Texas coach Tom Herman praised his players for sparking social change at the university and stressed the need for continued action during a public appearance Thursday.
Herman called his players’ push for changes — which last week included the renaming of the field for Ricky Williams and Earl Campbell, a statue for the school’s first Black football letterman (Julius Whittier) and renaming of multiple campus buildings — “monumental.”
“To see what our players did in the change that they became the catalyst for … it’s monumental,” Herman said during a video conference with the Houston Touchdown Club. “To sit there last Wednesday in that stadium, one of the most iconic stadiums in all of college football and have Dahr Jamail, Joe Jamail’s son, stand up and address the team and tell them, ‘Guys, me and my family would have never had this idea if you hadn’t done what you did.’ I mean, this is history. You guys are on the forefront of history.”
Additionally, Herman noted the need for his team to continue to take action to create change daily.
“It’s easier to, you know, craft a statement and put it on Twitter and have everybody in our administration and support group perk their ears up, Herman said. “It’s a lot harder to do things, daily in silence that positively impact your community, and the people that you associate with. And so that’s the biggest challenge moving forward is to make sure that we understand that this isn’t just an event, this is a way of life, and that if any of us stopped before equality and justice is achieved and then we failed.”
When asked about the season amidst the coronavirus pandemic, Herman sounded hopeful about the potential for still playing and said that the positive test counts for COVID-19 on his roster is on a significant decline.
“I know our positive numbers have dropped dramatically,” Herman said. “I’m not allowed to say numbers but almost non-existent at this point.”
Herman said his team is taking all the necessary precautions in the team building and during workouts, wearing masks and social distancing. He said none of the positive tests on his team have been traced back to a team workout.
“We wear our masks, constantly” Herman said. “We’re (having) one person at a rack in the weight room, we’re 5 yards apart when we run, and even when we do drills now if it’s a person-versus-person drill, they’ve got masks up and covering the mouth and nose, and they get the drill done they get done they jog off they get a sip of water and they go do it again, and it is extremely safe.”
Herman was also asked about potentially playing longtime rival Texas A&M in the instance that non-conference schedules are modified. The Big 12 still hopes to play 12 games, but two Power 5 conferences — the Big Ten and Pac-12 — have announced they’ll play only conference games. Regardless of circumstance, whether this season or in the future, Herman said the Longhorns would like to play the Aggies and doesn’t understand why they don’t. The two teams last played in 2011, when they were both in the Big 12, a season before the Aggies left to join the SEC.
“It’s mind-boggling to me [that we don’t play]” Herman said. “Georgia and Georgia Tech figured out a way to play every year, Clemson-South Carolina, Iowa-Iowa State, Kentucky-Louisville — I mean the list goes on and on and on of in-state rivals that happen to be in different conferences, Florida-Florida State, I mean where do you want me to stop? They play every year.
“So if I’m an athletic director, you know, I’m going to want a marquee non-conference game at home every other year, totally understandable. But to fly to Los Angeles to play a night game on a Saturday night on West Coast time to say that we played USC or fly to Columbus, Ohio, or to fly to Gainesville, Florida, when we can hop in a bus and drive an hour and a half, East [to College Station to play Texas A&M]. I’ll never understand [why we don’t do it].”
Herman said Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte feels similarly about the issue as does the team.
“I hope someday that we can figure out a way to be like everybody else in the country,” Herman said. “And we’ve reached out to try to play them in the past, and that didn’t go real well. And, you know, maybe this [schedule changes because of the pandemic] will be the catalyst to make it happen. I haven’t heard anything like that, but who knows? Desperate times call for desperate measures, right?
“So, we’d love to play them. I know that at least I know within our program we would love to play Texas A&M.”