Texas football team holds first week of practices ahead of 2024 season
The American-Statesman looks back at the practices we saw and the interviews that were conducted during the first week of Texas’ fall camp.
Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian wants consistency as Texas prepares for the August 31 season opener against Colorado State.Texas ex Julien Alfred is the first in school history to win the Olympic 100 meters. She has also qualified for the final of the 200.
Steve Sarkisian doesn’t have a lot of use for preseason polls, but you can’t blame fans for being excited about this growing hype machine surrounding Texas football. It’s about the work at this point. Getting ready for the season is of the utmost importance. The rest will take care of itself.
Texas opened up at No. 4 in the first US LBM Coaches Poll that was released Monday, behind top-ranked Georgia, No. 2 Ohio State and No. 3 Oregon.
Preseason hype aside, the Texas head coach only concerns himself with what’s going on at the facility, but for those who can’t help but be geeked about this first year in the SEC and being mentioned with championship bluebloods like Georgia, don’t hold back. Enjoy the arts.
After all, this is the time of the year where “hope” is the best four-letter word on the planet. There isn’t a fan base in America where at least one follower hasn’t asked, “Why not us this year?”
More: Austin celebration set for ailing Texas ex, Hall of Fame-bound Steve McMichael | Golden
Let them ask. For many of them, this is as good as it gets.
As for the Longhorns, the hope is their biggest moments will come in that inaugural 12-team playoff, though there are some massive regular-season contests to get through, including a nasty Oklahoma-Georgia double in October and the renewal of the Texas A&M rivalry on Thanksgiving weekend.
Texas will have its first practice in full pads Tuesday and will hold its first scrimmage on Saturday.
More: Texas Longhorns get to work during second football practice with pads of the season. See the photos.
“There are two traits you have to have as a player in our program,” Sarksian told reporters Monday. “‘A’ is availability. If you’re not available, it’s hard to learn what you’re capable of. Two is reliability. Reliability is about trust and trust over time. Trust equals time plus consistency. And that’s what I want to see from our guys.”
August is the time when unprovens who may have gotten some notice in the spring can make a realistic run at the depth chart. It’s also the crucial period when newcomers and veterans can create that all-important chemistry with the opener against Colorado State coming up on Aug. 31. There’s lot of football to be played — more important, practiced — before those bright lights come on.
The dog days of summer are upon the local football team. This is really where championships are won and lost.
Texas ex Julien Alfred is the new queen of the 100
It’s Alfred’s time: Hey, Texas Hall of Honor, get a display ready for Julien Alfred. She just became the greatest sprinter in school history. And Saint Lucia.
More: Golden: Texas’ Julien Alfred is sprinting her way to track and field superstardom
With 100-meter Olympic gold comes immortality.
So it was written by the many scribes out there after Saturday’s epic 100-meter win over world champion Sha’Carri Richardson. And by Alfred herself, hours before the race started.
“Waking up this morning, I wrote it down: Julien Alfred, Olympic champion,” Alfred told reporters in Paris on Saturday. “I think believing in myself and trusting that I could do it is what really mattered to me.”
No Longhorn — male or female — had ever captured Olympic gold in the 100 until Alfred won it. She stands as the fastest woman in the world.
The Caribbean island nation of 180,000 had sent athletes to seven previous Olympics, but none had ever brought back a medal. When one wins the Olympic 100-meter dash, the title of fastest on the planet comes with that coveted gold medal. At just 23, Alfred has just taken over the sport. With the gold medal securely around her neck, superstardom has arrived.
Thousands of supporters gathered in the capital city of Castries and watched on a giant video screen as the woman they call JuJu crossed the tape first. They went wild.
Could that 100-200 sprint double be just around the corner?
Alfred admittedly doesn’t love running in the 200 meters, but she qualified for the final Monday by winning her semifinal heat in 21.98. She will join USA runners Brittany Brown, McKenzie Long and the favored Gabby Thomas — a Texas graduate who volunteers at a health clinic in Austin — in what promises to be an electric finale Tuesday.
If she wins, it will be the third straight Olympics with a 100-200 double. Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah did it in 2016 and 2020. She injured her Achilles tendon earlier this season and was unable to compete for an Olympic three-peat.
By the way, men’s 100-meter champion Noah Lyles is the favorite to win the 200 and become the first American man to win gold in the 100 and 200 in the same Olympics since Carl Lewis did it in Los Angeles in 1984. Of course, the legendary Usain Bolt did it three times (2008, 2012 and 2016).
Before she captured Olympic gold …
A worldwide question: Back in March 2023, Alfred carried herself with a healthy dose of confidence, but she hesitated when I asked her the one question she didn’t see coming and took a pause when I interviewed her on the eve of the Texas Relays.
She already was a decorated sprinter, having earned All-America honors 11 times and at the time was the second-fastest woman in 60-meters history. So when I asked her if she was the fastest woman on the planet, it wasn’t a huge stretch though there were more accomplished sprinters out there like Olympic champions Elaine Thompson-Herah, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson, all of whom were missing from the 100 field this time around.
On Saturday, Alfred won the sport’s biggest race in a dazzling season-best run of 10.72 — world champion Sha’Carri Richardson and Melissa Jefferson took the silver and bronze, respectively — then took a celebratory lap around the rainy Stade de France stadium.
Texas coach Edrick Floreal never misses a beat, having his athletes train in rainy weather at times just in case. So, Alfred was ready for a slick surface.
“He’s been my rock,” she said. “He’s been there through the ups and the downs.”
This would qualify as an up.
Longhorns dominate in Paris
Horns hardware: As of Monday, Texas Longhorns had earned 12 Olympic medals. That includes the incomparable Ryan Crouser, who became the first to win three straight Olympic gold medals in the shot put. That came after he won four straight NCAA outdoor titles.
The Forty Acres is having itself some Olympiad. If UT was a country, it would be ranked 12th overall in medal count, ahead of Brazil, New Zealand, Hungary, Spain and Sweden, to name a few. The 2024 Longhorns have already doubled the school’s previous best medal output of six, set in 1992 in Barcelona and 2000 in Tokyo.
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Publish date : 2024-08-05 12:13:00
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