Ignore the noise
Texas is trying to focus on preparing for the season while the hype around the program grows.
AUSTIN — After the first day of fall camp, a group of aching, dogtired Longhorns gathered for a video session.
What they watched wasn’t game tape or prep for any forthcoming opponents. It was footage of former championship teams and their contributors. The Longhorns were looking for lessons.
“We listened to (Pro Football Hall of Famer) Ed Reed, and he said it was the little things, each and every day coming in and doing the same practice over and over, the little details of what they focused on as a team, they all bought into that,” junior quarterback Sam Ehlinger said. “We have the talent now, so we just have to, in between our ears, understand what it takes and go do it.”
It’s been a long time since Texas entered a season with such lofty expectations. Look no further than three sets of preseason rankings for proof — No. 2 in the Big 12 media poll, No. 10 in both the Associated Press and Amway Coaches Poll.
Ehlinger is a fledgling star who has drawn comparisons to former Heisman winner Tim Tebow. He’s not quite Baker Mayfield-brash, but there’s a clear confidence bubbling just beneath the surface that manifests when the lights are brightest.
And Ehlinger’s postSugar Bowl “We’re back!” only solidified his status as one of the faces of the game — while earning a drawnout grimace from the program’s true top dog.
Entering Year 3 at Texas, Tom Herman already has distinguished himself as one of the nation’s more notable coaches.
Like his quarterback, the 44-year-old is bold, and his 39-14 record and 3-0 showing in bowl games has cemented Mack Brown’s former graduate assistant as something of a quasi-celebrity in Austin and throughout the Big 12 .
It also has placed a growing bull’s-eye on his back.
Throw in two consecutive top-three recruiting classes, a marquee Week 2 matchup with No. 6 LSU, and what should be a season-long battle with No. 4 Oklahoma for conference supremacy, and you’ve got a team that will spend the rest of 2019 in the spotlight.
“Block it out,” Ehlinger said of all the attention. “That’s really what we have to do. We should have bigger expectations for ourselves than anybody else should. So we shouldn’t let any outside noise influence how we feel or how we act.”
Texas entered each of the past two campaigns with some degree of hype, too, only to fall flat with consecutive seasonopening losses to Maryland. Excuses were made, scapegoats were found.
Next Saturday, Texas opens the season at Royal-Memorial Stadium against Louisiana Tech. It’s a tuneup for LSU. But more than that, it’s a chance to exorcise some demons and live up to the team’s billing. It can be, and should be, an egobooster.
“We’ve got to worry about ourselves and focus on getting better each day. “We have what it takes to be extremely good, so now it’s all up here,” Ehlinger said as a pair of index fingers shot to opposite sides of his temple.
Herman tends not to reference last season much. It’s a program-wide edict from the CEO, a way of moving on and not resting on any laurels.
There’s no Sugar Bowl gear on display when Texas comes together for practice or team meetings and functions. It’s not “we” or “us,” but “them” when discussing the 2018 Longhorns.
These Longhorns haven’t achieved anything yet, unless you count preseason polls and award watch lists, which Herman most certainly doesn’t. His job over the next week and a half is to instill confidence without breeding cockiness, a difficult proposition as national publications and media pundits prop up Texas as a team to be reckoned with.
“We do need to have a sense of confidence that we have put ourselves, the guys in the room that were here for last year’s season and the season before and all the offseasons in-between, in position to be legitimately in that tier of (elite) programs,” Herman said.
“So we should play with that confidence, like we’re proud of the hard work and development that went into getting there. But it’s not for us proving to anybody else that we belong. It’s us proving to each other that we belong.”