Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You know, going back through thetape, I thought our guys played a
really good football game. I know, I know, we had some self
inflicted wounds in the first half thattook two touchdowns off the board, and
naturally you know, had the fumbleinside the ten. But I thought our
guys, you know, did agreat job keeping their poison composure. Our
(00:20):
defense continued to play well. Wecame out in the second half and of
our five possessions, you know,two touchdowns, a field goal, we
had the one punt, and thenwe finished the game with the ball in
our possession at the end of thegame, so really efficient second half.
I thought that, you know,defensively, again our ability to to stop
the run to pretty much make themone dimensional, and again we gave up
(00:45):
the one pop pass to the tightend there in short yards. But I
thought our defense had a heck ofa game. I thought offensively, the
balance was there without you know,obviously not having Jonathan. I thought Cedric
Baxter really showed up. It wasa nice job by Jayden Blue and and
his and his ability to to stepinto the fold. Uh So, all
in all, again I thought weplayed a really good game, controlled the
(01:07):
game, even you know, juston on our on our mindset, uh,
even into the that fourth quarter.So again, I again, I
like the poise that our guys showedin that game when things you know,
clearly weren't going our way and andwe we were kind of stubbing our own
toes there in the first half,but nobody panicked, And I thought,
you know, that's a sign ofmaturity for our team. Uh, So
(01:27):
that that was a that was areal positive there and then ultimately for us
to get our tenth win, whichis you know, it's obviously as as
players and as coaches, you're alwayskind of looking to, you know,
those benchmarks throughout a season. Youknow, Bowl eligibility is always something that
that people point to. You know, ten win seasons is always something people
(01:47):
point to. Uh, Conference championshipssomething people point to. Bowl game.
Uh, and then naturally, youknow, if there's a CFP opportunity,
So, uh, it's a greatbenchmark for us to hit. I know
the guys, the coaches were excitedabout it, but I think you know
all of us would would tell youthe same thing. You know, we're
not done yet. We know thatthere's there's more out there for us to
(02:07):
do. The goals that we hadset for ourselves, you know at the
at the start of the season,are still there for us. So you
know, we're looking forward to kindof continuing the mission, continuing the journey.
I wouldn't be remiss if I didn'tthank all our fans that came to
Ames uh Saturday night. Obviously toughenvironment to play. Their support did not
(02:30):
go unnoticed. There was nothing likeyou know, singing the Eyes of Texas
on the road in a hostile environment. Great moment for our players. So
I appreciate all of the support onthat front. But that transitions to to
this Friday and uh, you know, Friday night game. It's only our
second night game of the year.Uh, we know it was. It
(02:51):
was a great spectacle, uh,the first night game that we have,
and we're looking forward to another awesomeopportunity This Friday night. It'll be Senior
Night, our seniors, to celebratethem and all that they've done for our
program. And I think that,you know, I've been pretty adamant and
pretty clear about what those guys havemeant to our program. Uh, And
so a chance to honor them willbe great, a chance for us to
(03:14):
kind of a solidify and an opportunityto play in the Big twelve championship game
is obviously exciting on that front.And then hopefully for our fans to celebrate
this team, you know, toto where this team has come and I
know what everybody's gone through over thelast decade or so, and so for
the fact that this team has onemore opportunity to play in dk R.
(03:34):
You know, Friday night, we'relooking for a racus intense crowd, one
that fuels our players with energy.But hopefully, again, like I always
say, the players have to dowith their part. We have to do
there our part to to fuel thefans with energy too, So hopefully everybody
can make it. Everybody have alittle turkey on on Thursday, enjoy your
(03:55):
Friday afternoon, and then and thenget to dk R for I think,
for us an awesome, an awesomeball game against a really good opponent.
You know, I think Tech,you know, it really had a tough
start to the season. I know, we all go through it and you
never know when injuries show up,but they were fighting that injury bug earlier
in the year, and I think, you know, as you could see
(04:15):
them getting themselves healthier and healthier.They've strung together three in a row.
Now, they're playing really good defense, they're running the football extremely well.
Kind of have changed philosophically that way. So we know we're going to get
their best shot, and so we'vegot to do a great job of preparation
this week for for a heck ofa ball club and should be it should
be an exciting night Friday night onSaturday, DJ Campbell and Worthy. I
(04:41):
guess, and with the transfer portalwindow opening on a fourth, do you
you have a bunch of guys withdecisions to make, some seniors with COVID
years and all that, do youhave to kind of get an idea from
them ahead of schedule or or now. So injury wise, I feel I
feel actually pretty good on a Mondaycoming out as a physical game Saturday night,
(05:06):
and we had a variety of guysthat that kind of went down.
I don't foresee any of those guysbeing out Friday, So you know,
obviously we need to monitor that asthe week goes. But I do feel,
you know, confident enough today thatthat will be We'll have everybody that
(05:27):
was available Saturday night will be availableFriday night. And again probably a better
serve question for a little later inthe week when we really get to practice.
From a transport portal perspective, wereally haven't addressed it. You know,
We're we're in the midst of aseason, We're in the midst of
a championship run. We've got aheck of a ball game to play Friday
(05:48):
night, and especially on a shortweek, there's just not a lot of
the time to have those meetings withthe players. That way, probably have
a little better opportunity in the nextweek after this game we have a little
bit more time. But I thinkquite frankly, that you know, unless
I'm missing something that you know thatI would say if not, all the
(06:09):
majority of the players in our lockerroom right now are just trying to compete
with one another to to put usin the best chance to be successful,
to to try to win a championship. I'm sure I'm not you know,
my head's not in the sand.I'm sure there's people that are potentially thinking
about it, have been in contactwith other schools. That's just the nature
(06:29):
of the business, you know,when when you're on a good team,
other schools try to call your playersand see if they want to if they
want to transfer. I get it, you know, and whether it's directly
or indirectly. So. But butI do think that the main focus of
our team right now is about tryingto finish this season the right way.
But I'll be you know, youknow, I'll be very understanding of it
(06:54):
when when we have to have someof those some of those discussions with some
of the players and try to supportthem as best we can, whether that's
to stay or they're thinking about leaving, and how what that looks like.
But again, that's the that's theage that we live in right now.
I don't know, you know,if it's a good thing, bad thing,
it's hard to it's hard to tellyet, you know. I just
(07:15):
I'm just hopeful that all of ourguys enjoy this experience that's going on right
now, because they put forth toomuch work right from January we're into November
now. There's too much time,effort, blood, sweat, tears,
great moments to not enjoy this.And I'd hate for them to miss what's
(07:36):
going on right now because they mightnot get this back. You know.
Just going to another school doesn't ensurethat you get what we have going on
right now in our locker room,what we're doing as a team on the
field. So I'm hopeful that allof our players, even if in their
minds they're thinking, hey, it'stime for me to move on, that
they don't miss this right now becausethis is something that will last a lifetime.
(08:00):
What they're going through and the bondthat they have with their brothers,
uh, the the success we're havingas a team, that the great moments.
So I'm hopeful, like I saidthat, that they're not missing what's
going on right now with their withtheir eyes you know, down the road.
And uh, that's hard. That'shard as young people. I'm sure
every guy on our team wants toplay and play a ton. I understand
(08:22):
that, but man, this isthis is a pretty cool time right now
to be a Texas Longhorn football player. So I'm hoping that they're that they're
enjoying it. How to excel inthe second half of games and help you
close out games. Now you've hada chance to see C. J.
Baxer a little bit and you know, a couple of days from the game,
It's wonder how you felt about hisability to you know, kind of
grow and and and close out gamesin the second half and really kind of
(08:43):
be that guy you can lean onladen ball games. Yeah, I thought
I thought CJ got stronger as thegame went on. You know, he
had some really nice runs in thesecond half of that game, some physical
runs. You know, it's prettysafe to stay. You know, Iowa
States are really physical defense. They'rethey're an excellent defense, and and there's
hard yards in there and then they'rethey're physical and the secondary when they tackle,
(09:05):
And I thought CJ did that andgot stronger as the game went on,
you know, So that that thatthat's really encouraging for us knowing kind
of what what's in store for usas we move forward. But I also
said I think some of that asa credit to the coaches of of making
the right adjustments and calling the rightstuff that I think puts our players in
(09:28):
a really good position too, andthe players understand why we're calling what we're
calling there. But again, I'mvery impressed by by CJ. I was
really impressed by Jaden Blue. Iknow he didn't have some of the wow
plays that maybe we were all kindof hoping, but the fact that he's
in there on fourth and one atthe end of the game. To get
that first down I think speaks volumesto the development and the growth that he
(09:50):
has as a player and how farhe's come where you know, he was
just kind of the highlight reel perimeterguy. It's all of a sudden he's
running between the tackles on four theone to get a first down to seal
the victory. So that was thatwas definitely encouraging as well. What were
some of the challenges as you lookback on it to get everyone to buy
in and then how gratifying is itnow with that particular group to see where
(10:13):
they are now? Well, Imean, I think inevitably, you know,
when you when you take over aprogram, you have to remember that
the guys that were here in theprogram and the guys that were in that
first recruiting class that that I inheritedthat signed in December, they didn't sign
up to play for Steve Sarkisian.You know, they didn't sign up to
(10:35):
get coached by Kyle Flood or BoDavis or or whomever. Right, they
had signed up for something different.And so naturally, when when you when
you come in, you're trying togain and build trust, Okay, and
We have an old adage that thatwe use in our building trust equals time
plus consistency, and so one ofthe challenges was, even through some of
(10:58):
the the tough days, the toughgames, the tough losses, was remaining
consistent as a coaching staff, remainingconsistent with our message, remaining consistent of
what we were asking of the playersto do, not only on the field,
but off the field, and thenover time, hopefully they could start
to learn to trust us, oneplayer at a time. And as we
(11:24):
went through it, I think thatthat's inevitably probably the overall writing themes that
I think we developed trust with ourplayers that our players know, hey,
I'm going to always tell them thetruth. Sometimes they may want to hear
it, sometimes they may not,but they know where I'm coming from that
it's ultimately in their best interest becausemy job as a coach and our coaching
(11:45):
staff is to try to put ourplayers in the best position to be successful,
whether that's on the football field,in the classroom, or in life.
And if they can understand that that'sthe overriding theme, and then we
back that up with our actions,over time, we'll start to get their
trust. And I think that's beenkind of the journey over three years for
the seniors that were here when wegot here and the guys that are still
(12:09):
here that have persevered through the threeyears of it all. I owe him
a ton because without them trusting us, the other players in the program would
have a harder time trusting us.And so that's probably the biggest thing when
you when you talk about the buyin coach, the uh here you are,
You're you're so close to clinching aspot in the Big Twelve title game,
(12:31):
yet the commissioner has been open aboutbrooding against you. You know,
it's such an odd dynamic. Howhow do you approach that? As I
know his plan was to come hereand have you guys been able to smooth
anything over since he made those comments? I you know, there was nothing
to smooth over. He you know, for me, we we've we've been
on this kick here for months now, this this whole situation us leaving the
(12:56):
Big Twelve. Our players didn't chooseto leave the Big Twelve right that they
came to play for the University ofTexas. What conference we're in, That's
not what our players They're just choosingto put on the burn orange and white
and run out of the tunnel.And so to whether the commissioner's rooting against
our players to win or not,or we're in the SEC or we're in
(13:18):
the Big twelve. At the endof the day, our guys just want
to play good football and they wantto win, and so we're we've tried
to consume ourselves with what we needto do. As you guys have heard
me say, we need to beenamored with us and that's something that we've
done and that's been our focus.And I think that's why our players have
been so poised and so composed evenon the road. As we go on
(13:39):
the road, and the success we'vehad there says we haven't gotten caught up
in what's going on outside. We'vereally tried to quiet the noise. We've
really tried to stay focused on oneanother and how we can continue to support
one another. And so, youknow, for the for the commissioner,
you know, we've had plenty ofconversations and he is coming. I got
(14:01):
a chance to see him. Hewas an aim Saturday night. Steve,
this is obviously your best season asa head coach record wise. I'm curious
in other categories. Is just thebest team you've ever had, either in
run, defense, grit, balanceor whatever. Yeah, you know,
I think balance is probably the thing. When I look at our team and
(14:26):
I look at Burt Auburn and whathe's doing kicking field goals and he's he
made fourteen in a row. Ilook at Ryan Sanborn in the year he's
had punting the ball. I lookat Xavier you know, and what he's
been doing punt return wise, evenhaving the punt return call back. He's
still leading our conference at punt return. Then I look at the way we're
(14:46):
playing defensive football right now and thefanatical effort, the relentless nature, the
violence that we're playing. But yethow intelligent we're playing the game defensively and
our ability to stop the run,I think as we've grown into that over
three years. And then offensively,I just love the balance that we have
(15:09):
and the way that we're playing.I know, maybe we haven't gotten all
the points that we want, butthe fact that we're averaging over four hundred
and fifty yards a game and andwe've we've created explosive plays and the balls
moving around. We're not one dimensional. We can run it. We can
throw it. We've we've fought throughinjuries, we played with the backup quarterback
for two games, we lost ourstarting running back. Our true freshman steps
(15:31):
in and goes for over one hundredyards against you know, one of the
top defenses in our conference. Like, to me, the versatility of our
team, the balance of our team, that's probably as good as I've had
in my time. I may havehad a year where we've had a really
good player at one spot or another, really good numbers by a couple of
(15:52):
players here or there, But atthe end, I think the balance and
versatility of this team has really shinedthrough this year all three phases. The
picture is do you like being ableto tell your team a simple message and
that it's winning in Well, Ijust think we learned that our lesson a
year ago. You know, wewe put ourselves in position a year ago
(16:17):
to where you know, we hadto win Friday night against Baylor, and
we were able to do that,but then our fate was in somebody else's
hands on Saturday and it didn't workout so well for us. We didn't
we didn't get into the championship game. And so I think this year was
you know, leave no doubt likethis is on us. We control our
own destiny. Let's go handle ourbusiness the way the way we know how
(16:41):
to do it. It's a talltask, It's going to be a tough
game Friday night. But at theend, let's not let's not leave it
up to somebody else, you know, Let's let's let's do it our way
and and the way that I knowwe're capable of doing it. On your
left, Dan, Steve, whenyou got here, what did you p
K Jeff c and Jalen? Andhas he exceeded those expectations? Well,
(17:03):
we didn't know a whole lot,you know. I mean, he had
played a little bit. But aswe kind of grew as a program and
as he kind of grew, theplaymaking ability continues to show up. Like
for some reason, it's this oldthing in football, And you guys have
all been covenant for enough to know, really good players are around the ball.
(17:26):
They make tackles, they force fumbles, they recover fumbles, they get
interceptions, they get sacks, andat the end of the year, it's
not maybe not always the numbers,but those plays always seem to happen at
critical moments, right they show upwhen you need those plays to happen,
and that was something we had tolearn about Jalen as we went through year
(17:48):
one. Naturally, in year twoit really started to show itself and he
continues to do it now and Ithink now more than ever, his leadership
has shown up. I mean youcould see him last Saturday night. I
mean he was in charge on thefield of getting things lined up and making
great checks. But yet it's thirdand one and you see him. Stuff
are running back in the hole andknock him back, and so it's it's
(18:12):
all of that, right, It'sall of that that's building up to Burt
Auburn makes a kick at the endof the first half and ad Mitchell Jahadi,
Barn Jalen Ford are out there celebratingwith our kicker after field goal at
the end of the first half.So talk about leadership too, Like Jalen
has a lot of things to him. He's not you know, you can't
(18:32):
say he's just this. I thinkhe is all of that, and all
of those things take time to learnour way through. But what an invaluable
player he's been for our program,especially over the last two years. Like
we would not be where we aretoday without Jalen Ford, and you know
just just what he represents, theway he goes about his business, the
(18:56):
cerebral aspect of the game, theversatility of his game, the play making
it critical moments. All those thingsadd up to you know, we're obviously
very fortunate to have had him.Hey, Steve, case can be made.
This is the biggest game of yourhead coaching career coming up. You're
looking for your first conference championship.I'm keeping it a real mister Sarkisian.
(19:21):
Also Texas with you guys, Uhyeah, uh wispare parts. I mean,
also the biggest game for the programsince the nine Big Twelve Championship game.
I know it's one game, butdo you guys talk about the stakes?
So, I mean, because thisis the Big twelve and next year
you're going to have some huge fishto deal with, we haven't necessarily had
(19:48):
to put more of an emphasis onthis game because I mean this when I
tell you, you know, afterafter you know the OU game. I've
made it a point that every gamewe played, the first thing I talked
about to the team every morning,every Monday morning, every Friday night.
(20:10):
This is a Big twelve Championship game. We feel like we've been playing big
twelve championship games one week after another. We know the value of them,
we know the importance of them.You never know how it's going to shake
out, and we just did notwant to put ourselves in position where we
were relying on other people. Andso I don't feel like in this week
(20:30):
that I have to do more thanthat. I think that our players understand,
Hey, we went into this seasonwith a mission to try to be
champions. We felt like we weremore than capable to do that, but
that we would have to handle ourbusiness along the way. I think we've
performed that way. But the work'snot done, and so it's not something
(20:52):
that we shy away from or needto shy away from. But it's also
not something that I need to makeit even bigger this week, because we've
been talking this way now for almosttwo months, that of of every game
and the importance of the games,you know, each each weekend. And
so I think our players are goingto prepare really well like they have been.
(21:17):
I think they're going to go intogo into the ball game with a
clear mind and composed and poised andand try to play their best football and
then we'll see if it's good enough. Hey, coach, you've talked a
lot about culture being one of thereasons for success this season. Can you
define it for me? I mean, like, what's what's on your list
of things? What's on the items, what's it's sitting in the front of
(21:38):
the classrooms and showing up earlier?Like, what is it? How long
do I have sure press conference?I mean, I mean I need like
a semester, I should teach aclass. No, No, I think
this, I think first of all, and that's a that's a that's a
fair question and a good question.I think the first thing about culture.
Culture is organic. It is nota sign up in your building. It's
(22:02):
not a T shirt you wear.It's not breaking the team down and saying
hey culture on three. I thinkculture is organic, right. It manifests
itself with the relationships that you build. I think that there's there's things that
we talk to in our culture thatare of the utmost importance. You know,
(22:27):
Commitment is really important to our culture. Discipline is really important to our
culture. Right. Accountability is veryimportant to our culture. Mental and physical
toughness are very important to our culture. Love is very important to our culture.
(22:47):
Vulnerability is very important to our culture. Transparency is really important to our
culture. So those that's just toname a few. But I can't just
say those things. We have tolive those things. And then we have
to have teachable moments along the way. A to celebrate the guys that are
(23:08):
doing those things. B point outwhen maybe we're not, and then how
can we fix it? And thenhow do we correlate that? Because who
you are some of the time iswho you are all of the time.
And so if you want to bea disciplined football team when you take the
field each weekend, you have tobe disciplined when you're off the field.
(23:32):
How do you you know? Howare we in school, how are we
in community service? What all ofit all adds up to That becomes your
culture because that is who you are. That's how we go about everyday life.
For example, when we have ateam meeting and that meeting breaks,
(23:55):
I have the same few guys thatearly on would make sure the team room
was clean. There was no gatoradebottles, there was no tape, there
was no trash, and a coupleof those guys' names were Roshawn Johnson and
b John Robinson. Well, thatelevated to when those guys were gone,
the running back room was the onesthat cleaned up the team room to now
(24:18):
when we break a team meeting,everybody looks around, and so it has
grown from two guys that has growninto more. To when we go to
the movies on Friday nights before aballgame. If we have a night game,
everybody chirps up, pick up yourtrash. So I know those sound
like little things, but in theend, that's those are really big things
(24:41):
to me because that means that's theway we're thinking all of the time.
And if we're doing those little things, and that's why I say to celebrate
the small victories. I really celebratethat stuff because I think those those actions
and that behavior leads to the bigvictories. Leads to first and goal on
(25:03):
the five and your defense has gotto get four stops, leads to third
and twelve backed up on the roadand you convert a first down. I
think it leads to those guys countingon one another, relying on other because
they're doing the right things on adaily basis. And we're not perfect,
and I don't expect our guys tobe perfect. But if they can be
(25:25):
coachable on and off the field,and they can learn from one another,
then we will continue to grow andour culture will continue to grow. But
it takes being vulnerable, It takesbeing transparent with one another, It takes
getting to know one another so thatyou can have some empathy for what a
guy's going through, not just onthe field, but off the field where
he came from. You know what'sgoing on in his life, and we
(25:47):
have to share those things. Andso in the summer we do a lot
of culture work. Every Wednesday morningnow Friday night, I do a culture
exercise before that's the last thing wedo before we go get on the bus,
whether it's to go to the hotelor to go get on the plane.
Like we invest a lot in thatand and I think that obviously to
(26:10):
me, it's it's paying dividends becauseI think culture beats talent. If your
culture is really strong, culture andtalent together is a is a pretty powerful
force. And that's something that we'vetried to we've tried to create. On
Thursday, you call Jordan Whittington aguy who you can count on. I'm
(26:33):
curious about your initial impressions three yearsago when you first met Jaywitt, What
do you remember about that first meetingwith him? And how have you seen
him grow into the young man thatyou know today. I think Jordan has
really really matured and he's probably abetter guy to ask some of this too.
But it's like anybody when you're incollege and you're younger in college,
(26:57):
it's where are you placing the valueof your time and your importance to what
you're doing? And he was fightingthrough injuries. Well why is he getting
injured? You know what's going on? And how do you all the things
that are happening. But for thelast two years, now a year and
a half, this guy's the firstguy in our building. And now now
(27:18):
now another idea, talk about culture. Now he's got six or seven other
guys that are showing up as earlyas him or earlier than him. But
he used to be the earliest guyby far to have maintenance on his body,
to get his body right. Hewas always the selfless player because he
knew the value of opportunity and repsbecause he had to change positions. He
had injury issues, you know,and and he'll fill you in on this
(27:44):
if you ask him. But youknow, when he when he broke his
collarbone against Ou our first year here, he contemplated not playing football anymore.
And I wouldn't let him not notplay football anymore, you know. And
and because I just know, youonly get this one time, you know,
you don't get to say, hey, when I'm forty or fifty like
me, I'm gonna go back andplay football. I think that was a
pretty good deal. I should havedone that more that now is the time,
(28:07):
you know, and so you needto maximize that. And so just
to see him grow through adversity,how to handle adversity. How now he
helps other players on our team throughsome of their own adversity and what they
have going on. The selflessness inwhich he plays the game very rare,
(28:29):
very rare, But he's instilling inothers this is how to play the game,
and this is how to be successfulat this game. This is how
to be on a championship team.And I just think that he's grown,
you know, and he's grown intoa voice of you know, I don't
know. I talk a lot aboutwhose locker room it is and different things.
I don't know if there's another guyin our locker rooms who's more respected
(28:52):
than Jordan Whittington. I think everyguy in that locker room respects him to
a point to where, man,if jawit's doing it, that's probably what
I'm supposed to be doing. Andso I think he's earned that. And
I think that, again, that'snot because I make him a captain every
week or things of that nature.It's it's who he is on a daily
basis that has earned that respect ofhis teammates. It's SORRK between the end
(29:17):
of your time at SC and thetime you got hired here. In that
time when you're making that checklist ofHey, if I ever get a chance
to be a head coach again,I want to do this, how much
of that stuff do you feel likeactually you actually were able to implement when
you got the job here, andit's kind of been a part of the
blueprint that you've used to build this. I think a great deal of it.
Obviously. I learned a lot personallyin that time, you know.
(29:40):
And I just said to myself,you know, having been at SC,
having spent time at Alabama, havingbeen in the NFL and been around some
really cool players, some great coaches, and two really good cultures. You
know, obviously, what coach Sabanhas at Alabama is a is a very
unique culture in its own right.I thought what Dan Quinn had in Atlanta
was an awesome culture. Like thatgroup of guys I got to coach every
(30:03):
day was tremendous, And what Ilearned in it all was, man if
I get another chance. First andforemost, my players are going to really
get to know me. And theonly way to do that is I have
to be vulnerable with them. Ihave to be transparent with them. They
have to really get to know meas the person as much as the coach.
(30:26):
And so when we do a lotof the stuff that I was talking
about earlier, I always go first. I always make sure that they get
a sense of who I am andwhat's important to me. And then the
second part to that was what isthe best version of Steve Sarksian? How
do I bring that every single daythat I show up so that I hopefully
(30:47):
can empower others to be the bestthat they can be today. And so
I try to create a culture thatis upbeat, that it's positive, but
yet is very demanding of what itlooks like. There's a style of play
that I've was very clear minded onhow we wanted to play the game,
and I think we kind of seewhat that looks like now and and ultimately,
(31:11):
you know, I think our successoff the field is as important as
our success on the field, becauseI think those two things coincide. So
I think we've been able to doand and move towards, you know,
what we're trying to look like ona daily basis. I don't think we're
done yet, Like I don't thinkwe're we're a finished product at all.
I think that we're we got We'rejust getting going, and that that part's
(31:37):
exciting to me because we as youbuild something, you know, there's there's
milestones along the way, and tenwins is a great one and I'm believing
I'm as excited as anybody about that, but there's more work to be done,
and you know, you take thosemoments to enjoy the small victory,
but then we got to keep going. We got to keep grinding. And
(32:00):
I think that our team has thatmentality and that's something that hopefully we've instilled
in them over our time here.Sark, you talked about tech kind of
evolving and their hammers is TOAJ Brooks. What what does he possess as a
as a problem for your defense.Well, he's got great contact balance TOAJ
Brooks, you know, he thefirst guy has a hard time getting him
(32:22):
down. And it's not always becauseof the elusiveness. It's his ability to
absorb blows and stay on his feetand then continue to break tackles get hard
yards. Uh. They're a physicalrunning football team. You know, I
think naturally you think of tech andif you're not watching them, Oh,
they're running the ball. They're allspread out and they're running you know,
(32:45):
zone reed and nobody's tackling the guyand he's unning. They're running up and
they're running gap schemes and and they'rerunning downhill. Uh. It's a physical
brand of football that they're playing.Uh. And they still do it with
tempo and so you have to youhave to get yourself aligned. But I
do think there's been a definitely ashift philosophical shift that Joey is implemented to
(33:08):
that team that is a physical brandof football, offensive league that is playing
to their defense. I've got avery good defense, and so those two
things working together has shifted. Youknow, they're not playing forty eight forty
five games and each team's running onehundred plays. They beat Kansas sixteen thirteen.
A couple weeks ago, they beatUCF twenty four to twenty three.
(33:30):
But they're winning games with that,with that philosophy, in that style,
and so you have to adjust accordingBut it all goes back to their ability
to run the ball with Tosh,and he's a heck of a player.
Coach, when you first accepted thisjob, did you have any idea that
Texas was going to be heading tothe SEC? And then when you did
learn that information, did you changeyour approach at all? No, I
(33:52):
did not know, and my approachreally didn't change. I've you know,
philosophically, for me, I thinkyou win football games up front, and
you know, we had to continueto recruit and recruit really big humans,
and we had to be a physicalfootball team at the line of scrimmage on
(34:13):
offense and defense. We had tohave the ability to run the football and
have the ability to stop the run. If you can do that, you
always give yourself a chance. Youknow, every Saturday that you that you
take the field. And so mymindset when I got here was to compete
for championships well, if you're goingto compete for championships, you better be
able to beat those top teams inthe SEC because they're probably the ones that
(34:37):
are in the College Football Playoff thatyou're going to have to beat. And
so that was kind of how wewere starting to build the roster. Then
when I found out we were movingto the SEC, well, our formula
for what we needed to do totry to beat those teams really just kind
of got highlighted even more. Butthat's already the plan that we were on