Texas football notes and quotes for Kansas week

Complied by Steve Habel, Senior Contributing Writer

AUSTIN, Texas — Here are some notes from Texas football and some quotes from coach Tom Herman’s Monday press conference as the Longhorns prepare to square off Saturday against Kansas at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium:

• Herman was asked if freshman [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]quarterback-turned-running back Roschon Johnson has done enough to earn the starting position over sophomore Keaontay Ingram. “I don’t know. I’ll know after this week of practice,” Herman said. “Keaontay rushed for 120-something yards against Oklahoma State, too. We’re not going to throw the baby out with the bath water.”

• More Herman on Johnson: “He plays fearless. He plays tough. He plays aggressive. He’s got to clean some things up from a protection standpoint, but I really like the progress that he’s made in the two months of playing that position.”

• Herman said that safety Chris Brown will miss six weeks with a broken right forearm that will require surgery. He also said wide receiver Collin Johnson is continuing to be evaluated after a head injury late in the loss to OU, but that Johnson has not been diagnosed with a concussion. “He will lift today and see how that goes,” Herman said.

• More injury reports from Herman: “(Linebacker) Jeffrey McCulloch did dislocate his shoulder. He will be out for the Kansas game, probably a couple weeks. I don’t believe it to be season-ending. (Linebacker) Juwan Mitchell did sprain his elbow … pretty significant sprain … got an MRI on that. As of now, though, we don’t think that that will limit him too severely as the week progresses.”

• Herman confirmed that safety Caden Sterns (knee), cornerback Jalen Green (shoulder) and running back Jordan Whittington (sports hernia) will not play this week.

• Herman on what he learned about his coaching staff from the loss to the Sooners: “I felt like we could make some adjustments, some needed adjustments. I learned that our kids play really, really hard for their coaches, which is really important.”

• Herman on some of the frustrations from the loss to OU, and some of the positives: “I think, defensively, we didn’t play as aggressive as we could have, some uncertainty at some positions in some key spots. Then I think there was a bit of a frustration that set in offensively which caused some adverse effects.

• “I was actually proud of … we went in – what did we have, three points and 86 yards of offense in the first half and scored 24 points in the second half? Although it certainly didn’t look like a well-oiled machine, at least we found a way to get the ball in the end zone three times.”

• Herman explained part of the problem that created nine sacks for the Sooners, the most surrendered by Texas since the 2009 Big 12 Championship game against Nebraska:

“There’s a lot of things that go into sacks,” he said. “We had mixed blitzers. We had receivers that ran routes at improper depths. We had the quarterback hang on to the ball too long.

“Then also, we’ve got a quarterback that can scramble and is usually pretty good at getting himself out of trouble with his feet. They brought him down for minus-one, minus-two at times when he tried to scramble. Should he have thrown that away? I don’t know, but he’s usually pretty good at getting away from some of that stuff.”
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