Steve Sarkisian breaks down the Florida Gators

Steve Sarkisian broke down the Texas Longhorns' opponent this week during Longhorn Weekly with Coach Sark from Pluckers with Craig Way.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
It's the Craig Wake Show with the voice of the
Texas Longhorns in Hall of Fame Broadcasting, Craig Way. Okay,
you've had quite a bit of basketball conversation there to
get you geared up for the home opener tonight for
Texas at Moody Center against Houston Christian. Back to football

(00:25):
we go now and the Longhorns getting ready for the
Florida Gators. This is something we do every week on
this program is we bring you an excerpt from the
prior evening's airing of Longhorn Weekly with Coach Sark. It's
the segment of the program where sark takes a look
at the opponent. So with that in mind, and of

(00:47):
course we record the program on Wednesday nights at six
o'clock at Pluckers the West Campus location, and it airs
Thursday nights at seven, and then on Friday, we bring
you one portion of that where Sark is taking a
look at the opponent. So here it is from last
night's airing Long warn Weekly conversation with long Worn head
coach Steve Sarkishan about the Florida Gators. This Florida Gator

(01:10):
team has really been kind of interesting to see. They
had some struggles early, they had some injuries early, then
they seem to get really tough over the past few weeks,
and even though they sustained another injury at quarterback, this
is proving to be what's looking like one of the
tougher teams of the SEC.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
No question. I said this at the Monday press conference.
I think people kind of maybe chuckled at me. If
they all just lined up and every other team lined up,
you could argue this is the best looking team in
our conference. They are big, they are long, they're physical,
They've got playmakers on both sides of the ball. And
as I've been talking to the team about it, if

(01:48):
you just look at their last five games, they beat
the Breaks off of Mississippi State, they beat UCF, they
lose an overtime at Tennessee, who's number seven in the CFP.
They come back and beat the Brakes off at Kentucky,
and then they played Georgia last week and it's twenty

(02:08):
to twenty in the fourth quarter, was seven minutes to
go in the game. And so a ton of respect
for Billy Napier, their head coach. We worked together at
Alabama for a year in twenty sixteen. He's a great coach,
he's a good recruiter, and he's got these guys playing
good football right now.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
One thing he has is he has a red shirt
freshman transfer out of an IVY League school playing quarterback
now Aiden Warner, who's from Winter Park, Florida, but he
transferred him from Yale. He kind of got thrust into
it in the second quarter when DJ Lagway, who I know,
you know really really well, the outstanding quarterback from Willis
who was playing and starting as a freshman before he

(02:43):
injured a hamstring and they don't know if he'll be
available or not on Saturday. But I know you were
impressed with what you saw from Warner. He didn't blink,
he really didn't.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
And we all know about Georgia's defense, you know, and
so I commend him for standing there. But everything they do,
and this goes back to, you know, coach Napier's time
at Louisiana when we be coaching against them there too.
They run the football and they believe in running the football,
and they're they're runners, run hard. Montreal Johnson is gonna

(03:12):
run down hill. He's a physical player. They're massive on
the offensive line, they like big humans too. We're kind
of kind of from the same school of coaches. And
then what they what Billy does a great job of,
is once you start to over commit to that in
a certain way, then they attack you with the wheel routes,
the post routes, all those things down the field. And
they have more than capable players to go make those

(03:33):
plays down the field.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
And they also have a really tough defensive unit.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Really good defensive football team. You know, they sustained a
couple injuries last week in the ball game at the
corner spot, so we'll see what happens. But everything they
do starts up front. They are massive on the defensive line,
and just to start with their nose tackle Desmond Watson
is six five, four hundred and forty nine pounds. It's

(03:58):
the biggest guy I've ever seen. But they're big across
the board, and all these guys are three hundred plus
on the interior defensive line, they're really long on the edges,
kind of built how we are, athletic linebackers, versatile secondary players.
So great challenge, you know, but that's that's why you coach.
That's the fun part.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, you mentioned the limack Jamar James kind of is
the leader of that group back here.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
He really is really athletic. He's a guy that plays
the game with the kind of his motors hot. He's
running hot. But next to him, I mean the gums
kid is this guy's six four, two fifty playing off
the ball linebacker. So it's a great challenge. I mean,
that's that's the beauty of it. And you know, people
talk about the Southeastern Conference and you want to talk

(04:44):
about the four of us that are in that kind
of top ten right now. Uh, but these guys are
a four or four football team, and I promise you
if they were in any other conference in the country
right now, they're probably at minimum six and two, if
not seven and one.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
So there it is Longborns head coach Steve Sarkisian from
last night edition of Longhorn Weekly. And again you can
be there when we record the program on Wednesday nights
at six at Pluckers. We aer it Thursday, and then
of course we bring you the opponent segment on Friday.
We'll be back to wrap up the day and the
week here on sports Radio AM thirteen under the zone
of the iHeartRadio app.