Steve Sarkisian on special assistant hires, recruiting, and how Texas will avoid any drop-off in 2024

Hear more comments from Steve Sarkisian at the THSCA Convention including his thoughts on recruiting in 2024, if he focuses on wrapping up classes earlier in the season, his special assistant hires this off-season, and how Texas can avoid any drop-off following the success last season. 

Episode Transcript

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All right, going back to somethings from the Texas High School Coaches Association's
annual Coaching School and Convention. It'sstill going on. You know, one

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of the more fascinating things about Coachingschool is watching the networking that's going on.
That's where a lot of coaches willtell you that they learn a lot
about, you know, potential hiresthat they would bring in for the high
school level. I will never forgetthis. This was like I'm pretty sure
it was two thousand and four andthe convention was in Houston. In those

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days, it would go like Houston, Fort Worth, San Antonio would kind
of kind of rotate. Right now, it's on a Houston San Antonio rotation.
It goes two years San Antonio andthen one year Houston. So next
year it'll be in San Antonio andthen they'll be back in the Houston the
following year. And I had beenout after doing the panel discussion, like

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I did with all the Division onecoaches. I'd gone out to dinner with
the folks from Fox Sports Southwest.We had a big production meeting, dinner
and all that other kind of stuff. I get done and by the time
I get back to the hotel,the main headquarter hotel, and some of

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you who are around the Houston areawould would know what I'm talking about.
I think it was called the SharonAn Astrodome for a long time, and
it was this it's it's still anoperation. It's that. It's that hotel,
that large, sprawling, older hotelright on the corner of the service
road for Loop six' ten andKirby right astride across the street from the

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old Astrodome parking lot now the parkinglot obviously for NRG. And I go
to the elevator and as I'm walkingthrough the lobby at one o'clock in the
morning, there standing in the lobbyis Mac Brown talking to the head coach
of like a two A program.Because Mack would do that, he we

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do visit with, you know,whoever had questions wanted to know. And
I'll always remember that about Mat becausehe would always, you know, communicate
with guys like that. Steve Sarkisianobviously has proven to be quite the communicator
with his football team and with theprogram, and he was asked about what
was he looking for in his specialassistant hires with the special assistance being able

(05:21):
to coach on the field. Now, this was the Was this the Jeff
Howe question? Yeah, our goodfriend Jeff Hawl Horns twenty four to seven
was asking him, and Jeff,you know, laid out some specifics on
that about the special assistant hires thathe has and now being able to coach
on the field. How did thatplay a role in his hirings? And

(05:45):
this was Sark's response. You whenI when I look at openings is can
they make us better than we wereright? And where are our needs?
And what type of impact might somebodyhave in our program? You know,
I'll start with Chris Gilbert. Youknow, I hated it when he left.
I understood why he left and goingto North Texas. I understood all

(06:09):
that, but I knew the typeof impact that he had in our program
and his relationship with the high schoolcoaches, his relationship with the recruits and
their families, his relationships with thecurrent players on our roster. He has
a really good eye for me,even in practice. I'll bounce things off
of him post practice, post game, just kind of the mindset where we're

(06:30):
at as a team. So Ido lean into to coach Gilbert that way.
And it's great having him back forsure. Scotty Hazleton, you know,
when you assess our season last year, you know, one area where
I think we all could agree wherewe can improve is in past defense.
And like I said, past defensehas layers to it. You know,

(06:53):
if you want to be a reallygood past defensive team, you got to
have the ability to affect the quarterback, sack the quarterback, and put pressure
on the quarterback, make him uncomfortable. If you want to be a really
good in past defense, you haveto have enough schematic you know, variety,
but yet be good at those schemes. And we needed that as as
a staff. And then you haveto have the players and the personnel that

(07:15):
can guard people and make plays onthe ball and in type covers and things
of that nature. I've always,you know, admired Scotty from a distance.
I've known his history and his trackrecord and his connection to Gus Bradley
and Monty Kiffen and the Tampa twostuff. And then you know his connection
to to getting involved in kind ofthe system that I knew at Alabama of

(07:36):
a lot of the combo cover stuffand so to bring in a guy like
that that maybe can give us alittle bit more variety coverage wise, that
was big. And then bringing bringingBill Reese on board, I mean,
just just the expertise that he has. He's been doing it a long long
time. You know, Coach Stavensgenerally doesn't hire people that aren't good at

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what they do, and if theyif they aren't good at what they do,
they they generally don't last but oneyear. And the fact that he
was with Coach staven more than oneyear, and when I you know,
I leaned into Coach Staban a lot, and when I got his recommendation on
Bill, you know, we losta couple of people. I really felt
like we were upgrading at that spotfrom an evaluation standpoint, not only the

(08:18):
high school player evaluation, but potentialportal evaluations, but then also evaluating our
own roster and where are we Andhe's done it at the highest level in
the NFL. He's obviously done itat a really high level at the college
game with Notre Dame and with Alabama. So I think all three of those
guys are going to be impactful forour program. You talking about those new

(08:41):
hires to the probably Chris Gilbert,who had been the director of high school
relations and then went to North Texasfor a coaching position, but came back
as the special assistant. By theway, the director of high school relations
is the one and only Jamal Finner, of course, the former LBJ coach,
and I saw Jamal quite a bitduring the course of the weekend,
so he brought that up. Hebrought up the other hires that he had

(09:05):
as well, and he mentioned BillReeve and Scotty Hazelton. Bill Reese the
assistant director of player Personnel for scoutingand Scotty Hazelton as the special assistant to
the head coach on defense. Sothose were the new hires, And what
Jeff was asking about there. Nextthing was how is Sark emphasizing how it

(09:31):
goes with recruiting wrapping up the recruitingclass before the season starts, Like if
a player commits elsewhere, does hemove on quicker now than in the year's
past because of the earlier signing day. So there is a method to the
madness, and Sark explained it,I've never been to one to panic in
recruiting. I think history kind ofshows we usually close pretty good as we

(09:56):
get into the season, as weget into December, as we get closer
to that. I do believe alot of times in the summer right now,
a lot of recruiting is kind ofthe height machine. But you actually
have to put the product on thefield and you have to play. You
have to perform how you how docertain players in your program develop that they
sold you on here just like him? But actually how does he play?

(10:20):
And so we kind of believe inour process we're definitely a relationship based operation
and we don't forego those relationships whena young man commits to another school.
And I'm sure just like kids thatcommit to us, they're not stopping talking
to the guys that are committed tous either. So at the end of
the day, I think we've gota pretty good process to what we do.

(10:41):
And you know, I always say, I just want to make sure
the kids that commit to us arecommitting us for the right reasons and that
they're coming to the University of Texasfor the right reasons. And I'm not
saying that kids are committing to otherschools for the wrong reasons, but sometimes
those things bear themselves out. Youknow, Calvin Bank wasn't committed to us
at this time when when he decidedto come, and he's a preseason All

(11:03):
American. Anthony Hill wasn't committed tous at this time, and he's a
pretty good player for us. Andso over time, you know, we
we continue to build our relationships withthe players in our program, and some
of them decide to come and someof them don't. But at the end
of the day, when we assessour recruiting classes, are we addressing the

(11:24):
needs that that on our roster?Are we are we building a team that
we think can be better next yearthan it was this year. We're always
trying to do those things and dothey fit us? You know, do
they fit us from a character standpoint? Do they do they fit us from
a cultural standpoint? And are theygoing to be somebody that comes onto our
team and enhances our culture or arethey going to be an anchor that that

(11:46):
we have to keep yanking along.And so it's not always about the number
of stars they have, it's aboutdo they fit what we're about. And
so you know, again to goback to my very first statement, I'm
generally not one to panic in recruitingis especially in the middle of June and
July. Kind of let's let's talkin December and see see where we land.

(12:07):
Okay, there's some thoughts on thatnow coming up we need to break
when we come back. There's oneother element of recruiting and signing student athletes
I want you to hear from Sark. We'll hear that coming up. Also
about the whole house versus the NCAA, and apparently things have about to get

(12:28):
settled on all of that, andthe spectrum possibility of a roster cap,
meaning how many walk ons you couldhave. This was a topic that we
also got into on the D oneCoaching panel discussion as well with all of
them. We'll get to that comingup and we'll continue, and again a
reminder here, we've got a coupleof spots left. If you want to

(12:48):
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(13:13):
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