Hager, Herman resolve to give peace a chance
Truce with coach part of maturation of Texas’ free spirit
FRISCO — Golden and lustrous, the blonde locks tumble past Breckyn Hager’s shoulders and splay across his chest. He looks like he should be shredding a pipeline off the California coast, but football is embedded in his DNA, and Austin is the only college city that ever truly appealed to the youngest son of former Texas All-American Britt Hager.
Anyway, this shaggy look wasn’t really part of the plan. But Hager has stubbornly avoided the barber’s chair since arriving on campus in 2015 because of a solemn vow made to himself: The lion-like mane will be sheared once Texas has won the Big 12, and no sooner.
This season is Hager’s final chance to fulfill his goal. Texas last won a league title in 2009, and three-time defending cham-
pion Oklahoma was again picked by voters to win the Big 12 despite losing quarterback Baker Mayfield, left tackle Orlando Brown and tight end Mark Andrews to the NFL.
Even with Texas picked to finish fourth in the conference, even with quarterback and play-calling questions looming, and even with the nation’s fourthhardest schedule as calculated by ESPN’s Football Power Index, Hager clings to hope.
“I know this team,” Hager said Tuesday during Big 12 media days at the Ford Center. “I know everyone; I know every clique. And I’m seeing these cliques disappear. I’m seeing individual players buying in like I’ve never seen in my life. And I’m seeing the people I love genuinely becoming better human beings and doing something greater than themselves, and it’s just fabulous.”
Tense relationship
Hager himself took some time to see the light.
For months, he resisted fully embracing coach Tom Herman and his alien philosophy. The relationship between first-year coach and junior defensive end grew so frayed that the two resorted to acting like scorned lovers forced to share an office.
“Breckyn and I had had a couple very intense conversations early in the season” Herman said. “We were to the point where he was playing well, but it was like a don’t talk to me, I won’t talk to you kind of thing.”
The standoff ended last year on Oct. 21 in a home game against 10th-ranked Oklahoma State. Early in the second quarter, Hager fought his way through the offensive line to sack quarterback Mason Rudolph on third-and-4.
Herman held his hand out low as Hager trotted back to the bench, waiting for a low-five from his estranged defensive end.
“I think that might have been the first five I had given him in quite a while,” Herman said. “And he just stopped dead — it was like something out of the movies. He stops dead in his tracks and he looks at me and he goes, ‘Coach, I’m sorry.’
“I immediately look on the field like is there a flag, did he facemask somebody, late hit, whatever. And there’s nothing there. I say, ‘Breckyn, what are you talking about?’ He says, ‘I’m sorry for being such an a-hole.’ ”
Ever since, Herman said, the pair has been like “Bonnie and Clyde.” And while Hager, who recorded four sacks and nine tackles for loss last year, has retained his quirky outlook and bubbly disposition, Herman has seen a slight change in on-field demeanor from the senior philosophy major.
“If there’s a guy that bleeds more burnt orange than he does, you’ll have to show him to me,” Herman said. “This guy loves the University of Texas, and rightfully so with his lineage. But what he’s done is he’s gone from maybe kind of the loose cannon kind of guy — he’s still very intense, still very driven and very focused. But I think there’s more of a press pause, what am I trying to communicate to my teammates, now let’s do that rather than just fly by the seat of his pants.”
Hager remains the team’s resident firecracker and by far the best sound bite among a group that has mostly adopted its head coach’s guarded nature and mannerisms, though Herman hopes he’ll refrain from providing opponents with any added animus this year.
Quick with a quote
In 2016, Hager was forced to walk back comments he made about seeking to injure Texas Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes. More impishly, Hager last year described West Virginia’s home crowd as a “bunch of hillbillies drinking moonshine.”
Hager evaded any potential controversy Tuesday and instead spent his day in Frisco discussing cinema, his ongoing hunt for absolute proof of some higher power and atoning for the time he spent last year being so difficult.
“I knew right after that, my game is like a snowball, so I knew it was my chance to show the entire world on ABC with coach Herman, with my dad in the stands, with everyone wearing burnt orange, that I’m not leaving,” Hager said of the Oklahoma State game. “I’m here to stay, and you’re going to play me and I’m going to do well for you.
“At that same time though, I saw (Herman) and I learned about him and I was like, ‘I am genuinely sorry and I do love you.’ And that was the first time I meant it.”