Watson appreciative of graduate transfer opportunity

Tre Watson (Will Gallagher/IT)

AUSTIN — Tre Watson’s burnt orange debut was a long time coming.

After missing most of the season while at Cal in 2017 due to a knee injury, and following the removal of Sonny Dykes as Golden Bear head coach, Watson put himself on the graduate transfer market in search of a new home.

He had plenty of suitors including two from the Lone Star State in Texas and Texas Tech. According to Watson, the team culture was one of the main reasons he chose Austin.

“Definitely coming in here, the brotherhood stood out to me the most,” Watson said Tuesday. “These guys welcomed me with open arms. I’m coming from a different university. Old guy, know what I mean? A lot of people have certain expectations. The guys really took me under their wing and accepted me.”

His post-grad recruiting experience wasn’t his first contact with Longhorn football. As a member of the Cal football team in 2015, Watson had nine carries for 37 yards in the Golden Bears’ one-point win over the Longhorns in Austin. He had a quiet game in the rematch with five carries for 11 yards.

Watson didn’t want to answer questions about the 2015 game and its end result. “I’m here now,” he said with a laugh. He did remember how the environment Royal-Memorial Stadium was after a different 0-1 start for the Longhorns. “This is the loudest stadium I’ve ever been a part of,” Watson said.

After a brief taste in 2015, Watson sounded beyond excited to play on Joe Jamail Field.

“I can’t wait to run out of this tunnel,” Watson said. “I came here for the spring game and saw the amount of fans that were there. That’s like the home games that we had at my other school. Seeing that and now coming here, and knowing we’re going to play a home game here, the fans, it’s a night game, it’s going to be a blessing to experience this.”

The injury that ended Watson’s 2017 happened on a swing pass against Weber State. In addition, the coaching change in Berkeley, and his graduation with a degree in sociology left Watson on his own to rehab his injury.

“It definitely was (tricky),” Watson said. “For me, it wasn’t too hard because I was very motivated and I knew what the next step was and that was to move on and go play somewhere else. I knew I was going to have to be ready when I did get here and compete.”

In his debut, Watson totaled 52 yards on 12 carries. Watson claimed he wasn’t rusty getting out of the gate, but did admit there was an acclimation period coming back from his injury and getting into the speed of live action.

“It definitely was a little adjustment,” Watson said. “Texas has done a great job monitoring my injury coming back from an ACL last year. It took a little bit but I built confidence and the team built me up. I felt like I was ready to go out there in the first week and compete.”

It was mostly an unremarkable debut for Watson until he fumbled on his only reception of the game late in the fourth quarter. That fumble was one of three turnovers on three consecutive possessions for the Longhorns to close out the game.

Watson’s memory appeared short on Tuesday, and he was ready to prove the offense had another gear they could kick into against the visiting Tulsa Golden Hurricane.

“We know that we could have played better in all aspects of the game,” Watson said. “We can’t point fingers at anybody and everybody just has to go out this week and attack practice, and focus on Tulsa. That’s the ultimate goal; going out and performing at the level we know we can.”

The sociology grad is working toward a master’s degree in social work from UT. He shares an undergraduate degree with Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte, and eventually wants to share a job in the same field. “I want to be an athletic director at the end of the day,” Watson said.

He’s had brief conversations with the Longhorn athletic director about overseeing a program, but there’s still business on the football field for Watson to take care of.

“I loved it, man,” Watson said about being back on the football field. “I’m just blessed to be in the position that I’m in.”