December 2, 2024 • 11 mins
Hear from Steve Sarkisian at his Monday press conference as he discusses the win over Texas A&M, the rematch against Georgia, Quinn Ewers's ankle, and more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
It's the Craig Way Show with the voice of the
Texas Longhorns in Hall of Vaine broadcaster Craig Way. It's
a Long Orange Monday here on the program on sports
Radio AM thirteen hunderd The Zone Long Orange Mondays when
we bring you long worn head coach Steve Sarkisian, Who's
weekly news conference live eleven thirty in the morning every
(00:32):
Monday morning. Our coverage begins at eleven AM from the
UT campus and the presser at eleven thirty. Then we
bring you the recap of it during this program this afternoon. Now,
before we get into this, I mentioned going into the
break that I've felt pretty comfortable and confidence saying that
the Longhorns have cemented their spot in the college football
(00:57):
Playoff coming up with the win over time Texas A
and M. When we said that last week that if
they won, it would probably do the trick. I asked
sark about it on the post game, and I said,
I know, you've got a championship game to prepare for,
and you take each week and it comes. But given
the things that have happened to day, and I was
referring to Ohio State's loss to Michigan and Miami's loss
(01:19):
to Syracuse. Given those things plus what your team has done,
I said, there aren't many one loss teams left, and
there's only one unbeaten team left that's Oregon. I said,
would it be you feel pretty comfortable and confident that
your team is in the college football playoff? He said, well,
(01:39):
I'd be surprised if we weren't, was the way, and
he kind of echoed that today. And just for further validation, Cam,
I just happened a glance at the Football Power Index
thing the number one team in the Football Power Index
of the Texas Lawnwards ESPN's Football Power Index right now,
and they list him as having a one one hundred
(02:00):
percent chance to make the playoff one no matter what
happens on Saturday in Atlanta and anywhere else. So, you know,
I don't know if it's one hundred percent or whatever
it is, but but felt pretty confident that they locked
up that spot in the playoff at the very least
getting into the playoffs. And I would also add probably
(02:23):
they've probably locked up no lower than being able to
host a first round playoff game, even if they lose
to Georgia second time. I can't see them falling below eight,
and probably would still be a little higher than that,
but certainly I don't think would fall lower than eight.
And if you finish five, six, seven or eight no standings,
you're going to host a first round playoff game. So
(02:43):
now all of that looks good, but sark will be
the first to tell you they're still work at hand.
And so from the news conference, the opening statement first
and then some of the questions from head coach Steve sarkisian.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Okay, just a quick recap from this weekend.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
You know, first of all, what an what an atmosphere,
and what a turnout by Longhorn Nation Saturday night. And
can't can't thank everybody enough for their support on the road.
Been really proud of our guys on the road of
the last couple of seasons. Now this is that's eleven
straight road wins for us, And just love the mentality
of which our guys have when they go on the road,
(03:19):
the connectivity they have with one another, focused on the
task at hand and not getting caught up in the
surrounding things and what's going on. And I think you
know something that came out of it was, you know,
we talk a lot about complimentary football, and there were
some really cool moments in this game of one complimentary football,
but too dealing with adversity.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
The first part, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Michael taff gets an interception there in the in the
first quarter, and the offense takes the ball and drives
ninety three yards for a touchdown all the way into
the last defensive snap of the game. You know, Trey More,
you know, sack fumble, Vernon Broughton recovery and we're able
to kneel it out.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So this is nine straight turnof now.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Where we've scored six touchdowns or ended the game with
the ball in our possession. And so that's something that
we'd been harping on one creating turnovers, but then what
are we going to do with those turnovers? On the
flip side of that, how we responded to adversity I
thought was really critical Saturday night as well. You know,
when you look at Kelvin Banks getting injured seven plays
into the game, you lose your starting All American left tackle,
(04:25):
and incomes Trevor Gooseby. I didn't think anybody blinked, you know,
he didn't, the guys around him didn't, and he played
a heck of a game for us all the way
to we're up seventeen to nothing, we'd missed the field
goal at the end of the first half, we throw
the pick six off the tip ball. Nobody blinked, nobody
panicked all the way to we get the pump block
there late in the fourth quarter and the defense comes
(04:47):
out sudden change and gets a goal line stop. So
complimentary football works both ways, when you take advantage of
your opportunities when they're there, but also responding to adversity
to pick the other side up. And I thought there
was some great moments of that that showed up in
the game. I thought, obviously, defensively was a heck of
a game. You know, we limited a very balanced offense
to about one hundred yards rushing and just over a
(05:09):
little hundred yards passing. You know, A and M had
the number one red zone offense in the in the
conference coming into the game. Obviously we played great red
zone defense uh the other night.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
UH.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
And on the flip side, I thought offensively, our ability
to run the ball, our ability to convert on third
downs and on fourth down to extend drives was really
important in the game as well.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
So all in all some.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Some really cool individual performances, obviously Trey Wisner, Vernon Broughton,
you know, being Conference Players of the Week. But I
thought it was a total team effort. But the beauty
of it is I think we can play better. And
that's exactly what we told the team this morning, that
we can play better and we'll need to play better
moving forward. But it was a nice win for us
on the road to clinch an opportunity to play in
(05:53):
the SEC Championship game, which is uh, which is a
heck of an opportunity, and and and it's a great
it's it's a great opportunity to go against a really
formidable opponent. You know, Georgia and Kirby have been the
standard in college football now for about the last eight years.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
They've been in the SEC Championship game seven of the
last eight years. They've been to the last four consecutively.
You know, they've as I Tuck touched on with the
team this morning, you know, and this is a real compliment.
This isn't you know, to to intimidate our players. But
George's got the heart of a champion and you see
it time and time again you watch their game against
(06:29):
Georgia Tech when it looked like they were dead and gone,
and they fought their way all the way back to
have to go play, you know, eight overtimes to ultimately
win that to win that ball game, and so you know,
we're gonna have to play all of sixty minutes and
maybe beyond, and we're gonna have to play a better
version of football then we played the first time around.
You know, we were out of character, out of sorts.
(06:51):
We had four turnovers in that game. We had eight penalties,
four of which were false starts.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
You know, we we we were.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Two of fifteen on third down, one of five on
fourth down. I think we only ran the ball for
twenty nine yards in the game. And so we're gonna
have to play a better brand of football offensively, I thought, defensively,
and they they did their best to kind of stop
the bleeding. Georgia had a bunch of short fields, took
advantage of those things to get out to a twenty
(07:19):
three to nothing lead at halftime, which was which for
us is a is an uncomfortable situation. You know, we've
gone into every game with leads at halftime except for
that game, and so we've got.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
To start better.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
We've got to execute better and then and then ultimately
we're gonna have to finish better than we did.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Uh So it's a great challenge.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Like I said, that's a very good football team on
the road, essentially a road game for us going to
Atlanta to play Georgia. Uh So we've got to we've
got to pack the things necessary to put ourselves in
position to have some success Saturday.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
All right, So there that's the opening statement for the
news conference. Now to a couple of questions for Sark,
and we'll continue to recap throughout the course.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Of the day.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
One was about the tip pass pick six for the
Aggies only touchdown coming off the pass from Quinn yours,
and of course there was one like that that went that.
He's had a couple of other passes that have been
tip drill interceptions, so I believe it was Danny Davis
of the Austin American Statesman of Assark. Is there any
(08:21):
kind of a pattern, there is a technique thing, or
is it just playing bad luck with how those have
gone down?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Bad luck?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
You know, we teach our guys to get their hands
up to and we've got some pretty cool interceptions off
of tip balls.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
It's part of what good d lyman do.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
You know that they try to rush, and when they
don't feel like the rush is there, they try to
time those jumps and get hands up. It's especially difficult
when they're slanting and moving like they were on that play,
because it's not just the straight rush. A lot of times,
you know, quarterbacks, we try to train them to find windows,
but when a guy's coming out of your vision into
your vision to tip a ball, that happens sometimes, and
so it's just kind of part of the game, all right.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Then he was asked about the challenges preparing for the
college football playoff upcoming. Like we said, we're all expecting
Longhorns to be in there, and then you know, these
questions are going to come up during basketball when Texas
was in the Sweet sixteen and Elite eight. To remember
for Rodney Terry, they came up last year for Sark,
can they come up this year?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
These questions that.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Come up come up from the guys who do the
reporting for the fans sites, who are keeping everybody updated
with what's going on with recruiting and the commitments, and
who will ultimately sign to become future Texas Longhorns. So
that's why those questions get asked, and in this particular case,
a question about the challenges of preparing for the playoff.
(09:40):
First of all, the conference championship game, then the playoff
with signing day and the opening of the Trends Transfer
portal all looming, and Sark pretty much addresses it like
you thought he would. It's about compartmentalizing things.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Well, you know, I think you know there's a handful
of us that are playing this Saturday, right And I
would be the first one to add much rather be
playing Saturday than watching teams play Saturday. So we're we're
fortunate to be playing Saturday. But on that note, there's
a lot of stabs around the country that all they're doing,
they're working the phones now between now and Wednesday morning
to get guys signed.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
And we've got to find the right balance. As we're game.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Planning, prepping, meeting with our players, practice walkthroughs, we still
have to find those times to recruit. But again, I
think that we've tried to build quality relationships with the
recruits that we are recruiting so that they understand, Hey,
when you come to the University of Texas, get used
to playing in championship games, get used to preparing for
(10:37):
the College Football Playoff, and because of that, maybe we
can't sit on the phone with you for two hours
and babysit you. We're going to check in and make
sure you're in a good spot, but knowing that the
reason that is is because we're preparing to go compete
for a championship Saturday and the CFP and not everybody
can say that, and we're one of the few that
fortunately that can. On the flip side, then the portal
opens after that, and so again it's.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Just time management.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
It's it's balancing, balancing what we have to do on
a daily basis. It's having the relationships with our current
players so that they can be upfront and honest with us,
but also monitoring the portal as it comes. We're gonna
have some needs that we're gonna need to fill. Again,
we don't want to live in the portal. We think
we've got a great recruiting class coming in. We've got
(11:21):
a lot of really young talented players on a roster
that are steadily improving. But I'm sure we're gonna have
a couple voids where we're gonna have some depth issues
that maybe we can fill in the portal.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
All right, so there is some opening things from Sark.
We'll hear more from the long orenes head coach coming
up next hour, Up next inconceivable for a Monday, and
it includes the NFL here on sports Radio AM thirteen
under the Zone.
It's the Craig Way Show with the voice of the
Texas Longhorns in Hall of Vaine broadcaster Craig Way. It's
a Long Orange Monday here on the program on sports
Radio AM thirteen hunderd The Zone Long Orange Mondays when
we bring you long worn head coach Steve Sarkisian, Who's
weekly news conference live eleven thirty in the morning every
(00:32):
Monday morning. Our coverage begins at eleven AM from the
UT campus and the presser at eleven thirty. Then we
bring you the recap of it during this program this afternoon. Now,
before we get into this, I mentioned going into the
break that I've felt pretty comfortable and confidence saying that
the Longhorns have cemented their spot in the college football
(00:57):
Playoff coming up with the win over time Texas A
and M. When we said that last week that if
they won, it would probably do the trick. I asked
sark about it on the post game, and I said,
I know, you've got a championship game to prepare for,
and you take each week and it comes. But given
the things that have happened to day, and I was
referring to Ohio State's loss to Michigan and Miami's loss
(01:19):
to Syracuse. Given those things plus what your team has done,
I said, there aren't many one loss teams left, and
there's only one unbeaten team left that's Oregon. I said,
would it be you feel pretty comfortable and confident that
your team is in the college football playoff? He said, well,
(01:39):
I'd be surprised if we weren't, was the way, and
he kind of echoed that today. And just for further validation, Cam,
I just happened a glance at the Football Power Index
thing the number one team in the Football Power Index
of the Texas Lawnwards ESPN's Football Power Index right now,
and they list him as having a one one hundred
(02:00):
percent chance to make the playoff one no matter what
happens on Saturday in Atlanta and anywhere else. So, you know,
I don't know if it's one hundred percent or whatever
it is, but but felt pretty confident that they locked
up that spot in the playoff at the very least
getting into the playoffs. And I would also add probably
(02:23):
they've probably locked up no lower than being able to
host a first round playoff game, even if they lose
to Georgia second time. I can't see them falling below eight,
and probably would still be a little higher than that,
but certainly I don't think would fall lower than eight.
And if you finish five, six, seven or eight no standings,
you're going to host a first round playoff game. So
(02:43):
now all of that looks good, but sark will be
the first to tell you they're still work at hand.
And so from the news conference, the opening statement first
and then some of the questions from head coach Steve sarkisian.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Okay, just a quick recap from this weekend.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
You know, first of all, what an what an atmosphere,
and what a turnout by Longhorn Nation Saturday night. And
can't can't thank everybody enough for their support on the road.
Been really proud of our guys on the road of
the last couple of seasons. Now this is that's eleven
straight road wins for us, And just love the mentality
of which our guys have when they go on the road,
(03:19):
the connectivity they have with one another, focused on the
task at hand and not getting caught up in the
surrounding things and what's going on. And I think you
know something that came out of it was, you know,
we talk a lot about complimentary football, and there were
some really cool moments in this game of one complimentary football,
but too dealing with adversity.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
The first part, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Michael taff gets an interception there in the in the
first quarter, and the offense takes the ball and drives
ninety three yards for a touchdown all the way into
the last defensive snap of the game. You know, Trey More,
you know, sack fumble, Vernon Broughton recovery and we're able
to kneel it out.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So this is nine straight turnof now.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Where we've scored six touchdowns or ended the game with
the ball in our possession. And so that's something that
we'd been harping on one creating turnovers, but then what
are we going to do with those turnovers? On the
flip side of that, how we responded to adversity I
thought was really critical Saturday night as well. You know,
when you look at Kelvin Banks getting injured seven plays
into the game, you lose your starting All American left tackle,
(04:25):
and incomes Trevor Gooseby. I didn't think anybody blinked, you know,
he didn't, the guys around him didn't, and he played
a heck of a game for us all the way
to we're up seventeen to nothing, we'd missed the field
goal at the end of the first half, we throw
the pick six off the tip ball. Nobody blinked, nobody
panicked all the way to we get the pump block
there late in the fourth quarter and the defense comes
(04:47):
out sudden change and gets a goal line stop. So
complimentary football works both ways, when you take advantage of
your opportunities when they're there, but also responding to adversity
to pick the other side up. And I thought there
was some great moments of that that showed up in
the game. I thought, obviously, defensively was a heck of
a game. You know, we limited a very balanced offense
to about one hundred yards rushing and just over a
(05:09):
little hundred yards passing. You know, A and M had
the number one red zone offense in the in the
conference coming into the game. Obviously we played great red
zone defense uh the other night.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
UH.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
And on the flip side, I thought offensively, our ability
to run the ball, our ability to convert on third
downs and on fourth down to extend drives was really
important in the game as well.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
So all in all some.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Some really cool individual performances, obviously Trey Wisner, Vernon Broughton,
you know, being Conference Players of the Week. But I
thought it was a total team effort. But the beauty
of it is I think we can play better. And
that's exactly what we told the team this morning, that
we can play better and we'll need to play better
moving forward. But it was a nice win for us
on the road to clinch an opportunity to play in
(05:53):
the SEC Championship game, which is uh, which is a
heck of an opportunity, and and and it's a great
it's it's a great opportunity to go against a really
formidable opponent. You know, Georgia and Kirby have been the
standard in college football now for about the last eight years.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
They've been in the SEC Championship game seven of the
last eight years. They've been to the last four consecutively.
You know, they've as I Tuck touched on with the
team this morning, you know, and this is a real compliment.
This isn't you know, to to intimidate our players. But
George's got the heart of a champion and you see
it time and time again you watch their game against
(06:29):
Georgia Tech when it looked like they were dead and gone,
and they fought their way all the way back to
have to go play, you know, eight overtimes to ultimately
win that to win that ball game, and so you know,
we're gonna have to play all of sixty minutes and
maybe beyond, and we're gonna have to play a better
version of football then we played the first time around.
You know, we were out of character, out of sorts.
(06:51):
We had four turnovers in that game. We had eight penalties,
four of which were false starts.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
You know, we we we were.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Two of fifteen on third down, one of five on
fourth down. I think we only ran the ball for
twenty nine yards in the game. And so we're gonna
have to play a better brand of football offensively, I thought, defensively,
and they they did their best to kind of stop
the bleeding. Georgia had a bunch of short fields, took
advantage of those things to get out to a twenty
(07:19):
three to nothing lead at halftime, which was which for
us is a is an uncomfortable situation. You know, we've
gone into every game with leads at halftime except for
that game, and so we've got.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
To start better.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
We've got to execute better and then and then ultimately
we're gonna have to finish better than we did.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Uh So it's a great challenge.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Like I said, that's a very good football team on
the road, essentially a road game for us going to
Atlanta to play Georgia. Uh So we've got to we've
got to pack the things necessary to put ourselves in
position to have some success Saturday.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
All right, So there that's the opening statement for the
news conference. Now to a couple of questions for Sark,
and we'll continue to recap throughout the course.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Of the day.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
One was about the tip pass pick six for the
Aggies only touchdown coming off the pass from Quinn yours,
and of course there was one like that that went that.
He's had a couple of other passes that have been
tip drill interceptions, so I believe it was Danny Davis
of the Austin American Statesman of Assark. Is there any
(08:21):
kind of a pattern, there is a technique thing, or
is it just playing bad luck with how those have
gone down?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Bad luck?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
You know, we teach our guys to get their hands
up to and we've got some pretty cool interceptions off
of tip balls.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
It's part of what good d lyman do.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
You know that they try to rush, and when they
don't feel like the rush is there, they try to
time those jumps and get hands up. It's especially difficult
when they're slanting and moving like they were on that play,
because it's not just the straight rush. A lot of times,
you know, quarterbacks, we try to train them to find windows,
but when a guy's coming out of your vision into
your vision to tip a ball, that happens sometimes, and
so it's just kind of part of the game, all right.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Then he was asked about the challenges preparing for the
college football playoff upcoming. Like we said, we're all expecting
Longhorns to be in there, and then you know, these
questions are going to come up during basketball when Texas
was in the Sweet sixteen and Elite eight. To remember
for Rodney Terry, they came up last year for Sark,
can they come up this year?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
These questions that.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Come up come up from the guys who do the
reporting for the fans sites, who are keeping everybody updated
with what's going on with recruiting and the commitments, and
who will ultimately sign to become future Texas Longhorns. So
that's why those questions get asked, and in this particular case,
a question about the challenges of preparing for the playoff.
(09:40):
First of all, the conference championship game, then the playoff
with signing day and the opening of the Trends Transfer
portal all looming, and Sark pretty much addresses it like
you thought he would. It's about compartmentalizing things.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Well, you know, I think you know there's a handful
of us that are playing this Saturday, right And I
would be the first one to add much rather be
playing Saturday than watching teams play Saturday. So we're we're
fortunate to be playing Saturday. But on that note, there's
a lot of stabs around the country that all they're doing,
they're working the phones now between now and Wednesday morning
to get guys signed.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
And we've got to find the right balance. As we're game.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Planning, prepping, meeting with our players, practice walkthroughs, we still
have to find those times to recruit. But again, I
think that we've tried to build quality relationships with the
recruits that we are recruiting so that they understand, Hey,
when you come to the University of Texas, get used
to playing in championship games, get used to preparing for
(10:37):
the College Football Playoff, and because of that, maybe we
can't sit on the phone with you for two hours
and babysit you. We're going to check in and make
sure you're in a good spot, but knowing that the
reason that is is because we're preparing to go compete
for a championship Saturday and the CFP and not everybody
can say that, and we're one of the few that
fortunately that can. On the flip side, then the portal
opens after that, and so again it's.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Just time management.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
It's it's balancing, balancing what we have to do on
a daily basis. It's having the relationships with our current
players so that they can be upfront and honest with us,
but also monitoring the portal as it comes. We're gonna
have some needs that we're gonna need to fill. Again,
we don't want to live in the portal. We think
we've got a great recruiting class coming in. We've got
(11:21):
a lot of really young talented players on a roster
that are steadily improving. But I'm sure we're gonna have
a couple voids where we're gonna have some depth issues
that maybe we can fill in the portal.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
All right, so there is some opening things from Sark.
We'll hear more from the long orenes head coach coming
up next hour, Up next inconceivable for a Monday, and
it includes the NFL here on sports Radio AM thirteen
under the Zone.
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