Takeaways from Tuesday’s open practice
Troy Omeire... did not have a brace on his twice-surgically repaired knee. Luke Brockermeyer was dressed and did not practice, as well as wide receiver Jaden Alexis.
[W]ide receiver
Casey Cain was wearing a green no-contact jersey, but did not appear limited while turning in a strong performance.
As Sarkisian explained at on Monday, and as is the case with any open practice or even the Orange-White game, it was a vanilla practice with the limited play-calling favoring the defense.
Both quarterbacks showed room for improvement on Tuesday.
After throwing only one interception last season,
Card threw at least four interceptions on Tuesday, with an early interception by safety
Jerrin Thompson. Card then threw multiple interceptions during a team period, including one by linebacker
Jaylan Ford jumping a route that would have gone for a touchdown.
Ewers made better decisions during the team periods, but fumbled one snap and had an extremely poor stretch during some pared-down passing drills, going about six passes without a completion and throwing two interceptions during that stretch, as well as holding onto the ball until the play was whistled dead.
Both quarterbacks also made some wow plays. On a bootleg, Ewers threw the ball about 40 yards on the run to wide receiver
Brenen Thompson in the corner of the end zone.
Card had two such plays, finding Cain in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown and then hitting Thompson on a post for a touchdown.
In terms of reps, Card worked with the first team early in practice, but Ewers received more first-team reps in team periods.
The running back position was harder to judge with
Johnson and
Brooks both out, although running back
Bijan Robinson did flash his big-play ability at times in the team periods, which mostly amounts to a good sign for the first-team offensive line. Where the running backs did struggle was in a pass-blocking drill without Johnson, the best on the team in that area. Robinson notably lost two reps in a row to linebacker
DeMarvion Overshown before demanding another and winning it, a small testament to his offseason commitment to improve that part of his game. Otherwise, the linebackers won most of the reps, with
Diamonte Tucker-Dorsey showing his quickness and elusiveness in the drill.
At tight end, there weren’t any noticeable flash plays in the team drills, but Texas did spend a lot of time in 12 personnel, suggesting the Longhorns could use it more frequently this season...
The unit with the worst performance was the wide receivers, who struggled with drops. In fact,
Jordan Whittington was the only player in the position group who didn’t have a noticeable drop...
Tarique Milton struggled the most with close to five drops, including one on a throw from Ewers that resulted in an interception.
Savion Red also had a drop on a screen pass, but flashed his explosiveness on a drills designed to put wide receivers in a small area against the sideline with multiple defenders...
Other than the steady Whittington, who had an impressive leaping grab in the end zone against... cornerback
D’Shawn Jamison, the wide receiver with the most impressive performance on the day was Cain, who showed his ability to create separation and catch every pass that came his way.
Along the offensive line, the most notable developments were
Kelvin Banks working at left tackle with the ones and
DJ Campbell playing right guard with
Hutson out.
Across the ball, nose tackle
Byron Murphy worked with the first team, as did defensive tackle
Vernon Broughton. Sarkisian mentioned both as having strong preseason camps and it looks like both could take over the starting jobs at those positions...
In addition to the rush off the edge by Overshown, he also made an impressive play in coverage, breaking up a third-down pass from Ewers intended for
Worthy. Otherwise, the most significant plays from the linebackers were the interception by Ford and
Jett Bush blowing up a screen pass to running back
Keilan Robinson.
In the secondary, Jamison looked intent on having the best season of his career with multiple interceptions...
[Much more at BON]