{"id":428979,"date":"2026-09-07T20:02:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/428979\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T20:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:02:16","slug":"cougar-qa-all-american-lineman-shadre-hurst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/428979\/","title":{"rendered":"Cougar Q&#038;A: All-American Lineman Shadre Hurst"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Houston Football lineman <a href=\"https:\/\/uhcougars.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/shadre-hurst\/10008\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"10008\" target=\"_blank\">Shadre Hurst<\/a> joined ESPN Radio for an exclusive interview. Get to know Hurst following Houston&#8217;s 33-20 win over Oregon State on Saturday, Sept. 5.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Q: What was it about Houston, and reuniting with Coach Fritz, that made you want to go there?<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/uhcougars.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/shadre-hurst\/10008\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"10008\" target=\"_blank\">Shadre Hurst<\/a>: Really just knowing the type of teams he puts together, the program that he runs, knowing he knows how to lead a winning program. That&#8217;s really what had me. He also recruited me out of high school, so I know Coach Fritz, \u00a0he loves to win, and he always has a plan.<\/p>\n<p>Q: What is the difference between playing offensive line in the Big 12 versus playing at Tulane, given how fast everything moves in the Big 12?<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nSH: I&#8217;d say it&#8217;s a different level of competition, a bit faster paced. The type of lineman, the type of defensive lineman you&#8217;ll see, will be a bit more elite. So, I&#8217;m really excited to see what that&#8217;s about.<\/p>\n<p>Q: How is the chemistry building with this offensive line, and how long does it usually take to develop?<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nSH: The chemistry has been great. We&#8217;ve been getting it together \u2013 playing, moving as one. Pretty much throughout the spring we had time to really hang out, get to know each other, learn and get a feel for how each other plays. We try to elevate each other, in the areas I&#8217;m weak, somebody else is stronger, and we work together to balance that out. It&#8217;s been good to have teammates who are on the same level.<\/p>\n<p>Q: How important is it to build a relationship with the other offensive linemen off the field and outside the meeting room, and how much does that help you all when you&#8217;re on the field together?<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nSH: It&#8217;s all about establishing trust, knowing that when you go out there, you&#8217;re going to get in a dogfight with your brother, so you want somebody you can trust. That&#8217;s extremely important. That paves the way for a successful season. It&#8217;s all built on chemistry, really knowing who you&#8217;re playing with and knowing what you&#8217;re playing for. You&#8217;re playing for the guy next to you.<\/p>\n<p>Q: Your quarterback called you the strongest man he&#8217;s ever seen. What kind of weight are you throwing up? Have you always been strong?<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nSH: I&#8217;d say for the most part I&#8217;ve always been strong. My granddad gave me the nickname Hercules when I was younger, when I was just a toddler. He called me Hercules because of my build. That name stuck. My numbers are pretty high: 475 bench, 415 power clean and 655 squat.<\/p>\n<p>Q: What did you feel like you needed to improve on as an offensive lineman moving from Tulane to Houston?<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nSH: Just really improving technique. Finding that small difference, taking a step this way, fine-tuning all my technique. That&#8217;s really been the focus for me, because I know the level of competition is going up, so you always have to be in the mindset of improving.<\/p>\n<p>Q: What do you like so much about painting? How long have you been doing it, and word on the street is you&#8217;re working on a self-portrait?<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nSH: I actually already completed it. Painting has always been a way to let some stress go throughout a long week. You can get in the studio, paint, and express how you feel. That&#8217;s always been an outlet for me, and I&#8217;ve always enjoyed it. It started back in elementary school art classes, I had a great art teacher who had us doing a lot of creative things, and it grew from there.<\/p>\n<p>Q: Is there a painting you&#8217;ve done that&#8217;s a little more extraordinary? <br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nSH: Not in particular. I like to keep it pretty simple since time is limited. Regular base paintings, standard paint and brushes, nothing too elaborate.<\/p>\n<p>Q: You&#8217;re also playing with running back <a href=\"https:\/\/uhcougars.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/makhi-hughes\/10011\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"10011\" target=\"_blank\">Makhi Hughes<\/a>, your former teammate at Tulane. What&#8217;s so impressive about his game?<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nSH: Makhi is an animal on the field. You go back and look at his old film and you say to yourself, &#8220;man, I don&#8217;t know how, but he does it.&#8221; Having him in the backfield, you know you&#8217;re going to get five, ten yards. You&#8217;re working for something. There&#8217;s a lot of trust in the backfield when he&#8217;s back there.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston Football lineman Shadre Hurst joined ESPN Radio for an exclusive interview. Get to know Hurst following Houston&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-428979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}