First Texas Longhorns football practice observations

The Texas Longhorns opened up the first fall practice of the Steve Sarkisian era at the Frank Denius Fields on Friday night. It was the media’s first opportunity to see how Texas’ new head coach runs a Longhorns practice, and also check out the initial pecking order at a handful of positions.

-After the team warmed up with offense on one end of the field and defense on the other, the team split up to work on special teams responsibilities. Offensive and defensive linemen started individual work, while everyone else worked on a specific aspect of special teams. Returners I saw (in no particular order) were Xavier Worthy, Joshua Moore, D’Shawn Jamison, Kai Money, and Bijan Robinson.

-It wasn’t 11-on-11 special teams, but each returner had an opportunity to try and evade a handful of defenders. Working on proper rush lanes while sprinting down the field was the focus of the drill for the defenders. The punters did send kicks to the returners in the following order: Cameron Dicker, Isaac Pearson, and Ryan Bujcevski.

-The team went into ball security drills. Skill players were matched up with other skill players, bigs with bigs. The first ball-carrier ran one on one versus a defender then one ball-carrier ran versus two defenders, both trying to rip the ball from the offense’s hands.

-After STs and ball security, some individual work was up next. I didn’t see a full five-man group line up on the O-line, but drills did give away a pecking order at each position.

LT: Christian Jones – Andrej Karic – Jaylen Garth – Chad Wolf (w-o)

LG: Denzel Okafor – Hayden Conner – Tyler Johnson

OC: Jake Majors – Logan Parr – Rafiti Ghirmai – Junior Angilau

RG: Junior Angilau – Tope Imade – Max Merril

RT: Derek Kerstetter – Isaiah Hookfin – Michael Balis (w-o)

-Before they started throwing passes, the quarterbacks worked on proper handoff technique with the running backs. They worked some from pistol, some from shotgun, and some from under center, attempting to nail down timing and footwork needed on handoffs. Casey Thompson took the very, very first snap, but in everything else I saw (including in later drills) he and Hudson Card were 1A/1B: Casey Thompson/Hudson Card – Charles Wright – Ben Ballard (w-o) – Cole Lourd (w-o)

-Here was the pecking order at RB: Bijan Robinson – Roschon Johnson – Keilan Robinson – Daniel Young – Jonathon Brooks – Jarrett Smith (w-o) – Anton Simieou (w-o)

-The RBs then worked with Stan Drayton on their own on blocking technique. Drayton or an assistant would toss a medicine ball toward the RB, who then needed bat the ball down while in proper blocking posture. Brooks accidentally knocked the ball right back to Drayton’s groin in one drill, a small measure of payback that drew a chuckle from the group.

-While the running backs were working individually during Longhorns practice, the receivers worked on routes on air with the quarterbacks. Sarkisian stuck with the offense for the entire viewing period, often moving around where the receivers were running their routes in order to force them to act upon a read Sark was providing. Outside receivers were up first, and they ran in the following pairings.

OWR: Joshua Moore and Troy Omeire – Al’Vonte Woodard/Marcus Washington and Kartik Akkihal (w-o) – Casey Cain and Kelvontay Dixon – Travis West (w-o) and Montrell Estell – Paxton Anderson (w-o)

-Inside receivers were paired with tight ends:

IWR: Jordan Whittington – Kai Money – Jaden Alexis – Xavier Worthy – DaJon Harrison (who was the only player in a green no-contact jersey) – Parker Alford (w-o) – Travis West (w-o)

TE: Cade Brewer – Jared Wiley – Gunnar Helm – Juan Davis – Brayden Liebrock

Where’s Ja’Tavion Sanders? During this time, an assistant position coach was working with the tight ends group. Meanwhile, Jeff Banks was with Sanders and walk-on Nathan Hatter. Banks was instructing Sanders on the finer points of blocking at the position before he was able to work on his receiving skills. Hatter acted as the defender while Sanders worked to move him out of the way.

-The receivers were running a variety of routes on air, including some short, intermediate, and deep balls. I never noticed any glaring drop issues during the window I was there.

-Overall, the practice was a little quieter than the last Tom Herman preseason practice I saw all the way back in 2019. There was no music at all, a considerable difference from when Herman started practice off with Metallica’s ‘Seek and Destroy’

-I didn’t notice a ton of yelling, though there certainly was spirited instruction.

-I hope to get a better look at the defense tomorrow, but they were on the opposite end of the field from where we were during the viewing window.

Day one of Texas Longhorns practice is in the books. I’ll be back for another short viewing session of about 20 minutes tomorrow afternoon.