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It's that time of the year..... Football is so close you can smell it. Players are reporting today and the first fall practice gets underway tomorrow. For today's presser, Cotcher is on-campus and in attendance. Be sure to follow him on twitter @MLCotcher for updates. We will post content here and want your takes on what is said, etc. Media will have access to tomorrow's practice which means we will have a report afterward.

Cotcher's at the evening presser now at Moncrief. Presser was supposed to begin at 6:30 and Strong is running a bit behind.. An update on Shipley, who injured his hamstring:

Coach Brown is celebrating his 61st birthday and took time to meet with media members to discuss the team as they head into the season opener against Wyoming this Saturday. Here are a few nuggets I was able to take away from the press conference (not verbatim). Anthony Fera ruled out of Saturday’s game against Wyoming as he nurses a sore groin. We want a kicking game that is exciting! We don’t want people going to get a hot dog when the kicking game marches out on the field. Still do not know who will be running the Wild Horn but it will probably be two players. David Ash is much more confident now than he was at any time during the Holiday Bowl or in the preseason. I have never seen David play as well as he has these last two days. The drama of who is going to start at a particular position is more “public” drama than anything else. A big concern is the lack of turnovers the defense has force in preseason. This could very well be that the offensive is protecting the ball particularly well. We want to see more turnovers from the defense. It will be 100 degrees on Saturday and 93 degrees at game time. We need to think about how much we will substitute and wo we substitute. Wish Anthony Fera were playing as he is one of the best in the country at the kicking position. Texas will not have a kicker/punter that has ever played in a game at The University of Texas when Saturday arrives. 2010 was my fault. We acted like we were something that we weren’t. last year we fought back and made a lot of progress. This is a fun time for me and a fun time for Texas and we are going to be good again. I kdon’t know how soon but we will be. It will be nice to pay our fans back. Got a text from Justin Tucker yesterday with the news about him earning the starting kicking job in Baltimore. We are proud of him and we are proud of all our guys and hope they all continue to make it through these cuts (NFL).

Mack took to the podium to give a rundown on where things stand after the scrimmage that took place last night. There was a ton of discussion about yep, you guessed it, the quarterbacks. Some of the mentions from Mack (not necessarily verbatim): It is time to gain continuity on offense. We have been doing this for over a year now and it is time. The defense is still ahead of the offense in terms of progress but the differential is nowhere near as great as it was last season. The Tight ends are not getting the job done. First team defense looked really good in the scrimmage last night. Nick Jordan and Ben Pruitt would be the guys to kick if Anthony Fera is not ready to go. There is still no timetable on his return. Quandre Diggs and Jaxon Shipley will be the punt return guys. Quandre Diggs, Goodwin, Monroe and the usual suspects will be the kick return guys. We probably will not use Jaxon as a kick returned to save him for his role as a wide receiver. When asked if the qb situation has paid off the way he wanted it to, Mack said "I think so. If we had to do it again we would do the same thing. With both guys competing and throwing it has only mad the team stronger." The only stat that matters is winning the game. Tight ends are blocking better now but they dropped a lot of passes last night. There were no substantial injuries last night. Brown maintained that there has not been enough separation between either guy (Ash or McCoy) thus far to name a starter. He expects there to be in the 3 weeks left before the Wyoming game. On leadership/communication he said David Ash is much better than he was last year and Case McCoy takes after his brother Colt in that department.