Rashad Bobino talks Texas Longhorns, winning mindset and recruiting

Katy, Texas – Rashad Bobino is one of the best former players to speak with about Texas Longhorns football. 

The current Mayde Creek defensive coordinator and lifetime Longhorn is not shy about his thoughts on Texas football and recruiting. 

And Bobino certainly has the right to be. He was more than a key member on the Texas Longhorns national championship team. He was a three-time All-Big 12 honorable mention selection with 45 starts at Texas. Bobino graduated from Texas with 235 tackles (148 solo), 25 TFL, 4.5 sacks, 25 pressures, an INT, 10 PBU and three fumble recoveries.

If Rashad Bobino was coming out of LaMarque today, would you have been recruited by the University of Texas?

Rashad Bobino: Looking at how players are evaluated today based on the attributes of height and the stars by the names, there is no way I would have ended up at the University of Texas. They would have taken one look at me and said I don’t meet the Saban fit. I’m not 6-foot-2, 240-pounds with a huge wingspan, so we are going to pass on you. 

Now you are a defensive coordinator in the position of helping kids be recruited. How do you attack recruiting for your players that don’t fit a criteria? 

Bobino: It is difficult. Honestly, Saban has made it that way because he’s won so much. But at the end of the day, everyone is not going to Alabama. Or going to Georgia. Or to places where these guys are massive athletes. What the schools need to be looking for is a guy that can play. He can make plays. He has instincts. One thing a lot of program are missing is players that know how to win. You can’t coach how to win, and how to be clutch. All the bells and whistles with some of these guys that look pretty, a lot are from losing programs. Some guys only know how to lose. And how not to be able to get up on a fourth and one, and not clutch when it’s time to put a team on his back. Can a player help win. Does he know how to win. 

Every Texas fan would want to know how many times have you watched the Rose bowl?

Bobino: Oh my goodness. I’ve watched it a lot. A lot of people let me know when it’s on. My players say ‘Coach Bab I’ve seen you in that game.’ What I didn’t realize then was how big what we accomplished was. As I get older, it’s really special. My uncle told me that when I was 20, when I was going out and having fun thinking championships grew on trees. We had gone to the Rose Bowl the previous year too. It made me really realize that it’s hard. It’s really special to be part of that moment.

Now what I do wish is that I was on that 30-for-30 because this is what get’s me – when they go back to that clip and talk to the tackle named Justice, it was said it was him that messed up. It wasn’t that he messed up. I just timed that snap perfectly and got him. I just beat him. If you watch, he holds me or I hit LenDale in the backfield for a loss of five yards. Because of that little burst, or that instinct it made him make that one cut and we got him. 

Leading up to the game against USC, what was it like? Was there nerves? Nervous energy? What about the fourth down play?

Bobino: One thing about Mack (Brown) was he always had us prepared. There was not nerves. It was an expectation, and he let us know it everyday that this is the standard. One play is going to come down to our standard. It’s what you are going to be known for and what will be talked about. Are you going to rise to the occasion, or fold? If you go look on that team, about 90% of us came from winning teams. We had been faced with situations where the game was on the line, and had to make winning plays. We practiced against the best everyday, that were winners. You are going to really good if you practice against the best every day. That’s how we thought. When you go into a game and you are told that you aren’t going to win, you have to think like a winner.

Just back before that in 2003 Texas was told that they are too soft. So you have been told you are soft all these years and now you get a stage to show what we were all about, and we thrived. I still remember the play on the fourth down. It was an all out blitz. Coach Chiz called it. I still to this day think he’s one of the best. He always used to say play the right players that make the right plays. He had the right guys out there regardless of size. We got it right on the field. 

Do you remember the celebration after the game? 

Bobino: I do remember. After we won, I felt like a little kid. We beat the best offense ever to do it. I was doing snow angels on the field with the confetti. I still remember it today like it was just yesterday. It was special. 

Growing up in a LaMarque, you will know the answer to this question. To this day, who is the fastest 200-pound player I have seen in high school in full pads?

Bobino: Derrick Foster. Man, Derrick Foster. He wore those big pads with that huge neck roll. He was 6-foot-1, 200-pounds and ran like a 4.2 (4.29 at Houston Cougars Camp). You know what’s crazy, we have a debate in LaMarque all the time about who was the best running back to come out of LaMarque. Derrick Foster has always been by far my favorite. I remember his last game. He broke one about 60 yards, made a cut and made the Denison DB tear his ACL. To be that shifty at that size was unbelievable. 

The most important question a Texas fan would have for you is what the Longhorns have to do to get back? 

Bobino: They (players) have to find out what it really means to them. I put some of it on the coaches too. You have to really get out and recruit these kids. Don’t just let people recruit off stars. They need to be out there watching these kids work out in the weight room, in competitive situations and recruit kids who win or are winners. Recruit winners! You look at the OU game last year, they have never been there before. That’s really, really big. Recruit winners. This is not to put shame on Texas, but look at Baylor. They are coming in and really watching kids work out, they are going to sit there and watch him do anything and everything. They are going to evaluate on winners. Texas needs to recruit winners.