Texas Football: Herman concerned about new offensive, defensive schemes

The Texas football coaching staff had a major facelift earlier in the offseason and all of the new coaches are soon to be put to the real test.

Entering the 2020 offseason, the coaching staff for the Texas football program underwent a major overhaul at almost every level except for the head coach. Once Texas finished up the 2019 regular season with just seven wins, the questions began to arise of what changes were to be made to ensure another letdown of a campaign doesn’t happen again under this current coaching regime. Thus head coach Tom Herman saw athletic director Chris del Conte open up the checkbook and let him undergo a full remodel of his coaching staff.

Texas started namely by removing both major coordinators, and replacing them with former Rutgers head coach Chris Ash and former Ohio State passing game coordinator Mike Yurcich. Ash was brought in to be the next defensive coordinator to replace Todd Orland (who is now in the same position with the USC Trojans). And Yurcich was brought in to be the next offensive coordinator to replace Tim Beck (who is now with the NC State Wolfpack).

Other significant coaching changes happened with a lot of the positional coaches, and some were promoted from within. For example, former Kansas State Wildcats co-offensive coordinator Andre Coleman was promoted from offensive analyst with Texas last year to be the sole wide receivers coach. He’ll be replacing the former Longhorns co-wide receivers coaches Drew Mehringer and Corby Meekins.

Moreover, all of these significant coaching staff changes are obviously going to give the offensive and defensive schemes, as well as the overall playbook, a much different look for the Longhorns this fall compared to the last few years under Herman. This is something that is apparently concerning to Herman heading into fall/training camp (per Horns247 report, paid content).

Herman cited that the overall lack of practice and meeting time coinciding with all of these coaching staff and scheme changes will make things difficult at the outset of fall camp and the altered 2020 regular season. But that is something that all teams have to deal with in some regard in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The good news is that the Longhorns still have the same head coach and tenured starting quarterback this year. They’ll have enough returning talent and experience to likely break in the scheme changes a bit faster and more effectively than they would’ve otherwise with a young team at hand.

Texas finished up the 2019 season with a record of 8-5 (5-4 Big 12) after convincingly defeating the Utah Utes in the Alamo Bowl. They’re supposed to open up the 2020 season, as it appears now, on Sep. 12 at home against the UTEP Miners.