Photo by Brandon Jones, TexAgs.com
Catching up with former Aggie receiver Travis Labhart
On getting to play close to home in Houston…
“I will say that it has been one of the biggest blessings in disguise, because, you know, obviously there are so many teams. There’s not enough guys. There are so many football players and only a certain amount — for me to have an opportunity to be in Texas, be close to Aggieland, in Houston there are so many Aggies. I was with (Ryan) Swope the other night and we went to an A&M club or something in Houston. Coach Banks was there, and so we got to hang out and see a bunch of fans. (We) got to hear about the recruiting class, so that was fun."It’s just, it’s great. My family’s here, I have some great resources down there, and one of my favorite things is being close to Aggieland. I got to come back for the Ole Miss game. I know it wasn’t the best, but it was just fun being close to a place I can call home.”
On Shane Lechler’s influence…
“He’s been a really great leader and resource. He really helped me through the preseason, because I was doing a lot of special teams. It’s pretty nerve-racking, you know. There’s not very many guys that get to be out there, and I got to really be a part of the special teams. That’s really where you have to start, as a rookie, especially being undrafted. Shane was great. He was great. He helped me out a lot and talked with me. Obviously, our connection to Aggieland is great, and he still loves A&M, so that’s always fun.”On his decision to go to Houston as a free agent…
“I wasn’t really anticipating to get drafted, and a lot of guys are in that position. Some guys know they’re going to get drafted. For me, you know, honesty is a big thing. You have to really just trust guys. My agent, he’s a great guy and I really trusted him. He told me, ‘It could be the late seventh, but we’re probably going undrafted.’ Going in with that attitude really helped me through that process."Once that last pick is taken, the phones are ringing. They’re just trying to pull guys for rookie mini-camps, and you just want to give guys a shot. But you need guys to fill out your rookie mini-camps. It was 'roster' for me — I have a family, and I have a girlfriend; the big thing was to further my football career, and whatever was the best fit we were going to do. In Houston, with Coach O’Brien and his background and the offense he ran and looking at the receivers, obviously, we have a great receiving corps there, but I felt like I had an opportunity there. If they’re calling, they feel like you have an opportunity as well.
"So, we just felt like Houston was a good spot, and it just worked out that it was close to home and really,close to everybody. Like I said, just a complete answer to prayers and a blessing that sometimes you wonder how you got so privileged, but it was really exciting.”
On looking back at his journey…
“I was thinking on the way up here. I looked back to the Ole Miss game (2013). I think about catching a couple balls, and I remember one specific one that I ran across the middle and caught toward their end zone, and I was disappointed I didn’t get in. But, it was just looking back and thinking, ‘Man, that’s really where my journey — things turned.’ You have to be persistent, and the Lord places so many different, not obstacles, but things that we have to persevere through. I felt like that was kind of a point where sometimes you have to wait years before you weather a storm, and it just happened."From then on, I continued to be blessed, and I’m so thankful for it. It’s crazy. I laugh, because I just think about some of the friends. I have friends all over the place. I have regular friends from A&M that were in groups, and then I have the Dude Perfect guys, and I then I have former players like Swope and even current players. So, it’s been really fun and been something that you can’t even put into words.”
On getting cut from the A&M basketball team…
“I think that that was an obstacle that I had to go through. A challenge — a trial — that was just part of the plan that the Lord had for me, and looking back I’m so glad He didn’t put me on the basketball team. It’s been really fun. It’s also fun in the locker room. A couple of the guys like to heckle me about the women’s practice team, and so I’m just like, ‘You know, they’re good players. They’ll beat all of y’all. I can promise that.’”On playing with J.J. Watt…
"He’s just a fantastic player, a fantastic leader. He’s just an incredible guy to look at and say, ‘I can model after him, because I know he’s a good guy. I know he works hard. I know he does things (well) on and off the field.’ So, it’s really encouraging to know that there’s a guy out there that you can look at and say, ‘You know, I want to model my career after him.’”
On trying to make the 53-man roster…
“There’s 53 guys that get to be on that active roster, and really, there’s only 46 that get to suit out. The list keeps getting smaller and smaller. There’s only about 3,000 guys that get to be a part of it, roughly. My math could be way off there, but about 3,000 guys get to be on an NFL team and be a part of that. To make even a small amount, whether it’s the practice squad or whatever, was really – I was so thankful that the opportunities along the way through training camp were presented."The thing that you really have to tell yourself when you’re going through a training camp, because it’s not like college — in college you have shots, but you don’t get cut necessarily, so they keep guys, and you have your continual opportunities — in the NFL, it may come, and then it may go. So the big thing, for me, was I tried to tell myself, ‘No matter how many plays – if it’s one, if it’s 100 plays, you just have to go out and make the most of whatever opportunity it is.’ The big one for me — and I know a lot of people were excited for me — was the Denver game. I ended up catching a two-point conversion to help us win the game. Preseason. Most people just see that and they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah.’ For me, I didn’t get to play very much that game. It was a game where you have to take advantage of your opportunity, and I think I got six plays. Two were on special teams, and four were on offense.
"It was just something that I was just thankful I had that mindset, because if you don’t and you go in, you’re like, ‘Pity me, I only got eight plays,’ then you forget that you’re getting an opportunity, where other guys are sitting at home begging for that shot. Going back to rookie mini-camps, mini-camp, OTAs and then going into training camp, it’s just a grueling process. I mean, you get done with your season. Guys that leave early declare. If you’re done with your season, you go instantly into training for the pro days and stuff, and it’s something that none of it really translates onto the field. You’ve got to showcase your stuff, and once that’s over, you’ve got to change your mode. You’ve got to get in shape. You’ve got to start doing other things to get ready for football activities, because you don’t get in a track stance and run a 40-yard dash in football.
"But, that’s my two cents on that, anyways. Rookie mini-camps are grueling, you go from rookie mini-camp and then after that there’s another mini-camp with the veterans. It was a little bit scary. You have J.J. Watt walking around. You have Brian Cushing. You have Ryan Fitzpatrick, Andre Johnson. Actually, he wasn’t there. Just all of those guys, and you’re coming from A&M where you think you’re big here. Well, wait until you get to the professional world, and then you feel really small. It’s like going from eighth grade to high school, and you’re a freshman. It was a little intimidating, especially when Coach told us we had to know every single player’s name in a team meeting. I’m like, ‘Oh my, so I have to learn plays and every player.’ You just went and studied the roster and their face, and you’re just like, ‘Lord, please let them have the same hair and facial hair that they have in this picture.’ That was pretty fun.
"They like to make it difficult on rookies. You get through that, you get through OTAs, and you start to learn the plays. You start to build a relationship with those guys and the coaches, and things start to go a little bit more smoothly. There for a while, it’s rough.”
On the complexity of NFL playbooks…
“You go and they say, ‘Here’s a playbook.’ It’s huge. There’s, like, 1,000 pages. It’s like an encyclopedia. It’s just an incredible thing, and honestly, I am thankful that I got my degree from A&M because I don’t think I could have learned as quickly as I did – that playbook – without having studied at A&M. I was talking to Mr. Hyman during training camp and I told him, ‘If I had not taken school seriously, I don’t think I could have learned some of these plays.’"It’s just like anything else. It’s a profession. You have to go in. You have to get a Ph.D. in your sport and, I mean, that’s what it is. It was really difficult to learn the plays, especially when they hand you this playbook and it’s about 9:00 in the morning and you have practice at 2:00. They’re like, ‘Learn this.’ It’s like a different language. Not only is it (like) calculus and all that, it’s in Spanish that you’re trying to learn. You’re trying to figure out and find little kinks — and the coaches are the same way. A lot of the coaching staff was new. They had to go through this too, so some of it, you have to learn how they remembered it. I came from a system with no playbook, so talk about difficult.
"I was super thankful that Coach Sherman was an outstanding coach, first and foremost, but his playbook was pro-style, so it helped me. I mean, I forgot most of it, but Swope, Mike, those guys that were with me, Malcome, a lot of those guys that were with us with Sherman, we would joke sometimes: 'You know, we’re at practice, because it’s so easy, our playbook here at A&M.' We would joke about looking back to the old plays and say, ‘Oh, do you remember what you had on such-and-such play?’ So we like to reminisce a little bit, but it actually translated into our offense in Houston. That helped me start to remember like, ‘Oh, OK, that’s why we did that and this.’”
On being cut from the Texans' practice squad…
"There was a week – it was week three and four. They released me in week three. As a practice squad player, sometimes there are different team needs. We had a safety that got hurt, and it’s a business. I completely understood; no hard feelings. You can’t have hard feelings in this league. There’s only eight (guys on the practice squad), eight or ten, however many there are. You have to have good practices, because they’re always looking for new guys. Each week, they reevaluate and they say, ‘Well, should we give this other guy a shot?’ It’s a constant battle, you know. You’re always on edge, but you just have to go out and perform each day. If you have a rough day, you’ve got to focus and get ready for the next. It’s a fun business, but sometimes it’s stressful and tough at the same time.”On having patience throughout the process…
“It was tough. You’re in a place where you’re running constantly. You’re exercising. You’re eating healthy. And then you have to go and fend for yourself for a little while. It’s just kind of like, ‘What do I do?’ I’m thankful that I have family and people that I can rely on that helped me through that. It was tough. It’s hard to motivate yourself when you’re like, ‘Well, shoot. I’ve been cut. What do I do?’ You can’t mope around. You’ve pick your head up, and you have to keep pushing and just wait. Other guys have had it a lot worse than me, and I could have more trouble down the road."Some guys get cut in week one, and then they come back in week eight to a different team. You can’t really simulate a real practice, unless you’re on a team. There’s no way you can run, do everything you need. You really have to push yourself and develop some discipline and some motivators that other people may not have. So it was tough.
"When I came back, I was welcomed with open arms, and everybody was great. I was thankful that the coaches were honest with me. They told me, and they stuck to their word. That’s something I’ve really appreciated with the Texans is their honesty. Like you said, it’s a business, and you can’t take anything personal. You know, they have families, true. They’re trying to win, and if you’re a part of it then that’s great, but if you’re not, they’re going to find someone else to do it. You have to have a tough mentality, but it’s still OK. I’ve learned a lot from it.”
On the outlook moving forward…
“There’s a lot of guys that you rely on – veterans, especially. You’ve really got to take their words and use them with wisdom to further your career. I had a guy – a few of us, we have a Bible study on Mondays. There’s a specific guy that really helped me see, moving forward, kind of how to pursue. He said, ‘You’re going to laugh when you look back from your sophomore, or your second year, and your rookie year, because you learn so much.’ You’re like, ‘Why did I do that back then?’ I’ve already started watching film and recapping things that I’ve done and how I can get better."You always watch your position, you know? I can’t turn on a game and not say that I’m critiquing and – not even critiquing, but trying to learn what they’re doing. How are they getting open? How is he getting open? What’s that (defensive back) doing? There’s always growth. There’s always a learning curve that you have to continue with. For me moving forward, it’s really about continuing and trying to get a little bit bigger, a little bit faster. That never stops. I think when I was at A&M, I was about 178 pounds. I was very small, but we’re built for kind of a stamina, endurance-type offense. We do tempo at Houston, but you have to develop more mass. I’m 190 (pounds). I’ve put on about 12 pounds. You’ve just got to be able to carry it. It’s a little bit different. It took me about the whole year to really be able to carry it.
"Now, just going into the offseason, you want to gain a little more weight. Once you kind of get to the start of training camps and OTAs and mini-camps, you cut back a little bit of that weight and have a healthy body and good shape. Then you go forward, and you’ve just got to continue to learn. You can never stop learning, but I feel like I have a good opportunity ahead, once again.
"It’s always better that I’m on a team right now. You never know. Guys get cut every day. It’s good to be in Houston right now, working out, being around the coaches, learning the playbook and things of that nature. You just want to find your edge. Mine, a lot of times, is the playbook, because I’m not the biggest guy. I know all of the positions, and honestly sometimes, I help some of the other guys know their positions. (The veterans are) great. They’re very receptive. It’s a new offense for them too, because Coach O’Brien is new. You’ve got to learn on the fly sometimes. We had a guy come in D.J. – Damaris Johnson – he was a great receiver. He’s a slot in front of me. He’s fantastic, but I told myself, ‘Yes, he’s competition, but he’s a teammate. And I want to help us win.’ I just sat down with him, and I was like, ‘Here’s all the notes that I have. This is the best I can do.’ I just helped him try to learn it.
"That’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to be a good teammate. That’s what Coach O’Brien always talks about is being a good teammate, and D.J. and I are really close. He’s a fantastic player. He’s a really good player. I just wanted to help him. You have to do that. He was with Philly, and their offense is a lot like ours here at A&M. It’s just quick and you go, you go, you go. It’s a little bit different. Ours is a little more wordy. D.J. did great. All of those receivers, we have a really close-knit group, very talented group. There are some very good players that are up and coming, and I hope to be a part of it.”
On the 2015 Aggies…
“I got to spend some time with a few of the guys: Trey and Speedy, Quiv and Ricky. So, I got to talk to some of those guys, and obviously, they’re excited. There’s so much potential ahead, and it’s an exciting year up and coming. It was really fun to watch them. I love getting to see the guys that I played with, the new guys coming in, and just to see them have success, especially Coach Sumlin — he and I had a good relationship, and I’ve stayed in touch with him a little bit. From what I understand, the receivers really like (Aaron Moorehead). They really like him. I was sad to see Coach Beaty leave, because he’s my guy. He’s one of my favorite coaches that I’ve ever had. He and I have a really close relationship, so I stay in touch with him. He always checks on me, and I check on him."It’s really fun to watch these guys moving forward, especially with Coach Chavis. We have a guy that’s from LSU on the Texans, and he says he’s a great coach. I’m sure he is, otherwise Coach Sumlin wouldn’t have brought him on. I think we have a good group going forward. I’m really excited to watch them. I’m excited to see the defense, the new look for the defense. I think that they have a really good opportunity – I told somebody last year, ‘I think we’re one year away from having a really good defense.’ Not that we didn’t have one last year, but I just felt with the young guys and the up and coming guys, that they have really good shot.
"I feel like this year they have a very perfect schedule to make things really shake up. I know we have to go to LSU, I think, and Ole Miss again, but we have some guys back at home. It could be an interesting year. I think we could really shake things up, and I’m really excited for those guys. It’ll be fun to watch.”
On Mike Evans’ sensational rookie season…
“He came to Houston and hung out with me and Swope one night. We reminisced and did some XBOX, which we used to do back in the day. It was fun to get to hang out with him. We stayed in touch all season. It was fun because we would watch film – we didn’t play Mike, but we would watch film. I would watch him just throwing guys down and think, ‘Coach Beaty’s loving this right now, watching it.’ Poor Terrence (Newman). Most guys saw that, but there were so many other plays that they didn’t show. He threw Joe Haden on the ground a couple times. He just had a great year. I didn’t anticipate anything less."I think most people were kind of skeptical, like, ‘I don’t know how good he is.’ He’s so big. Most people see him, and they’re like, ‘He’s big. I’ll bet everybody in the NFL is that big.’ They’re much smaller than he is. He’s just that much bigger than everybody else. He’s just a big guy, and he’s got a great road ahead of him. I’m really excited for him. Like I said, he and I are really good friends. We love staying in touch.”
On Johnny Manziel…
“He and I stayed in touch through the season, because he pulled his hamstring and I pulled mine. We talked about that, and we visited when we played them that week. I didn’t get to go to that game, because we don’t travel. He and I are very good friends. He’s always a guy that when I first was on the team, that was his first year. He and I were really close. We did fun things on scout team together and played basketball, obviously, and golfed. We just did so many things. He’s a very good friend of mine."I hope the best for him. That‘s a tough thing to do to come out and announce it (entering treatment). Whether it was his decision or not, I don’t know, but it’s a good thing for him moving forward. We’ve been praying for him. Me and Swope talked about this the other day. We just shot him text messages saying, ‘Praying for you. Hoping things are going well.’ You just want to see a guy like that come back strong and have a good career, because he’s got a lot of potential. Sometimes trials happen, and we’ve just have to learn from our mistakes and move forward. I think, for him moving forward, he just needs good resources. He needs a lot of good people around him, because sometimes you fall in the wrong crowd. Things get difficult.
"I think, moving forward for me, I’m just trying to continue to be a friend to him and reach out to him. I think he knows that I’m always here for him. I think he knows that a lot of people are going to be here for him. It was sad, but it was also a positive direction for him, I think. I just continue to hope he does well. I know so many Aggies want to see him do well. Everybody’s really proud of him for multiple reasons. (He’s got) a lot of Aggies in his corner regardless of what’s happened.”
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