The Craig Way Show
Texas offensive coordinator Kyle Flood ahead of Texas/Arizona State
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(speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (upbeat music) We're back. It's the Craig Way Show with Hall of Fame Broadcaster in voice of the Texas Longhorns. Craig Way. About halfway through the day's program, Cameron Parker filling in for Craig Way. Glad to have you with us here on this Monday afternoon on AM 1300 The Zone, less than 48 hours away from Texas and Arizona State kicking off at the Peach Bowl. And as we continue to preview this game, we wanted to bring you some sound from Texas offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Kyle Flood from his media day press conference. Sure, I'm on behalf of a coach's occasion and and office of staff. I appreciate you guys being on today. We appreciate the people at the Peach Bowl and we couldn't be more excited to still be playing at this stage of the season. Should be an exciting game and everything. I've never had the opportunity to play in this game, but I've heard from other coaches who have and I know everything's done first class. So we're really looking forward to getting to Atlanta tomorrow and I'm being part of a great game. With that, a little bit of questions. All right. Thanks, Coach Joggs. Thomas, go ahead and start us off. Hey, good afternoon, Coach. Thanks for joining us. Could you explain the differences between playing left and right tackle and also, you know, with your Richard freshman Trevor Gooseby, what makes you all comfortable with him playing at any spot? I don't know that there's necessarily a difference. You know, for the way we play the game, we don't chain, we don't have plays that we run to the left or to the right or protections or things like that. I think it's a matter of reps. Can you get enough reps in practice to get comfortable? I think when a guy only plays one position, it generally takes like three to five days to kind of flip that guy over and get him comfortable on the other side. But sometimes for a guy who's a depth player like Trevor's been for us, he's been playing both sides the entire season. Not always, not every week, some weeks he would play one side, some makes my buddy other, some weeks I'd put, but he's had the experience of doing it. So he's had to be trained like that. So I think it's a testament to him to be able to do it and to play at the level that he did. So we're certainly excited about him and his future. But I don't know if there's necessarily a difference. I just think it's a matter of can you find the reps over time to get a guy to be comfortable to do it? Would he have been able to do that week one? I don't know that. But then we're pretty far down the road this season. So he's had ample time to do both sides. Go cook, go ahead. >> Kyle, speaking of Trevor, he was someone who wasn't super highly ranked by some of the services. But obviously with his track and field exploits showed some athleticism. But what else during the recruiting process attracted y'all's program to wanting to recruit him and bring him into your offensive line room? >> Yeah, I would say the first thing I would say is he was pretty high in my mind. That's for sure. Now, early on in the process, he was a guy who was really lean. And when you have a guy like that, you're always trying to assess, all right, can this guy ultimately put on the bulk to play in the SEC? Really, really athletic guy. I had a chance to watch him play basketball, really, really athletic on the basketball court. But so all that stuff was great. And I thought his coaching staff, Melissa did a really good job of keeping me up to date with kind of his progress. So I thank them for that for sure. But as he went through his senior year, or I should say I got to apologize, as he went through the spring before his senior year, you could really see him start to put on the weight. And I think when he ultimately officially visited in June before his senior year, I want to say we wait a minute, right around 270, 275, which for a guy with his frame was more than enough in my mind that we'd be able to get him to where he wanted to get to. And then I think he was 290 when he got here, and now he's now usually between 310 and 315, 317, that's usually where he is. But the athleticism was always there. I was always really excited about his athleticism. And then ultimately, as soon as he showed me that, okay, this guy's going to have the size to play in the SEC, to me, he was a no-brainer. He went right to the top of my list. >> Danny Davis, go ahead. >> Kyle, since he's talking to us, I'm going to assume he's healthy. But Jake would be in line to set the career, starts record at Texas to be placed on Wednesday. Why has he been such a consistent force for y'all since you got here and inherited him from the previous staff? >> Yeah, Senator, Jake has started every game at center for me since I've been here. That's pretty neat. Over four years, I don't know if I've ever had that before. So that is certainly a really, really nice luxury for me to have somebody who's been with me and thinks like me. But your question is, what does that mean to us, or why is that a good thing? Because he loves everything about football. He's a catalyst for the energy of the football team. To steal Coach Sark's expression, you're going to be a thermostat or a thermometer. Well, he's a thermostat. He sets the temperature in the room. He's not taking the temperature. He sets the temperature. And he sets the standard for us in that offensive line room. And I think it does spill over to the rest of the offense. Just because of his personality. So I think it starts with his love for everything about football. He loves practice. He loves the meetings. He loves the rehab afterwards. He loves the training and the weightlifting. And there's just nothing about it he doesn't love. So that's infectious on a football team. And it's really, really invaluable. >> Josh Newman, go ahead. >> Yeah, Kyle, just to kind of follow that up, Jake and some of the other guys have been with you for a long time and built me moving on. Of course, you're worried about here and now in the peach bowl. But somewhere in the back of your mind, are you at all thinking about what 2025 could look like and just the need to ingratiate some new pieces? >> As a college coach, especially, you're always coaching your current team. And then there's always an eye to the future of that. Hey, how are we building this roster? How are we building this position group? So we have to do that. That's just good practice in terms of what you have to do as a coach. It never takes away from what you're doing right now. But I'm excited about my room. I think we've got a deep room. I think we've got a versatile room in terms of guys being able to play different positions. And that'll be something that I'll shake out in the offseason. But they're practicing hard right now. One of the advantages of playing this long is we get to continue to practice. So these practice weeks are really, really valuable to these young players. The freshmen in our group like Nate Kibble and Danny Cruz and Brandon Baker. The guys who have only been here a year, well now, not only did they practice with us through the regular season now, we're kind of deep into the postseason. And it's just those practices are really valuable. So we're always looking at it. And again, I like the room that we have. But that stuff will all shake out in the offseason right now. We're focused with the team on getting a win in this game that are golden, you're up. The line was pretty healthy for the most part. But when these injuries came, the Kelvin and with Cam, how important was the cross training that she did in the preseason just in case this happened? It's really important. I think it's really important. I think my part of my obligation to coach Sark and to the offenses to make sure we can always get whatever combination of the best five players on the field is. And that's why I tell people it's not like, okay, this guy is the backup right tackle. This guy is the backup right guard. This guy is the backup center. That's not how it works. And it's it's not a it's not a negative to any player who didn't go in the game when the injury has happened. It's just to me, I got to make sure we've got the best combination of five. So if that means Cole Hudson's got to play right guard or left guard, well, that's kind of how we train them during the week. And if that means Trevor Guzman's got to play right tackle or left tackle or Hayden Connors got to go to center so that we can keep that best combination in there. That's really, we start that very, very early in the year to make sure we're ready to do it when we need it. And we were fortunate this year to not need it for a while. But now we need it and we're going to probably need it going forward. Hey, Kyle, are you interested in being a head coach again? Right now I'm interested in winning the peach ball. So I appreciate that question. I think those kind of questions are always a function of success. And generally, when you're an assistant coach, if you get an opportunity to be a head coach, it's because you were really good at the job you were doing and the team you were with was successful. So we'll entertain those things down the road if and when they come. And it's always flattering to be considered for those things. But I don't ever like put my mind there because right now we've got we've got enough of a challenge trying to try to play really well. I guess good Arizona State team. David, I could go ahead. Kyle, appreciate the time today. I was just curious. Something interesting that came out of yesterday was a couple of the players talked about coach PK and I guess his patients when it comes to making late adjustments in the play clock pre snap. I'm just curious from an offensive perspective. What kind of challenge does that pose? One of the defensive coordinators is willing to do that and kind of tweak things late before the snap. You mean like when the defense changes late? Yes, sir. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, that's certainly that's certainly a challenge. I think that offensively, we try to be really good at controlling the tempo to try to make the play callers on defense, not have the ability to know when the ball is going to be snapped. And sometimes that, you saw us in the last game. Sometimes we go faster and sometimes we don't go nearly as fast. But no, it's an issue. It does complicate things. One of the harder things to deal with on offenses is when the picture changes. Because now 11 guys got to make a change in their mind in terms of what their assignment and technique is going to be. We're more from Kyle Floyd throughout today's show. I love this response back when asked about if he's pursuing head coaching jobs. And he said, I'm focused on winning the peach ball. And then from the peach ball focus on winning the cotton ball. And from there focus on winning the national championship. But without a doubt, a function of being successful program is you have other coaches on your staff who are being looked at for other coaching positions. I mean, we've seen Brendan Marion move on the UNLV from receivers coach to to offensive coordinator. We've seen Johnny Nansen. I'm sorry, Jeff choke, the lawmakers coach take over at Nevada. There's going to be other guys. I think the charge choice is a big name that eventually will get looked at to be coming off. It's a coordinator at a D one program. And I'm sure Kyle flood and PK are being looked at by other coaches by the schools as to be their next head coach because the sex, the success that Texas has had these last few years breeds that type of development from coaching from coordinator spots to head coaching positions. But we will see and we will hear more from Kyle flood throughout today's show here up next. So Craig way able to sit down with Jada Baron for award winning defensive back in Flugerville, Connolly native Jada Baron up next as the Craig way show continues on this Monday afternoon. And Arizona State University, we're bringing world class education from our globally acclaimed faculty to you ranked number one in innovation for 10 consecutive years and number two among public universities for employability. ASU isn't just ahead of the curve. It's creating new paths to success. Earn your degree from the nation's most innovative university online. That's a degree better. Explore more than 300 undergraduate graduate and certificate programs at ASU online dot ASU dot EDU. As you can see, you'll hear more than 100,000 graduate students from the U.S.. 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