgot the phone book. I didn't bring it with me. But my hometown phone book, it's about like that. It's got about two pages. But a special family, a great family, and Josiah is just a terrific prospect. He's unbelievable.
Corbin White, Corbin is here now. His mom had the best fried chicken we had. It was good. It was good. Wonderful people. And Corbin, he's that big back we're looking for and he's an outstanding prospect. Kelby Wickline, Kelby came from Austin. His family lived in Stillwater and his dad, I think, was the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State, really a good young prospect for us. He's here now. He's an unbelievable worker in the weight room and very excited to watch him work.
Shaq Williams, a tight end. Shaq is we play with a tight end so I'm excited about him a little bit. Brett Winnegan, a running back from Pearland, and Clayton Woods, offensive center from Highland Park, great program, Highland Park, and Clayton is here with us now and is going to be a terrific prospect.
Again, you've got all the bios of the young men. We think a terrific group, and again, we're excited to have them.
As I said, we've got 13 enrolled now and we needed that because we lost a large class. We've got 13 enrolled now, and again, I can't say enough about the University, and as I said, it takes a village, and there's a big village involved in signing this class. It's an outstanding class. It's a class I think that's reached up a big 'nother level of what we've played with and what we've had, but we needed to.
We open up at Arizona. We've got away at Oklahoma State and we come back with Kansas State and Colorado State both at home. That's our first four games. We've got a real challenge ahead of us there, but it's a good challenge. Our kids want to do that and we're excited about the opportunity.
Just to mention that we start spring drills on March 18. Our spring game is in the dome, it's April 18 at 1:00. We'll have a lot of work to do before the spring game.
Q. I know you characterized it as a group. Do you like the speed and maybe the strength of these kids, pretty strong and fast?
LARRY COKER: I'll tell you, I looked at the tape again on these kids this morning, and the speed factor is unbelievable. We've got a lot of speed. We really recruit speed. We've got some size, but I think the big thing is speed and size. I think as you know in football, and they have skills but I think speed and size is the big thing. We've got a lot more speed than we've had. I think all our coaches will tell you the same thing.
Q. How significant was it for you to get that phone call last night from T.J. King because I know Louisiana Tech, the conference champion, was on him hard.
LARRY COKER: How do you know all that? You're doing your job, aren't you? Well, it's real significant because I was getting ready to fire Coach Roark if we didn't sign the guy (laughs). It was significant.
No, I'll tell you, I knew this young man, we didn't put a lot of pressure on him. He knew what we had. He wanted to be here. We did know that, and he had a lot of family that wanted him to go to that area, that wanted him to go to Louisiana Tech, go to Louisiana, and Coach Roark did a fantastic job with that young man, had a great relationship with mom, Anna. She came in and had a great time here, great visit here, and how significant was it? I think it's very significant. I think he's an outstanding prospect. I called last night and he works he's at school, he's in football, he works about 12 hours a day. The guy is doing everything. He's going to be really special once he just gets into football.
Q. Can you talk about the two quarterbacks and how you expect them to contribute?
LARRY COKER: Well, I think we have really two outstanding quarterbacks. As I mentioned again, you see those games that were played, the teams where the quarterbacks were kind of in the final hunt for the big trophy. Again, I think we have outstanding quarterbacks here. I really like the quarterbacks we have here again now.
We don't have enough. As you saw, our fourth quarterback threw a touchdown pass this year, and with some injuries here and there, so you've got to have some quarterbacks and hopefully keep them healthy. But I think it's going to be significant because I think they're very talented young men.
You look again at the guys that we're bringing in, I think they'll be they'll come in and compete. We kind of see how all these things work out. When I was at Oklahoma State we had a veteran quarterback, we played a couple games, and then we had a young quarterback named Mike Gundy that ended up being the starter. We don't care if they're freshmen or seniors or what. They'll come in and compete for a job. If they can't get this thing done, they'll be in the mix. But I like them both a lot.
Q. With this being your biggest class in terms of depth and the size of the actual players, should we expect a different style of play this season?
LARRY COKER: A different style of play? We'll do some things differently. We'll analyze everything, and again, what we're doing good, we'll keep on doing good. I think for the most part we're doing some really good things, but again, the style of play kind of depends on what we can do and evaluate these guys with the speed.
Again, I think the key, again, we've got to get the ball in the hands of playmakers and Coach Brown does a great job of that and we'll definitely continue to do that. I don't know that you'll notice a huge different style of play, but what we'll do, and I think this is our offensive coaches and our defensive staff, what are people doing? What are people doing? If you're going to just stay the same, you don't stay the same. If you don't get better, you get worse, so we're not going to stay the same. We're going to make some improvements in some areas we need to, and it'll be a little bit different, but I don't know how much everybody will notice it's different. We're not going to be in a wishbone I guess is the best way to say it. We probably should. I'll tell you, nobody can stop it anymore. Nobody can play it.
Q. I want to ask about the offensive guys that you have in this class. Last year was a struggle a lot of the time on offense. I just wanted to ask in terms of these guys that you signed, how timely would you say they'd have a chance to make an impact right away out of this group?
LARRY COKER: Yeah, I don't have a number. We did struggle some offensively, but again, we were playing with a third quarterback at times, and that's difficult. That's difficult. I think a No. 1 quarterback gets most of the work, No. 2 quarterback gets a little and the third quarterback gets very, very little. So again, I think the thing we've got to do is get the quarterback situation hopefully stay healthy there, but I think we'll be just fine. I look at what we have coming back on offense, and I like some of our wide receivers. I think we have an outstanding tight end in David Morgan coming back. You look at our running backs, Jarveon (Williams) was hurt last year. You look at him, he had explosive runs, and he is really a good football player.
I think we've got a good nucleus coming back on offense. I think the big key is going to be our offensive line. We've got some players there getting those guys because I think that's a tough place to play, and if we do a good job there, I think those guys mature, I think we'll be fine. That's the one thing that concerns me right now is doing a good job with those guys, and if we do a good job with those guys, then our whole offense will look a lot better.
Q. You were able to sign two of the top local prospects in the San Antonio area. Can you talk about your strategy of recruiting San Antonio?
LARRY COKER: Well, I'll tell you, when Miami got really good, University of Miami got really good, Howard Schnellenberger put up a Berlin Wall around South Florida and nobody else could get in, Alonzo Highsmith and Michael Irvin and those guys.
But I think the thing we've got to do we recruit San Antonio, and we're going to continue to do it, and we work from San Antonio out, and I think we have a good relationship with the coaches here, and they know that. But I think the thing they're excited about their players having an opportunity to stay here, and go to school and play college football on scholarship, get an education. I think we've got to continue to do that and we're going to do that, but I think, again, recruiting has changed from the standpoint it's more global now. These guys can go from here, and I think I saw where a recruit Texas had ended up going to Michigan. Am I right when I say that? Those things are there. Plus, too, kids have a choice. Sometimes just like you don't know the reason sometimes, but a kid might want to go to Houston, might want to go to Oklahoma State or wherever. And again, the thing that we don't want to do, we say, well, the reason they went here is because they don't have this or that. They're things we're working to get. But again, we don't want to hear about problems.
So the coach I coached with at Oklahoma State was talking about his corners. They were this and they were that, a little bit short, and Bear Bryant called him in and said, 'hey, poor workers complain about their tools. We don't want to complain about our tools.' I think he got the message on that one, too. We're going to recruit the very best we can. We've got great relationships with the coaches here, and I think we do that, we'll be just fine.
Q. I know obviously when you recruit you sell the school, you sell your program and the city, but when you mention that non conference schedule, I've got to think if I'm a young man and want to try to latch on somewhere, you guys lost so many players, can you talk about how maybe even that schedule is a good selling point? That's a pretty challenging non conference schedule.
LARRY COKER: Well, that's true. And I'm not sold on it yet, but I think they are. I'd better hurry and get sold on it, right? No, seriously, I think it is a big selling point. Kids in Texas, maybe everywhere, want to play the best and be the best. We're going to have to coach better and be better to compete against Arizona.
Even last year, we throw an interception, get beat by three. Arizona beat Oregon, at one time they were 10th in the country. Our kids will, as you said, Oklahoma State, they'll bow up and play. But again, I think it is a selling point, and I sell it. We're going to open up with Arizona I think on a Thursday night. There will be a lot of television sets watching that game, I'll tell you. Now we've got to represent. I think if we do that, we'll be just fine. No, it is a good selling point, it really is.
Q. I wanted to ask you about two of the higher profile guys in this group, a couple of the players that were listed as pretty strong recruits coming out of high school, Vontrell and JaBryce. Could you talk about those two and just kind of what you see in them and what are their prospects?
LARRY COKER: Well, again, if Vontrell walked through that door, you'd start him today. He's what they're supposed to look like. Great young man, just been very impressed with him, his work habits, how he's gravitated to the players and just kind of enjoying being here, and he's going to be outstanding. Again, as I said earlier, he's already asked about doing some things in the community and really representing the team and him and so on. He's got something about him. I think he's going to be special.
And then who did you ask about? Oh, JaBryce. JaBryce is kind of what we haven't had at wide receiver. He's a big kid. He's got speed, and I just watched a highlight of him this morning, and he's a dynamic player. I think he's going to be special, I really do. I hate to use that word special so much, but I think he will be. He'll get a chance for sure. And he's a junior college player. He's coming here to play. It's not like he's coming here to be a player.
Q. I'm curious about the number of junior college players you signed in this recruiting cycle. It's a little bit more than what you've signed in the past. Is that something specific to this class because of the numbers or is that something we can expect to see in future classes?
LARRY COKER: I think a little bit because of the numbers. I think we signed six, and that's a lot for us, it really is. Again, we did our homework and checked character and those type of things, and I think we've got some really good players and good kids. That is a little high for us, but I think two things: One, we needed some maturity. We lost a lot of older kids obviously, and we needed some maturity. I think those kids will give it to us, plus they're good players. Again, the thing we're going to have to do now, just to make sure, kind of just like starting over, make sure our guys understand about being on time and work ethic and those things, and the feedback I've gotten from the weight room and so on is these guys got a good thing going.
