It took Baylor coach Matt Rhule a minute or two before he could really understand running back JaMycal Hasty and what makes him tick. 

When he dug a little deeper, though, he found that Hasty has a "wonderful family" and played for coach John King at Longview High School. "And when I knew he played for Coach King, I knew, 'You know what, this guy wants to do this.'''

That's why the second-year Baylor head coach said it was "special to me" that Hasty was voted as one of the first two players to earn single-digit jerseys, along with junior outside linebacker/safety Henry Black. 

 "What speaks to me is effort," Rhule said. "This is a guy that got up to squatting like 625 . . . he studies, he practices, prepares. He just doesn't say a lot, but he leads by example. . . . You guys always ask me, 'Coach, are you going to be in the spread?' JaMycal comes to me and says, 'Coach, can we please get in the I?' Because that's what he did at Longview. He's an old-school back, and he's going to go have a good year, along with a lot of other guys."

Through his first two seasons, the 5-foot-9, 211-pound Hasty has rushed for 905 yards and three touchdowns on 188 carries (4.8-yard average), added 131 yards on 28 catches and returned 10 kickoffs for 215 yards. He was listed as the No. 1 running back coming into fall camp and figures to split time with sophomores John Lovett and Trestan Ebner. 

 "I just had to get to know him," Rhule said. 

 It was different with Black, a former high school cornerback and receiver at Shreveport (La.) Woodlawn. When the coaches asked him last year to play safety and linebacker, Black said, "Yes, sir."

As Rhule put it, the 6-0, 202-pounder is a man of few words, "doesn't complain." Just goes and does his job, wherever the coaches put him. 

Kent Johnston, a former NFL strength coach who now serves as Baylor's injury prevention specialist, brought in a "max-effort" drill "they did in the NFL where you play 10 plays in a row as fast as possible, and you try to run and touch the ball on every one," Rhule said. 

The coaches then evaluate "how many plays you went max effort," Rhule said, "not as a punishment but to see, 'Hey, this is where his conditioning level is.'''

When Rhule asked the players to grade themselves, he got back responses like one out of eight, maybe two out of nine.

"All of a sudden, I get a text from Henry Black. 'With the ones, I was seven out of 10. With the twos, I was three out of seven.' I was like, 'How the heck did you take 17 plays?' It was a team max effort. Most guys took eight. They didn't have enough safeties, and he didn't want anybody else to get hurt, so he played all the plays with the ones and went seven plays with the twos."

Black didn't say a word, didn't tweet it. 

"So, he's my kind of guy, right?" Rhule said. "He doesn't say a lot, just goes out there and competes."

In the team vote, a lot of players received votes to receive a single-digit jersey, but only Hasty and Black were chosen in the first go-round. 

Rhule said he will wait until the other ones are selected, probably this Saturday, and let the players pick their specific jersey numbers. Since Hasty wore No. 6 his first two seasons at Baylor, "I'm sure he's going to start lobbying for 6," Rhule said. "And Henry Black, he doesn't care."

"It's such a big deal, I want to be fair to everybody. I want them to have enough time to show everybody what they can do."

Last year, the single-digit jerseys were awarded to linebacker Taylor Young (1), safeties Taion Sells (2) and Chris Miller (3), cornerback Grayland Arnold (4), defensive linemen Brian Nance (5) and Ira Lewis (9), wide receiver Trevor White (6), running back John Lovett (7) and quarterback Zach Smith (8). 

The Bears continue their preparation for next Saturday's season opener versus Abilene Christian, which kicks off at 7 p.m. at McLane Stadium.