For the “Legends of the Locker Room,” we have Texas legendary player and part of the 3rd and Longhorn crew, Alex Okafor, to discuss the “Red River Rivalry” game on Saturday at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas, as the Longhorns play the Sooners. He discussed his experience playing in the game, noting how the new “College Football Playoffs” format has changed the sport. He explained his role at Pflugerville Independent School District and what motivated him to run for the school board. He explains how important it is to have a tough week of practice after a bad loss. He gives his opinion on what adjustments the Longhorns can make to repair the lack of a running game. You can hear it all here on “The Morning Kickoff Show!”
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Let's Mark Henry and you used to seeing them on
the grid iron, but now you get a chance to
see him holding it down with the crew from Third
(00:25):
and Longhorn, which you could hear right before our pregame
show every Saturday.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It's our guy, Alex Okafer.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
You knew him in the NFL and you knew him
on that field. Now he's busting it out with his chops.
What's happening, Alex? How you doing, buddy?
Speaker 4 (00:44):
I'm doing well. I appreciate y'all fellas for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
We appreciate you taking the time to come on with
us because we know what this week is to the
players that are on the field now.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
But what is this when you were What is this
to you? This week mean?
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Overall, we're talking about the Red River rivalry and just
kind of looking back on my playing career, I look
back at the dynamic teams that both Texas and Oklahoma
had rolled out on the field, and when I was
in the program, I was going against guys like Sam.
Speaker 6 (01:17):
Bradford, Trent Williams, Jermaine Gresham, DeMarco Murray, guys like that,
and then just to kind of see how the evolution
of this rivalry has played out. It's it's to me,
the best sports, the best environment in all of sports.
And I mean it's that any given Sunday mentality, no
matter what the rankings is, coming into this.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Game, you don't know what you're gonna get.
Speaker 7 (01:39):
Give us the experience of coming out of that tunnel
and your opponent is standing right next to you, and
you run out and you you hit the open air,
you leave the tunnel, and you come out into the
crowd like paint the picture for us.
Speaker 6 (01:56):
Yeah, No, it's unreal, and it's to this day, it's
still crazy that they make both teams come out the
same tunnel. But I think it even adds to the
aspect of the rivalry because there's bad blood for sure.
I mean there's a level of respect, but there's definitely
bad blood. And the fact that we're both coming out
the same tunnel, the fact that we're both barking at
each other while leaving the tunnel.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Just adds the extra layer of energy to this rivalry.
Speaker 6 (02:21):
And then once you run out on the field and
see the split crowd, where else in sports are.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
You're gonna get something like that.
Speaker 6 (02:27):
So this is one of those games where no matter
if you're on Texas or Oklahoma. You just cherish games
like this because it's one of those rare sports environments
that you don't see on the regular.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
And the one thing that I continue to look at, too, Alex,
is when you walk out, and you said it perfectly,
When you walk out, you see it split fifty to fifty.
You don't know if there was a big play by
your team or a big play by their team, because
the sound remains the same the entire game. So it's
always been an interesting game for me because there's so
(03:01):
much house divided type of situation as we have right
here with Mark Henry. Mark Henry's son is now on
the Oklahoma Centers football team. But Mark says Texas gonna
win bout thirty and he don't even care.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
I respect and I appreciate the colon opinion by Mark.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Right there col at my house all I could imagine
you you got Texas winning by thirty.
Speaker 6 (03:31):
I'm sure you talk about a split household. I'm sure
your household is the epitome of that.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
I'm right with me. I can imagine I'm right there
with you, though. Man. I was speaking on this game on.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
Our podcast starting Longhorn earlier this week, and you know,
Oklahoma's offense is just like, damn, why did they have
to play that poorly right the week right before we
get to play them? Why did they have to put
out a piss forward performance like that defensively because they
know what type of defense we tried out there for
the past couple of years, and they know what the
performance like we had against Florida.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
They're going to get our best version this upcoming week.
Speaker 6 (04:11):
So I mean that leads me to believe that Texas
is coming ready for the snatchup.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Well, it's funny that you said that.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
We're talking to Alex Okaferm, former Texas longhorn, former Kansas
City chief and now one of the main characters on
Third and Longhorns podcast, doing a great job with that
crew over there. But I wanted to ask you that
because you know, in some situations, you'll look at the
game and you see what happened last weekend, and you
(04:37):
always here, don't let one loss lead to another. But
the one thing about it is this right here this week.
It couldn't have been timed any better because your focus
against this opponent locks you right back in.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Yeah. Absolutely, and that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 6 (04:55):
It's a week two week game and Oklahoma knows that
they're going to get a pissed off version of this
Texas team.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
And it's right on time because you got the Red
River environment on top of that.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
So, like you said, with the new with the new
format of college football in the in the playoffs, one
lass doesn't necessarily mean you're out of this thing. And
if you can get a big win against the top
ten opponent like this, this will put you right back
in the mix and everything will still be right in
front of you in terms of achieving your goals if
you get a win like this.
Speaker 7 (05:25):
Alex Harts brought up the fact that you're on third
and Longhorm, but you know, I'm, I'm. We both spoke
at an event at Mike Adams school up in the
I guess that's the Round Rock ISD. It's it's all
kindly like, uh, what what is your role in that
(05:46):
in that district?
Speaker 6 (05:49):
Yeah, So, first of all, shout out coach Mike Adams
over there doing an excellent job within the Flugerville ISD
School district. Also a legend from the University of Texas,
a shout out here, dude, and facts.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
I appreciate what he's doing for our students over here.
Speaker 6 (06:04):
In Fligerville, but for me personally, once I finished playing
in the league, I was transitioning and I didn't have
the podcast that we have going on right now, so
I needed something to put my time into. And I
told myself, I don't know what I want to do
after I'm done playing, but for the meantime, I do
want to get be in the community and be around
these kids. So went back from the Flugerville ran for
(06:26):
the school board, got the seat, and now I'm serving
a three year term for the Fluckerville Independent School Board.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Out here, Yeah, we appreciate what you're doing too, especially
for somebody like myself who's part of that school district
with my two kids that go to Hendrickson and Highland Park,
So we appreciate everything that you're doing for that area.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
But I wanted to ask.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
You this too, because you know, this is one of
those things where everybody's being questioned this week, the offensive line,
the defensive line being pushed back.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
When you're in practice after a tough, tough week.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
What what is practice like when you both know that
y'all need to get better?
Speaker 6 (07:09):
Yeah, it's gonna be it's a week for these guys,
especially when you get physically dominated like we did last week.
It's it's it's one thing to go out there and
have missed assignments or sometimes the lack of effort. You
can fix that up easily, but when you have a
lack of physicality, that's alarming and you got to.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
You gotta get that fixed immediately.
Speaker 6 (07:31):
So that tells me that they're going to have a
very physical and demanding practice or multiple physical and demanding
practices this week, and sarcasts to clean that up. We've
got to be better at the point of the tech
offensively and defensively. Offensively, we've got to stay on blocks
and move bodies off the line of scrimmage.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Defensively, it's it's vice versa.
Speaker 6 (07:50):
We got to strike and we got to get off
blots and use our hands and make tackles behind the
line of scrimmage. And it's hard to get that done
when you're not in pads. And I know we're in
the this thing. We're right in the middle of the
season and everybody's hurting, everybody's tired, but you still got
to get it about.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
These players, especially when there's a lack of violence being
shown on the field.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
So to answer your question, I expect some very physical
practices this week. I expect Sark to demand greatness from
his players this week, and I expect to see a
different product rolled out there this week and against Oklahoma.
Speaker 7 (08:22):
What do you think about the coaching schemes and what
the way that Texas didn't really have a flow? I
think a lot of that was because of not having
a running game. But what do you think that they
can do to correct that?
Speaker 6 (08:36):
Yeah, I mean you hit it right on the head
in terms of not having a rushing attack. If you
take away archers rush yards for the game, we had
fifteen yards on the ground. That's you're not beating anybody
like that. And the way it affected the game. You
see Arch Manning and DJ Lagway two similar players, two
young prospects that have underperformed this year. Well, we go
(08:58):
out there against Florida and Lagway looked like a completely
different player because he had that run game to lean on. Well,
we need to provide that for Arts and you're asking
how do we get that done?
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Well, I'm not sure CJ. Baxter will be back this week,
but if he is back this week.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
I think that'll add a component to this Russian attack
that we haven't seen since the beginning of the season.
I think he adds a nice physical element to Trey
Wisner's finesse a little bit also too, I'd like to
see I'd like to see some more gap scheme runs
from his team. Marko known for having a zone scheme,
an outside zone scheme, and that works. That works for
guys like Djon, Jonathan Brooks, Roshawn.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Guys like that.
Speaker 6 (09:35):
But if you want to come downhill and send a
message and really start moving bodies off the line of scrimmage,
I need a gap scheme. I need you to start
start moving people with double teams need I need those
power plays to show up.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
I need counters to show up.
Speaker 6 (09:48):
So I would hope they'd add a few more layers
to this Russian attack and not just stick to the
predominant outside zone scheme.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
But we'll see.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Well, it's funny that you say that, because one of
the things that i' I was talking about earlier in
the show was trying to get back to the quick
game as well. If that line is having a tough time,
your boy Rob Babers used to always talk about a
quick game, quick game, quick game, get the ball out
of his hand and get the ball to the playmakers,
and that too, will also slow down this off I
(10:17):
mean this defensive pass rush that we've seen the last
couple of weeks.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Yeah, and that's an excellent point.
Speaker 6 (10:23):
And it's a little surprising that we haven't seen much
of the quick game early in the season because for
the three years we had quinn Ewers, that was the
basis of this offense. What really got us going was
the RPO game, the quick strikes, the manufacturer touches, the
screen games, and we hadn't seen any of that for Arch.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Every time Arch rolls.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
Out of there on the field, it looks like he's
fighting for his life and every play is a struggle.
So I'm with you. I would like to see us
get some easy looks for him to get going. That's
one of the topics that I'm a little confused on
and I'm not sure why it's not appearing more and
more on tape, especially when we got guys like DeAndre
Moore and Ryan Nibley, guys that you know can can
(11:05):
get some yak after the catch once they get the
ball in their hands, No.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Doubt, man, what a great, great interview. We appreciate you
taking the time and getting up with us. Make sure
you continue to do a great job. Over at Third
and Longhorn. You can hear it always on AM thirteen
hundred the Zone. You can hear their pregame right before
our pregame, normally an hour before. This week, it'll probably
(11:28):
be ten thirty. You can hear their pre game. Thanks Alex, Yes.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Sir, appreciate y'all.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Feelers anytime, no problem there is Alex Okafer, what a great,
great insight right there.
Let's Mark Henry and you used to seeing them on
the grid iron, but now you get a chance to
see him holding it down with the crew from Third
(00:25):
and Longhorn, which you could hear right before our pregame
show every Saturday.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It's our guy, Alex Okafer.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
You knew him in the NFL and you knew him
on that field. Now he's busting it out with his chops.
What's happening, Alex? How you doing, buddy?
Speaker 4 (00:44):
I'm doing well. I appreciate y'all fellas for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
We appreciate you taking the time to come on with
us because we know what this week is to the
players that are on the field now.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
But what is this when you were What is this
to you? This week mean?
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Overall, we're talking about the Red River rivalry and just
kind of looking back on my playing career, I look
back at the dynamic teams that both Texas and Oklahoma
had rolled out on the field, and when I was
in the program, I was going against guys like Sam.
Speaker 6 (01:17):
Bradford, Trent Williams, Jermaine Gresham, DeMarco Murray, guys like that,
and then just to kind of see how the evolution
of this rivalry has played out. It's it's to me,
the best sports, the best environment in all of sports.
And I mean it's that any given Sunday mentality, no
matter what the rankings is, coming into this.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Game, you don't know what you're gonna get.
Speaker 7 (01:39):
Give us the experience of coming out of that tunnel
and your opponent is standing right next to you, and
you run out and you you hit the open air,
you leave the tunnel, and you come out into the
crowd like paint the picture for us.
Speaker 6 (01:56):
Yeah, No, it's unreal, and it's to this day, it's
still crazy that they make both teams come out the
same tunnel. But I think it even adds to the
aspect of the rivalry because there's bad blood for sure.
I mean there's a level of respect, but there's definitely
bad blood. And the fact that we're both coming out
the same tunnel, the fact that we're both barking at
each other while leaving the tunnel.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Just adds the extra layer of energy to this rivalry.
Speaker 6 (02:21):
And then once you run out on the field and
see the split crowd, where else in sports are.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
You're gonna get something like that.
Speaker 6 (02:27):
So this is one of those games where no matter
if you're on Texas or Oklahoma. You just cherish games
like this because it's one of those rare sports environments
that you don't see on the regular.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
And the one thing that I continue to look at, too, Alex,
is when you walk out, and you said it perfectly,
When you walk out, you see it split fifty to fifty.
You don't know if there was a big play by
your team or a big play by their team, because
the sound remains the same the entire game. So it's
always been an interesting game for me because there's so
(03:01):
much house divided type of situation as we have right
here with Mark Henry. Mark Henry's son is now on
the Oklahoma Centers football team. But Mark says Texas gonna
win bout thirty and he don't even care.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
I respect and I appreciate the colon opinion by Mark.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Right there col at my house all I could imagine
you you got Texas winning by thirty.
Speaker 6 (03:31):
I'm sure you talk about a split household. I'm sure
your household is the epitome of that.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
I'm right with me. I can imagine I'm right there
with you, though. Man. I was speaking on this game on.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
Our podcast starting Longhorn earlier this week, and you know,
Oklahoma's offense is just like, damn, why did they have
to play that poorly right the week right before we
get to play them? Why did they have to put
out a piss forward performance like that defensively because they
know what type of defense we tried out there for
the past couple of years, and they know what the
performance like we had against Florida.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
They're going to get our best version this upcoming week.
Speaker 6 (04:11):
So I mean that leads me to believe that Texas
is coming ready for the snatchup.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Well, it's funny that you said that.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
We're talking to Alex Okaferm, former Texas longhorn, former Kansas
City chief and now one of the main characters on
Third and Longhorns podcast, doing a great job with that
crew over there. But I wanted to ask you that
because you know, in some situations, you'll look at the
game and you see what happened last weekend, and you
(04:37):
always here, don't let one loss lead to another. But
the one thing about it is this right here this week.
It couldn't have been timed any better because your focus
against this opponent locks you right back in.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Yeah. Absolutely, and that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 6 (04:55):
It's a week two week game and Oklahoma knows that
they're going to get a pissed off version of this
Texas team.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
And it's right on time because you got the Red
River environment on top of that.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
So, like you said, with the new with the new
format of college football in the in the playoffs, one
lass doesn't necessarily mean you're out of this thing. And
if you can get a big win against the top
ten opponent like this, this will put you right back
in the mix and everything will still be right in
front of you in terms of achieving your goals if
you get a win like this.
Speaker 7 (05:25):
Alex Harts brought up the fact that you're on third
and Longhorm, but you know, I'm, I'm. We both spoke
at an event at Mike Adams school up in the
I guess that's the Round Rock ISD. It's it's all
kindly like, uh, what what is your role in that
(05:46):
in that district?
Speaker 6 (05:49):
Yeah, So, first of all, shout out coach Mike Adams
over there doing an excellent job within the Flugerville ISD
School district. Also a legend from the University of Texas,
a shout out here, dude, and facts.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
I appreciate what he's doing for our students over here.
Speaker 6 (06:04):
In Fligerville, but for me personally, once I finished playing
in the league, I was transitioning and I didn't have
the podcast that we have going on right now, so
I needed something to put my time into. And I
told myself, I don't know what I want to do
after I'm done playing, but for the meantime, I do
want to get be in the community and be around
these kids. So went back from the Flugerville ran for
(06:26):
the school board, got the seat, and now I'm serving
a three year term for the Fluckerville Independent School Board.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Out here, Yeah, we appreciate what you're doing too, especially
for somebody like myself who's part of that school district
with my two kids that go to Hendrickson and Highland Park,
So we appreciate everything that you're doing for that area.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
But I wanted to ask.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
You this too, because you know, this is one of
those things where everybody's being questioned this week, the offensive line,
the defensive line being pushed back.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
When you're in practice after a tough, tough week.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
What what is practice like when you both know that
y'all need to get better?
Speaker 6 (07:09):
Yeah, it's gonna be it's a week for these guys,
especially when you get physically dominated like we did last week.
It's it's it's one thing to go out there and
have missed assignments or sometimes the lack of effort. You
can fix that up easily, but when you have a
lack of physicality, that's alarming and you got to.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
You gotta get that fixed immediately.
Speaker 6 (07:31):
So that tells me that they're going to have a
very physical and demanding practice or multiple physical and demanding
practices this week, and sarcasts to clean that up. We've
got to be better at the point of the tech
offensively and defensively. Offensively, we've got to stay on blocks
and move bodies off the line of scrimmage.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Defensively, it's it's vice versa.
Speaker 6 (07:50):
We got to strike and we got to get off
blots and use our hands and make tackles behind the
line of scrimmage. And it's hard to get that done
when you're not in pads. And I know we're in
the this thing. We're right in the middle of the
season and everybody's hurting, everybody's tired, but you still got
to get it about.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
These players, especially when there's a lack of violence being
shown on the field.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
So to answer your question, I expect some very physical
practices this week. I expect Sark to demand greatness from
his players this week, and I expect to see a
different product rolled out there this week and against Oklahoma.
Speaker 7 (08:22):
What do you think about the coaching schemes and what
the way that Texas didn't really have a flow? I
think a lot of that was because of not having
a running game. But what do you think that they
can do to correct that?
Speaker 6 (08:36):
Yeah, I mean you hit it right on the head
in terms of not having a rushing attack. If you
take away archers rush yards for the game, we had
fifteen yards on the ground. That's you're not beating anybody
like that. And the way it affected the game. You
see Arch Manning and DJ Lagway two similar players, two
young prospects that have underperformed this year. Well, we go
(08:58):
out there against Florida and Lagway looked like a completely
different player because he had that run game to lean on. Well,
we need to provide that for Arts and you're asking
how do we get that done?
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Well, I'm not sure CJ. Baxter will be back this week,
but if he is back this week.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
I think that'll add a component to this Russian attack
that we haven't seen since the beginning of the season.
I think he adds a nice physical element to Trey
Wisner's finesse a little bit also too, I'd like to
see I'd like to see some more gap scheme runs
from his team. Marko known for having a zone scheme,
an outside zone scheme, and that works. That works for
guys like Djon, Jonathan Brooks, Roshawn.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Guys like that.
Speaker 6 (09:35):
But if you want to come downhill and send a
message and really start moving bodies off the line of scrimmage,
I need a gap scheme. I need you to start
start moving people with double teams need I need those
power plays to show up.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
I need counters to show up.
Speaker 6 (09:48):
So I would hope they'd add a few more layers
to this Russian attack and not just stick to the
predominant outside zone scheme.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
But we'll see.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Well, it's funny that you say that, because one of
the things that i' I was talking about earlier in
the show was trying to get back to the quick
game as well. If that line is having a tough time,
your boy Rob Babers used to always talk about a
quick game, quick game, quick game, get the ball out
of his hand and get the ball to the playmakers,
and that too, will also slow down this off I
(10:17):
mean this defensive pass rush that we've seen the last
couple of weeks.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Yeah, and that's an excellent point.
Speaker 6 (10:23):
And it's a little surprising that we haven't seen much
of the quick game early in the season because for
the three years we had quinn Ewers, that was the
basis of this offense. What really got us going was
the RPO game, the quick strikes, the manufacturer touches, the
screen games, and we hadn't seen any of that for Arch.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Every time Arch rolls.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
Out of there on the field, it looks like he's
fighting for his life and every play is a struggle.
So I'm with you. I would like to see us
get some easy looks for him to get going. That's
one of the topics that I'm a little confused on
and I'm not sure why it's not appearing more and
more on tape, especially when we got guys like DeAndre
Moore and Ryan Nibley, guys that you know can can
(11:05):
get some yak after the catch once they get the
ball in their hands, No.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Doubt, man, what a great, great interview. We appreciate you
taking the time and getting up with us. Make sure
you continue to do a great job. Over at Third
and Longhorn. You can hear it always on AM thirteen
hundred the Zone. You can hear their pregame right before
our pregame, normally an hour before. This week, it'll probably
(11:28):
be ten thirty. You can hear their pre game. Thanks Alex, Yes.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Sir, appreciate y'all.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Feelers anytime, no problem there is Alex Okafer, what a great,
great insight right there.
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