35 days until Texas Football: What Kyle Flood, Pete Kwiatkowski, and Jeff Banks said prior to the 2022 season
Inside Texas is putting a new twist on long-time photographer Will Gallagher’s time-honored countdown to Texas football kickoff. In addition to Will’s great pictures, the Inside Texas staff will go through every player on the roster by jersey number and offer a season outlook on each, from five-star to walk-on.
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We’ll also look back at other greats to wear that day’s number, with special reverence to some of Texas’ best.
Today is 35 days until kickoff. No. 35 for the Longhorns this season will be worn by Rhett Andersen, a freshman walk-on wide receiver. We’ll also look back to last August when coordinators Pete Kwiatkowski, Kyle Flood, and Jeff Banks were available to the media.
Time with coordinators is precious
Nick Saban has long been the only coach at Alabama made regularly available. That’s done in part to protect his coordinators, who already have a significant responsibility simply in working for him. It’s also done to make sure there is but one message that comes from the program, and that one message comes from the head coach.
Steve Sarkisian applied that standard to his Texas program. Media opportunities put on with offensive coordinator Kyle Flood, defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski, and special teams coordinator Jeff Banks have been limited to just one preseason meeting at the onset of fall camp.
That’s likely to hold true this week when camp starts, so a look back to what all three said when given their opportunity with the media last season is a good way to mark five weeks until kickoff.
Some highlights from August 2, 2022
Flood: “The more reps, the more times they can hear the playcalls, the more times some how, some way to get the players to try to visualize what they’re doing from an assignment and technique standpoint, no doubt it’s an advantage.”
That was said in reference to how the summer skills training sessions available to coaches and players could accelerate the development timeline for certain freshman O-linemen.
Flood says they don’t sacrifice athletic ability for size. Says he needs to have a level of athleticism with the size that “makes them special and gives them an opportunity to progress within our system.”
The 2022 class was the first example of that. 2023 with Payton Kirkland, Connor Stroh, Andre Cojoe, and Trevor Goosby all fit that mold.
Flood: “We’ve got to get production out of the room. Ultimately, will that mean some of the freshman will play? As I tell my players and I tell every recruit, the best five players are going to play, and ultimately where they play will be determined by who the best five players are.”
Kelvin Banks and Cole Hutson started every game, while DJ Campbell rotated with Hutson late in the year.
Flood said Andrej Karic and Christian Jones had good summers, but “when you’re talking about linemen, you don’t want to make decisions before the pads go on.”
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Both of those players were much improved and helped the offense go last season.
Kwiatkowski says they were “very inconsistent playing team defense as a whole. We had stretches where we were really good, then for whatever reason, adversity, bad plays in the game, guys get injured, whatever, the wheels fell off.”
That was accurate regarding the 2021 season. Then, PK’s side of the ball threw down a much improved 2022.
Kwiatkowski: “I think one of the strengths of our defense is going to be our interior linemen.”
Defensive tackle having a legitimate four-man rotation that included two NFL draft picks proved correct.
PK was critical of himself, even in a lighthearted way. Texas affected the quarterback much more in 2022 compared to 2021, but the Horns want more from that part of the defense this year.
Kwiatkowski on how to help players fight through the wall or adversity instead of cowering at it: “You make it hard on them. Whether it’s Coach Becton in the weight room or running, you stress the guys physically or mentally. They’ve got to learn how to fight through it, come together, support each other, learn from those mistakes or experiences in the past, and keep moving forward.”
The Texas defense kept the Longhorns in games last year, compared to taking the team out of games in 2021. What PK mentioned applied and was effective in 2022.
Banks: “Bert Auburn and Will Stone will be the two guys who will compete for the field goal and kickoff jobs. We have another player named Gabriel Lozano who transferred from Texas Tech who provides some really good stability there. I feel good. We have three legs that I have confidence in.”
Auburn proved a capable place kicker, while Stone was a good kickoff specialist. Lozano was not a factor last year.
Banks on Morice Blackwell: “I’m fired up about Mo because Mo had a little taste on scout team of playing our offense last year with the talented players we had, and he played downhill and super physical.”
Blackwell will play a lot of conventional downs but his ability at 210 pounds to be a tenacious tackler will prove valuable to the third phase
Banks says analyst Jeff Crosby “will be a coordinator after this year.” Does depth charts, game plans, etc.
Crosby remained with the program, a mild coup for someone Banks described as coordinator material. He’ll also be able to learn from Joe DeCamillis this season.
Recent player to wear No. 35: Daniel Trejo
Trejo played in all 13 games for the Longhorns last year after transferring from Texas Wesleyan and enrolling as a senior at Texas in August 2022. He punted 45 times for 1,890 yards (42.0 avg) with three touchbacks, 15 fair catches and 13 kicks inside the 20.
Trejo was a member of the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll (fall 2022).
All-Americans to wear No. 35
Jim Bertelsen, RB, 1969
Joe Cook co-authored this story
