Texas Longhorns

Dallas Skyline QB Devante Kincade was named the MVP of the Dallas Elite 11 camp and earned the first invitation to the finals.

For Texas fans, all eyes were on Tyrone Swoopes. The Whitewright, Texas, product started slowly and showed how raw of a player he is. He also showed that he can be coached into a phenomenal player.

From Elite 11 coach Yogi Roth:

"You just want to mold it, put your hands on it and build him into the dominant player that he can be."

Swoopes used that coaching and advice he got from Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo to bounce back and work his way to the top group.

Swoopes appeared to take that to heart and quickly moved over to the first group after a few throws to route-running receivers.

That performance helped Swoopes become one of six quarterbacks to compete in the final drill of the camp, a two-minute drill that featured an assortment of short, intermediate and long throws as the player made his way down the field with Roth counting down the game's final seconds.

"What we saw in the two-minute drill is that his mind can play as fast as his athletic ability," Roth said. "He's never dropped back in his life. All of a sudden he's dropping back, I'm screaming at him and he played really poised. I was really proud of him."

Read more from William Wilkerson's story here.

Swoopes and J.T. Barrett (Wichita Falls, Texas/Rider) did eventually earn their golden tickets to the Elite 11 finals in Redondo Beach, Calif., in July by their performance in Sunday's NFTC.

More from the Dallas Elite 11:

• Tom Luginbill recaps the action

• Several QBs made long trips to Dallas and made the trip worth it with impressive performances.

• Photo gallery

AUSTIN, Texas -- David Ash has taken to the habit of carrying the football everywhere with him.

Well, just about everywhere.

“Not to church,” the Texas quarterback said.

Hold up. Isn’t football a religion in Texas? That pigskin should be on the pew.
Then again, it’s hard to flip the pages and hold the hymnal with one hand on the laces. So maybe he earns a pass in that circumstance.

But for those who kneel at the altar of Texas football, it might be a wise thing to start throwing a few prayers toward the heavens that Ash has learned a few things from all this football toting about keeping it secure. After all, it was his inability to do so that brought down a little fire and brimstone on the Longhorns in 2011.

There were two drive killers against Oklahoma State (one interception and one fumble). Then there were two more interceptions thrown against Kansas State. Both were games that could have been won had it not been for the four turnovers that lead to 17 points. Two of the turnovers killed drives inside the opponents’ 40. Another was inside Texas’ 20.

“If you look at last year, the eight games we won, we won the turnover battle,” Ash said.

Ash, at least, has been enlightened to that little fact. Truth be told, several lights have come on for Ash since throwing six interceptions before his first touchdown in 2011.

“It was just going back and getting a realistic approach to some of those scenarios and games that weren't good,” co-offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin said. “What was bad about it? Well, maybe it was footwork, or mechanics or you were late. That's really what it is.

“It started to make more sense. He started to feel more comfortable with what we were doing. That's really it. He's taken the next step in his preparation before we got into spring practice of studying the system and having a better understanding of the expectations for these plays and in these situations.”

Those steps, at least many of them, are usually taken away from the glare of DKR at practice, during a redshirt season.

“Having that grace period of a redshirt, it’s very valuable and that would have helped me a lot in developing,” Ash said. “But in the situation we were in last year that was impossible.

“Every quarterback that has a chance to redshirt should."

Instead, Ash was red-faced in anger for his inability to do what he had always done -- lead a team, display his arm and make intelligent, strong throws. What he wasn’t angry at was the scrutiny or the critics. While maybe he didn’t welcome their comments, he at least understood them.

“I think it makes you better as a player,” Ash said. “Going through that, it makes you stronger.”

Which is where Ash is now.

“What I have seen from David, and really everybody on our offense, is a heightened sense of confidence in terms of knowing what we're doing,” defensive coordinator Manny Diaz said.

“You can just see, last spring it was all new. And then you're getting to two-a-days and it's review. Then you go to the season and again, you don't want to play during the season and do on-the-job training, but with the new schemes it was a little bit of what we were doing.”

Now Ash has been able to exhale, absorb and rebuild himself into the confident football player he had once been. And, maybe more importantly, Ash has started to understand that, to be successful at Texas, he has to be himself.

“You come in, there is an expectation of a UT quarterback, you’ve got to be a Vince Young or a Colt McCoy,” Ash said. “But you don’t have to be that. The biggest thing I learned is be yourself.”

1. Going camping: More than 700 players participated in the Nike Football Training Camp in Dallas on Sunday. Of those 700, six Longhorns commits – Jake Oliver, Durham Smythe, Jake Raulerson, Daeshon Hall, A’Shawn Robinson and Jacorey Warrick – took part.

Of course, there were Texas targets among that swarm of young football players. It’s events like these that let the prospects show off a little bit and in Texas’ case, let’s the player come together as a group. And maybe recruit a few kids who have yet to decide.

It might not be a deciding factor, but seeing such a large group of future UT players together and competing can have an impact. It’s certainly an invaluable tool for coaches who can’t recruit at these events.

2. Baseball is getting better: Texas took the weekend series from Kansas State with a 8-5 win on Sunday. The Longhorns are now 5-1 in conference play, and it appears that the bats have awoken. Texas has scored seven or more runs in five of its last seven games.

As they have rounded into some form, the Longhorns will get a visit this weekend from the Cal Bears. Cal has started 1-5 in Pac-12 play, but were a College World Series team last year. This is a good out-of-conference meeting for Texas. The Longhorns will host Cal at the Dell Diamond, the home of the Round Rock Express. It will break up the conference schedule and let Texas see what it has against a team from another conference.

3. Speeding through town: The Texas Relays start this week and a total of 51 Longhorns will participate. The event, which has been held since 1925, welcomes many of the nation’s best track and field athletes from all sizes of colleges and also from Texas high schools.

According to the Austin Visitor’s Bureau, the event has become a social function as well and could bring in around $8 million to local businesses. So, too weeks after SXSW took over and flooded Austin with hipsters and the tech-savvy, the college track world arrives.

The Texas Longhorns will be without Quandre Diggs for the remainder of spring practice after the sophomore cornerback sustained a wrist injury.

The injury required surgery which was successfully performed Saturday, according to a university release.

Head athletic trainer for football Kenny Boyd expects Diggs to make a full recovery and be ready in time for the season.

Diggs started 11 games in 2011 and played in all 13. He was named Big 12 Defensive Freshman of Year after recording 51 tackles and a team-high four interceptions.

DALLAS -- The Dallas Elite 11 is Saturday at 4 p.m. CT. Join our team of scouts and writers who will provide updates, news and notes throughout the event.

The 2012 Elite 11 QB season gets underway today with the the first regional in Dallas.

Texas commit Tyrone Swoopes will be one of the QBs in action competing for a spot at the renowned Elite 11 camp over the summer.

Follow the action with our live chat starting at 4 p.m. CT.

If you missed William Wilkerson talking about the Longhorns and Tyrone Swoopes at Elite 11 and what to expect at this weekend's Elite 11 and Nike Football Training Camps on "The Adams Theory" with Sean Adams, we've got you covered.

William Wilkerson interview.

AUSTIN, Texas -- D.J. Monroe has shown flashes, but to this point, they've been little more.

The most memorable? An 80-yard scamper in Red River in 2010 to jolt the Longhorns awake from an early 14-0 deficit.

Monroe's role in the offense has been minimal, but his gamebreaking potential is enormous. That's clear to everyone, including Texas' coaching staff.

Monroe, despite his speed, would likely be little more than Texas' fourth-string running back next fall after Joe Bergeron and Malcolm Brown established themselves as top runners in 2011 and the nation's No. 1 high school running back -- Johnathan Gray -- en route to Austin this summer.

Texas' response? Helping Monroe get on the field by working him at receiver, where the Longhorns are much thinner.

"The best play D.J. has for us is the speed sweep, and he is a wide receiver when he does that," Texas coach Mack Brown said. "He will work more with (receivers coach) Darrell Wyatt the latter part of practice so we can try to get him in the game without giving it away that he's in there only for a play that he runs."

That could mean a bigger role for the bubble screen in Monroe's arsenal, too.

For Texas, though, it's a great move and a necessary one.

Monroe's a running back at heart. Brown made that clear.

"He can do things in space. So we've been trying to force tailback on him when our tailbacks are now 205 to 240, and that's not his game," Brown said. "He's 165 pounds, 170 pounds, and he needs to be a space player. And I think we've got something that can help him if he can grow in that area."

Giving Monroe the ball on bubbles like Oklahoma did with Ryan Broyles could birth big results next season. Monroe's a gamebreaker waiting to happen, but with his limited package, his touches have been minimal.

If Monroe can prove the slant route or a quick out are legitimate options defenses must respect, the whole team should be better off. It sounds small, but keep an eye out for big results.

And though Texas wants balance, don't expect the Longhorns to lose sight of what this move is really about.

"He needs to be outside," Brown said. "That's who he is."

WACO, Texas -- One man lays underneath 225 pounds on a bench press, in the midst of proving to NFL scouts he can lift it a whole lot of times.

Around the bench are at least 15 others who won't get a turn, at least not this year. They're there to provide (extremely) vocal moral support.

Maybe their yells of encouragement mean another rep or two from their former teammate. They're going to do everything possible to make sure.

Their presence isn't just for the benefit of the men running 40-yard dashes or bench-pressing 225 pounds as many times as they can -- the results of each task potentially earning them more money on their first NFL contract.

Players with another year or more before they get a chance to show their stuff to NFL scouts at a pro day or the combine can learn a lot from showing up to pro day, whether they offer moral support or not.

"This is a day about dreams becoming touchable," said Baylor coach Art Briles. "They’re not on paper. They’re not in your head. They’re real. You can see them and touch them."

It's not every day NFL head coaches are walking around a college indoor facility, like they were at Baylor and Texas this week, as well as Stanford on Thursday and tens of others through the spring.

Briles knows the element of the intangible becoming tangible makes pro days special, especially for players who didn't get a prized slot at the NFL combine.

"At the combine, they told us millions of kids play high school football, 65,000 play college football, 350 or so of us get invited to the combine and only 256 get drafted," said Texas linebacker Emmanuel Acho. "That’s a harsh reality to come to grips with. If you come to grips with it in college, you’ll work that much harder."

But for all the cloud-floating that can come with a day when dreams are realized, there are plenty of details younger players can pick up on while scouts scrutinize.

"A big main key was, to me, follow directions and listen to what they’re telling you to do. If you can do that, everything else is up to you," Texas running back Fozzy Whittaker said. "You have all control over following directions and just listen to what they’re saying in terms of running a drill or running a route. Staying outside of cones rather than running inside, just the simple things you can control mentally. There’s a lot of things I’ve seen that’ll affect the coaches, because if you have three guys that do the same drill and they all do it right and the fourth guy messes it up, it’s like, what were you doing the whole time the other guys were doing it?"

There's a lot to focus on for everyone involved with pro days, but the undercurrent is the same for everyone -- from first-round picks to probable post-draft free agents.

"All these guys have worked their way into this," Baylor defensive coordinator Phil Bennett said. "It's an earned right to get to do what they’re doing."

They earned the right for NFL coaches to see them, but even underclassmen get that opportunity after pro day is over. Some NFL personnel stick around campus for practice in the afternoon to get a jump on seeing up close the players they'll be seeing at next year's pro day.

"Knowledge is power. If they see you have knowledge of the game, it allows you to play fast. If you have knowledge, you have confidence. That’s what they look for," Bennett said. "Kids call it swagger, or whatever it is, but when you're confident in what you’re doing, you play fast. When pros come in here, that’s what they look for, the guys that know what they’re doing and play like they know what they’re doing."

To prepare for pro day, most prospects leave school for training facilities. Baylor's Robert Griffin III spent the past few months in Arizona. Texas linebacker Keenan Robinson went to California. They're away from teammates for months, and when they return in anticipation of a pro day, it's easy for underclassmen to see what those intense training regimens do. Robinson and Griffin saw it in their own teammates.

"The players hadn’t seen me in a couple months, see the transformation that my body has made, just seeing the work ethic I had to get where I am today, how it really helped improve my stock," Robinson said. "When you go out for training, you can’t just go out there lollygagging and being complacent. You have to go every day with a burden on your back and strive to be the best player, because someone else around the country is doing what you’re doing, and maybe more."

Even with those transformations, training can't begin when the bowl game ends.

"The stuff I was able to do today didn’t come from me training after the season was over," Robinson said. "It came from all the hard work and hard labor I put in from the end of my senior year of high school until now."

Said Acho: "If you wait for the three-month stretch after the bowl game, you won’t perform at a high level. But if you work with that same mentality in every individual period before practice and come out here, it’ll be second nature."

Pro days can be pressure-packed, but ultimately, everyone's faced with the biggest truth of a day that often feels enormous: The biggest work NFL coaches want to see is already done.

"The first thing you can do is play hard, because tape doesn’t lie. One NFL coach was telling me, 'We were watching a play and this kid looked like he turned something down.' I mean, they watch everything," Bennett said. "So, when you’re playing and practicing, you better know, somebody’s watching. And it might not just be your coaches, it might be your future coaches."

If the No. 25 Longhorns (11-8, 3-0 Big 12) want to continue their six-game winning streak by taking the first of a three-game set at Kansas State Friday, they’d better hope Nathan Thornhill can find a cure for his first inning woes.

Thornhill, who is 2-1 with a 3.21 ERA, has been woefully consistent in five first innings this season. The right-hander has yielded eight runs (all earned) on nine hits and five walks, which amounts to a 14.40 ERA and a .375 average against.

After the first inning, Thornhill has pitched like the Friday starter Texas has envisioned this season. The rest of the way he has allowed just eight runs (four earned), on 29 hits and four walks in 28 2/3 innings. He holds a 1.26 ERA after the first inning and is holding opponents to a .188 clip.

If he can keep Kansas State (12-8, 1-2) at bay, he should receive enough run support to carry him deep into the game. That is if the Texas’ bats continue as they have during this winning streak, which includes wins over four top 25 opponents.

The Longhorns have scored nine runs in three straight games and hit .360 during their three-game sweep of Oklahoma.

One of the leaders of the offense has been right fielder Mark Payton, who has reached base in all 19 games this season. Payton, who recorded at least one base hit in 16 games, owns a .333 average and .432 on-base percentage.

Kansas State is looking to snap a two-game skid at the hands of Texas A&M. The Wildcats took the first game of the series 15-12 but dropped the final two 9-2 and 7-2.

Right-hander Matt Applegate (1-2, 6.04 ERA) will toe the rubber for the Wildcats.