Len Hayward
Kobie Herring's explanation on why he made the 10-hour trip from the South Texas town of Refugio to El Paso to play football is simple.
"First of all, UTEP was my only offer," the freshman linebacker said shortly after he attended his first classes here.
As to why that was, that's also fairly simple. On the one hand, he's a 6-foot tall, 220-pound linebacker from a Class 2A school playing at the smallest level of 11-man public-school football in Texas.
On the other hand, Herring was an extraordinarily productive player for a state championship team, an all-state linebacker and title game defensive MVP, a coach's son who thrives because he understands the game while outsmarting and outworking opponents.