Editor’s note: This week, The All-American is republishing some of our most popular stories from the 2017 regular season. This story first appeared on Oct. 5.
AUSTIN, Texas — The cautionary tale of P.J. Locke was told over and over again at Texas this past offseason.
The junior defensive back is a favorite of first-year Longhorns coach Tom Herman. He’s called Locke’s parents to thank them for raising such a great kid. Locke is no troublemaker. But he did a bad, almost unforgivable thing one night last spring.
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He lost his green Gatorade water bottle.
And Texas’ first-year head coach found it, accidentally left behind in the players’ lounge. He texted a photo to Locke and defensive backs coach Jason Washington.
“I think my text was something like, ‘What is your water bottle doing not in your hand?’ ” Herman told The All-American. “And his response was probably what got me. ‘Hahaha, yeah my bad, I’ve been looking for that.’ So, OK, this kid doesn’t get it.”
Herman called a 4 a.m. meeting the next day to rip into Locke and Washington to their faces. The message, as he explains it: “This is vitally important to what we do around here. If I’m gonna tell you it’s vitally important and you’re not gonna adhere to what’s required of you, that’s called defiance.”
For Locke, that act of defiance also required “air raids” (up-downs every 5 yards for 200 yards) and a shift cleaning Texas’ weight room with a rag and a bottle of 409. This was no ordinary act of discipline. Locke had made an appalling mistake: He did not show proper care for his hydration.
“We’re fanatical about it,” Herman said.
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Fanatical means daily urine testing, mandatory weigh-ins before and after every practice, personalized water and Gatorade requirements and one extremely serious “hydration chart.” Drink up or pay the price. Any Texas player caught without a water bottle on their person is sentenced to 10 up-downs, right then and there. Skip one of the weigh-ins, Texas strength coach Yancy McKnight said, and that’ll be 20 up-downs.
Herman and his staff assign maniacal importance into this simple practice with good reason. He claims, to his knowledge, only two football teams finished the 2016 season with no instances of pulled hamstrings: the New England Patriots and the Houston Cougars. He’ll point out, too, that the Longhorns did not experience any hamstring pulls or soft-tissue injuries in fall camp.
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The 2-2 Longhorns, who host Kansas State on Saturday, continue to be a work in progress. But the impact of Herman’s culture-building process is starting to show. The man is all about intense attention to simple detail. And it doesn’t get any simpler than H2O.
Herman likes to explain it all this way, because muscle inside the body is more than 70 percent water: It’s easier to rip apart dehydrated beef jerky than rip apart raw steak. He’s found hydration can indeed help prevent the soft-tissue injuries that often sideline football players.
So Texas players carry those 32-ounce green bottles everywhere they go. Safety Brandon Jones said he’ll chug six or seven bottles of water plus six or seven bottles of Gatorade in a day. Offensive lineman Patrick Vahe prefers hauling a 1-gallon jug and estimates he drinks five or six gallons of fluids a day.
When players show up to the facility in the morning, they take a brief wellness assessment in an iPad — logging info like sleep time and body soreness — and then fuel up before taking their hydration test. Before and after practice, they step on a scale to record exactly how much water weight they lost. That data is laid out in a packet delivered to McKnight’s desk right after practice.
Herman likes to explain it all this way, because muscle inside the body is more than 70 percent water: It’s easier to rip apart dehydrated beef jerky than rip apart raw steak.
Any player who sheds 3 percent or more of their body weight gets red-flagged. Getting flagged on back-to-back days means the breakfast program: The staff must watch and document a player eating his breakfast.
McKnight and the strength and nutrition staffs use that data to calculate how much water and Gatorade their players need to put back into their bodies. He’s seen linebacker Breckyn Hager, for example, sweat off 10 pounds in one practice and gain it all back by the end of the day. Those hydration assignments get posted in position meeting rooms so nobody forgets.
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“Really, it’s our whole building,” McKnight said. “Everyone talks about it: our trainers, our nutritionists, our position coaches, our GAs, our ops people, our strength staff. Everybody talks about hydration.”
Cornerback Kris Boyd said Texas players did perform hydration tests on game days last season. So, sure, they were laughing at first at the idea of peeing in a cup every single day.
“We didn’t understand how important it was to prevent injuries and be a pro at taking care of your body,” Boyd said. “We were like, ‘Are you serious? Hydration tests every day?’ Now we’re like, ‘Ay, make sure you’re drinking water.’ ”
They immediately saw results. Jones said he wakes up feeling more refreshed and less sore. All those fluids are just part of the daily routine now, no big deal. Herman said daily testing at Houston wasn’t affordable. At Texas, he got $8 million in facility upgrades before he ever coached a game. Resources are no issue.
Herman’s new hydration program has been a good deal for everybody except the interns on McKnight’s strength staff. They’re the ones who had the task of collecting and evaluating 105 urine samples on a daily basis this summer.
“Yeah, it’s probably not the greatest job,” McKnight said. “But you know what? Everyone has to start somewhere.”
Herman and strength coach Yancy McKnight (right) hold Longhorns players accountable for the color of their urine. (Associated Press)Herman doesn’t joke around about these hydration tests. The “Longhorn Football Hydration Chart” is posted over toilets throughout their facility. The chart itself is not uncommon in locker rooms across athletics. The values Herman attaches to his charts are unique, though.
The urine color chart has eight levels, the lighter the better. You’re experiencing “Championship Hydration” if you test at the top of the chart.
If you’re not a champ at hydrating, the chart suggests you are a “selfish teammate.” Test out at the darkest end of the color chart and you receive this bold designation: “YOU ARE A BAD GUY!!!” And, yes, Herman absolutely stands by that accusation.
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“I believe that,” he said. “You’re being required to do something, something as simple as squirting water into your mouth and swallowing it. Not a very difficult task. Doesn’t require a lot of energy. Doesn’t hurt. Not inconvenient. Squirt water in your mouth and swallow it. And if you can’t do that for your teammates, on a regular consistent basis, you’re probably a bad guy!”
Furthermore: If a player can’t handle the easy stuff like drinking water and passing hydration tests, why would Texas’ coaches trust and depend on them?
“Like I’m gonna put you in the game on fourth and 1 against Oklahoma?” Herman said with a laugh. “Come on! That’s ridiculous!”
For Texas defensive back P.J. Locke, facing the cameras at Big 12 media days was nothing compared to facing his coach without a water bottle. (Kevin Jairaj / USA TODAY Sports)It’s all symbolic of what Herman is trying to accomplish in his first year as the leader of the Longhorns. It’s about trust and compliance. He’s offering his players a winning blueprint. If they can’t follow his instructions, they can’t help him win.
“It’s not for everybody,” McKnight said. “This is the way it’s going on in this building. That’s the way it is. The guys that can’t conform or don’t want to conform, they move on. And that’s OK.”
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Hydration is just one piece of a bigger puzzle for Herman and McKnight. They’ve expanded Texas’ sports science programs in their first 10 months here.
Their players are wearing Catapult GPS monitors on their pads when they practice to measure workload, speed, acceleration and distance. Applied sports science staffers analyze that data. They tried sleep tracking bands this summer. They’re working with Gatorade on a sweat study and with Fitbit on a customized program. Biomechanical movement and body composition scanners are on the way.
“If we have the resources and we believe in it,” Herman said, “let’s do it the best we can.”
If any of this sounds familiar, that’s because Chip Kelly did all of these things while head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers. He took his sports science program at Oregon to another level when he entered the NFL. It was Kelly who inspired Urban Meyer to implement daily hydration tests and GPS monitoring at Ohio State while Herman was offensive coordinator there.
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As McKnight put it: “If you’re a good coach, you’re a good thief.”
And if you’re a good player, you’re never thirsty. Locke learned his lesson. He started wearing the water bottle around his neck, using a shoelace to fashion a necklace. And that was the last time any Texas player underestimated their new coach’s devotion to hydration.
“When I say it was crazy, it was an eye-opener,” Locke said. “He met with me about a water bottle. A water bottle.”
(Top photo: Associated Press)
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