McWilliams Wants Longhorns to Play for First Place in Polls

New head coach David McWilliams of the University of Texas Longhorns says just being competitive is not enough, he wants to compete for the No. 1 spot in college football.

McWilliams, a former player and assistant coach at Texas, returned as head coach for the 1987 season after one year at Texas Tech, where he was selected Southwest Conference coach of the year.

McWilliams, 44, replaced Fred Akers, who was fired after 10 years and later became coach at Purdue.

He called a news conference last week after spending all but five days on the road recruiting since taking the Texas job Dec. 6. He said his next day off would be Feb. 16.

McWilliams said simply being competitive would not be enough for him next season.

“That’s not quite strong enough for me just to say I want to be competitive,” he said. “I want to win, win as much as I can, or all of it right now.

“And I understand saying it doesn’t get it done, but that’s exactly what I’m going in with. I just never felt very good about not going for the top.”

McWilliams’ first test at Texas comes on national signing day Feb. 11, and he said that despite getting a late start because of the coaching change, “We’re getting a very good response. We’re back in on a lot of the real top players that are in the state, that are going to visit us.”

He also said he felt Texas, 5-6 last season, had “a good nucleus coming back both offensively and defensively,” with the major losses among offensive lineman and defensive backs and ends.

Asked if bad publicity about SWC recruiting violations was chasing good recruits out of state, McWilliams said, “Last year that was true a good bit. This year, I haven’t noticed it being quite as strong.”

One plus for Texas, he said, is the addition of 1977 Heisman Trophy winner Earl Campbell to the University of Texas administrative staff.

“I think recruiting is something that you use every type of strength that you have for your university, and I think Earl Campbell is a strength for this university--not only for the university but the athletic program, too, so certainly we plan to use Earl” as an on-campus recruiter.