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August 26, 2024 14 mins
Steve Sarkisian continued his Monday press conference with his thoughts on the teams starters and the depth of the team heading into the season opener against Colorado State. Plus, he answers questions about the trickle down effect of leadership in the locker room, replacing injured players such as Cedric Baxter and Christian Clark, and how the team handles adversity. 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:03):
We're back. It's the Craig Way Show with Hall of
Fame broadcaster and voice of the Texas Longhearts Craig Way.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome to your Monday and a brand new week and
a brand.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
New season of college football. It is underway.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
There were four games involving Division one FBS programs played
over the weekend, and there were some interesting results out
of it. Obviously, like we said, we were commending Delaware
State from the MIAC with all the difficulties they had

(00:47):
of being able to mount a competitive effort against Hawaii
late late Saturday night in early Sunday morning, they lost.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Thirty five to fourteen.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Really not bad considering the mister team flight and they
had to do an all day travel a couple of
days later and stopped three times and all that stuff,
and they were like a forty point underdog and they
lost by twenty one in that one. There was the
Tarleton State FCS game.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Against McNeese. Did you happen to catch any of that?

Speaker 1 (01:23):
I did not, but I know our good friends Local
Indo and Vozzie Whittaker.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
They had the call McCall they were and it looked
like there was a lot of pregame celebration and excitement.
All this because Tarleton State is now Division one FCS
playoff eligible. They've completed all of their protocols and the

(01:48):
transition period they are eligible, and they ranked twenty one
in the preseason polls. They looked like they were going
to blow McNee State out of the water. They got
up twenty six to seven, and then things got real
interesting down the stretch and it took me missing a
field goal in the final seconds of the game for
Tarlton to hold on, but they did win twenty six

(02:08):
to twenty three. Sm You kind of did it in
reverse fashion. The Mustangs I think were like a twenty
eight point favorite or twenty four point favorite, definitely above twenty.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
In playing Nevada in Reno, in Jeff Choate, the former
Texas linebackers coach first game, they were a twenty eight
point favorite his first game as head coach and a
roster that includes some former Loghorns who went with him
from Austin Savian Red who showed out some at times.

(02:45):
Keaton Crawford did as well at times. So you mentioned
Christopher Ross, you mentioned him playing in that and.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Nevada led virtually the entire game. But they didn't lead.
At the end, SMU was able to come back. R J.
Maryland had a massive fourth quarter.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Son of the former Cowboy Russell Maryland, and he caught
I think eight passes for one hundred and sixty two
yards and the fourth quarter alone it was like something
like four for one hundred and thirty six and a touchdown.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
It was big. And SMU came back and won that
game twenty nine to twenty four.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
And then there was the headliner that started it all
off in Dublin, Ireland, Georgia Tack and Florida State, and
he had all these things working. Against Georgia Tack, they
hadn't beaten a top ten team since like twenty fifteen,
and they hadn't won a season opener against a highly
ranked team in a long long time. All of that

(03:45):
kind of stuff. Florida State came in a lot of hype,
a lot of excitement, and they looked great. On that
first drive right down the field, scored ran a swinging
gate to score two point conversion. They were up eight
to nothing four minutes in the ballgame. It looked like
it might blow him out of the water. Georgia Tech
was able to do something folks did not expect them
to do. They ran the ball at around and through

(04:07):
Florida State throughout the course of the day and came back,
got a touchdown to pull on an one point at
eighty seven. Then after Florida'state got a field goal make
it eleven to seven, Georgia Tech scored just before the half,
and then Florida State got at longfield what fifty nine
yard field goal I believe, at the end of the

(04:27):
half to tie the score at fourteen, and it remained
so into the fourth quarter, and then Georgia Tech got
a touchdown drive and then Florida State came back. They
had a touchdown drive to tie it, but left Georgia
Tech too much time. They were able to get down
the field and get a forty four yard field goal
to win.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
It a stunner as Florida State.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
And I will say this, and this was pointed out
at link by a lot of folks, and I'm in
agreement with it that, first of all, as we've known
in college football for several years since he had been
to the playoff. One loss, however, disappointing or in some
cases even embarrassing, whatever doesn't kill your chances to get

(05:08):
into the playoff, even back through last year when it
was four teams. Now with twelve teams get into the playoff,
it certainly doesn't kill Florida State's chances, but it's a
dent in there, because you know, I think the layman
fan in US as media look at schedules and you

(05:29):
point to certain games and you think maybe that game
might be a loss, or that game might be a loss,
but it would be a loss or two that you
could withstand and still make the playoff. Florida State losing
to Georgia Tech was I don't think it was on
anybody's list as a game they could drop and still
feel good about their chance to get a payoff because
they still have some tough games in it.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
It's two.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Mendel from The Athletic wrote a piece last week. Actually
was in his mailbag, and he was asked a question
by a reader, which are the top ten teams that
are currently ranked are going to be ones that will
the point He picked Texas as that top ten team
who he thought could end up being seven and five.
Now we could talk about that different story. Florida State
top ten team. Now you're looking at it going well,

(06:11):
they lost what ten eleven starters last year, replacing basically
their entire defensive line, placing their quarterback. You know, they
did get transfer from Oregon State dj Unglea and he
just you know, did not look great. And Georgia Tech
dominated the trenches. Now it makes sense. Brent Tee was
the former offensive line coach at Alabama for three seasons

(06:33):
twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen, and watching that game, Georgia
Tech was the team that did dominate the lot of scrimmage.
So looking at it now in hindsight, you know, maybe
Florida State does have that drop off, But again it's
a week one, a twelve team playoff. This was four teams.
Now you're really concerned about making the playoff. But twelve
teams acc isn't as stacked as it might be in

(06:54):
the SEC or Big Ten. So there's still a path
there for Florida State. But what a way to start
off the college football season.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
And how about a native Texan getting the win for
Georgia Tech with his leg.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, Ayden Burr, Yeah yeah, So good story with regard
to that, and most see how it is with the
with the others going forward. Okay, let's listen to some
sound from Longhorn's head coach, Chief Sarkeesian. Sark from the
news conference heard earlier live and its entirety right here
on sports Radio Am thirteen hundreds. I was asked about
the red zone offense and how they are striving to

(07:27):
be better in the red zone this season.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
Okay, you know, I think the first part in the
red area we we you know, when you analyze it,
we have to do a better job of not stubbing
our own toe in the red area, false starts, penalties,
negative plays. You know, our efficiency rate in the red
area is drastically improved when we just continue to move
the ball forward. And so that's the first part that

(07:52):
we've made a huge point of emphasis on of having
the right mental intensity when we get into those situations
to really play clean football and execute what we're.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Trying to get done.

Speaker 4 (08:02):
Now, when it comes down to the red area, sometimes
it's making the right call at the right time. Sometimes
it comes down to making a play. Sometimes it comes
down to the runner making that last guy miss that tackle.
There's always kind of that extra hat. The closer the
end zone you get, you're gonna have to make some
contested catches, the field shrinks there. But I do have
confidence in our players' ability to go do that. I

(08:22):
think we've got great schemes. Now now we have to
go do it.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, So they do have to go do it. And
one way you can do it is with good play
from your wide receiver corps. And he was asked about that,
about the rotation and how you get everybody involved and
what all the wide receivers have to do to be
a collective factor.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
From a receiver standpoint.

Speaker 4 (08:44):
You know, time will tell, you know, as we go,
a lot of these guys are gonna play. We're gonna
play a lot of receivers, especially early in the season,
and finding that rhythm and that rapport and especially that
rotation of players as we go, and I'll definitely have
the up confidence in all those guys is just finding
the right rhythm. And naturally there's certain guys that the

(09:04):
ball finds them.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
You know.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
I used to say this a lot about Davante Smith.
When we had him, the ball would find Davante. It
wasn't like we had to design plays for him. A
lot of the times. There's other players that sometimes you
have to design plays for them to make sure that
they get their touch and that every year kind of
takes on a life of its own, and so that's
something we're going to have to monitor early in the

(09:27):
season of who's the ball find naturally and then who
do we have to make sure that we design a
few things for early in games to make sure that
they get involved and get their touches.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
And about that rhythm thing, how do you make that happen?
How do you have that rhythm work with all of
those receivers?

Speaker 3 (09:43):
You just do it.

Speaker 4 (09:44):
You know, I wish I had a better answer for
you than that. You know, we practice it. We practice
it in a way where we've got a rotation, we
have certain packages for certain players to be on the
field together at certain times. We've got obviously have our
own personnel groupings that that we try to get on
the field, and there's some maybe a little bit more

(10:05):
elaborate this year than we had a year ago. And
then you put together a game plan, and then you
try to come up with your openers, and you try
to come up with your musk calls, and you try
to identify the guys you think are really reliable on
third down, and you try to you know, rely on
those guys in the red area that can make those
tough plays that we talked about, and then and then

(10:25):
highlight them when those opportunities present themselves.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
All right, So beyond that, with regard to the confidence
level of his team, he exudes confidence his players do
as well.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
And it's combining all of that confidence together.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
For us that's really important. I was talking to the
team about this this morning. You know, this isn't Every
year is a new team, and every team takes on
its own personality, and then we try to play to
the strengths of those teams and so on and so forth.
But it's not just like a rinse and repeat, do
it over again, you know. And and so it's really

(11:02):
important that we re establish our brand, our style of football.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Right.

Speaker 4 (11:07):
There's a level of physicality in which we want to
play the game. There's a there's a speed element in
the speed in which we want to play the game.
There's an attacking manner in which we want to play
the game, and there's a there's a football intellect, a
football iq that that we want to play the game
with and so game with, and so we have to
re establish that and and that starts Saturday. As much
as the work we've been doing throughout training camp to

(11:29):
get us to this point, ultimately, Saturday is when we
have to re establish that as a program and as
a team because there's new faces, without a doubt, and
so that's that's definitely a challenge for us, and I
have a lot of confidence in our guys that they
can do it. But that's one of if there's a
key to victory Saturday, it's re establishing our brand a football,

(11:49):
our style of play, which is really important.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
Now.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Last this past year, the long words had eleven players selected,
eleven drafted in the NFL draft. Does start to have
a number in his mind as to how many of
his players should go through the NFL Draft, should be
drafted in the NFL draft every year?

Speaker 4 (12:11):
My goal my goal naturally, and I said this when
I first got here. You know, we should always be
hovering around ten draft picks. You know, if we do
this right, if we recruit the right way, if we
develop our players the way we should be developing them,
if we have the team success, which ultimately then lends
itself to the individual accolades, awards, and honors, one of

(12:32):
which is being an NFL draft pick. We should always
hover around that ten number. Some years it might be
you know, plus or minus two or three, you know where.
Some years maybe you get twelve thirteen guys picked. Maybe
another you have eight. I don't know what that looks like,
but I wouldn't I wouldn't be surprised again if we're
some around that number of ten come next spring for
draft picks.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
All right, there's some more from Stark. We've got some
more we'll get to as well. And hey, we want
to remind you again if you want to try to
win a pair of tickets for the Saturday's home opener
against Colorado State, just participate in our little contest today
using the talk back feature that's on your iHeart radio app.

(13:11):
If you don't have it already downloaded on your phone,
you can do it. It's really easy to do and
it's free. So you can do that on your smartphone
of any kind with its iPhone, Android, whatever it might be.
You download the iHeartRadio app, you go to AM thirteen
hundred the zone, and when you pull up that page,
there's two buttons on there. There's a white one just
to listen to the programming here and there's a red

(13:31):
button with a little white microphone.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Push that button.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
That's the talk back feature, and then leave us a
message of no more than thirty seconds. If you go
beyond thirty seconds and cut you off and you're disqualified
for the contest. So don't go over. Just like the
price is right, don't go over up to thirty seconds.
What we want to hear from you is, what are
your memories of the first log worn football game you

(13:54):
attended at home? First time? Tell us when it happened.
What are your memories of it? Best tory is gonna
win a pair of tickets today. William Moore from SARK
coming up on Sports Radio AM thirteen, under the Zone
and the iHeartRadio app.
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