Texas football: Takeaways from Tom Herman press conference

Texas took another step toward starting the 2019 season when Tom Herman met with the media on Monday for the first weekly press conference.

Here are a few odds and ends from the press conference:

Herman mentioned he's happy with how camp went, saying the Longhorns accomplished all the goals he set out going in. In particular he praised the overall team speed stating this is "as fast a team as we've had since I've been here"

On Louisiana Tech Herman praised the job that head coach Skip Holtz, who is 46-33 over seven years coaching the Bulldogs. In particular he mentioned quarterback J’Mar Smith and receiver Adrian Hardy, who he said "could play anywhere in the country".

On season openers Herman mentioned an emphasis on the Longhorns not beating themselves.

"I mean, usually the team in openers that plays the cleanest wins," Herman said. "And by that, you know, you're talking about penalties and turnovers. And missed assignments, if you can keep those to a minimum. You're going to have a really good shot and and in game ones."

The Bulldogs defense will be led by Bob Diaco, who most recently served as an assistant coach at Oklahoma. When it comes to scouting the Bulldogs and Diaco Herman is looking back to the defensive coordinator's previous stops at UConn and Nebraska to gather film.

We don't we don't spend a whole lot of time game planning," Herman said. "It's hard, you know, when when a guy is, you know, in an opener, and the last time he coordinated was 2017 at Nebraska, so kind of just watching a little bit of, of everything, you know, even some of the stuff at UConn to Nebraska to even his time at Oklahoma last year. We broke down those films too. So keeping the game plan pretty tight in terms of the numbers of calls that we're going to wrap then and have available to us during the game because we just, we don't know we're pretty pretty unsure and we want to be able to have practice them versus all of the different scenarios, fronts and coverages as well as, you know, be adaptable as the game goes on."

The team will be extremely thin at running back thanks to an injury to Daniel Young. Starter Keaontay Ingram is expected to play after tweaking his knee earlier in fall camp. Backup quarterback Roschon Johnson could see some time at the spot in an emergency situation. Herman had previous mentioned the possibility or running freshman slot receiver Jake Smith out there should a special need arise, but with Smith serving another role in the offense plus the team's punt returning duties, Herman felt Johnson was better fit to take on the added responsibility at this time.

Quarterback Roschon Johnson is getting time at running back to address the depth situation.
— Sports Illustrated - Texas Longhorns (@CLonghornmaven) August 26, 2019

Receiver Joshua Moore has been suspended for the Louisiana Tech game. Moore is currently facing misdemeanor gun charges, leaving his future murky with the program right now.

We're gathering information," Herman said. "We're hoping the legal process is you know, concluded soon, but I'll have to update you that on Monday because things could change."