October 28, 2024 • 12 mins
It's no secret penalties have been an issue for the Texas Longhorns this season. Hear Coach Sarkisian discuss if Texas can fix the penalties as they enter their final bye week of the regular season. Plus, Sark discusses the rise of Jelani McDonald, the status of Isaiah Bond and Ryan Wingo, and if he watched Texas A&M-LSU.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
We're back. It's the Craig Way Show with Hall of
Fame broadcaster invoice of the Texas Longhearts, Craig Way.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Here on a Longhorn Ease Monday, Monday afternoon here on
sports Radio AM thirteen hundred The Zone, Craig Way alongside
of the producer Cameron Parker. Let's go back to hearing
from Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkesian. This is from the
news conference you heard live this morning at eleven thirty.
You always hear it live every Monday here on the Zone,
and then we recap it during the afternoon for those
(00:46):
who don't get a chance to hear it live when
it happens in the morning. One of the most talked
about elements of Saturday's game the penalties.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Texas had ten for one hundred eight yards.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
In his opening statement, which we brought you last hour,
sark mentioned that of the ten penalties incurred, seven were really,
as he called them, impactful because it nullified either long runs,
a good pass downfield, or the pick six that would
have been Kobe Black would have had a pick six
for a touchdown. All that wiped out due to penalties.
(01:21):
So he was asked with this being an open date,
a bye week, and another week leading up to the
next game with Florida at home. Is it possible to
clean up these penalties? No, we can't.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
We got our crowd noise sometimes as louder and practice,
and it actually is in the game. And the variety
of penalties was interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
We had one false start, two of our holding penalties
actually came from tight ends. It really wasn't the offensive line,
you know, And so you know, I think it got
kind of spread around enough to where it's hard to
say it's just one group. Even in past protection I'd
love to say it was just one group.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
It really wasn't.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
We had a running back issue and protection. We had
some o line issue and protections. We had an RPO
that they defended well where Quinn had to eat the
ball and take a sack. So sometimes you look at
numbers and it's easy to point to that group. The
offensive line is kind of like the quarterback, you know,
when the quarterback always gets too much praise when things
(02:19):
go well, and probably gets too much, you know, criticism
when they don't. The offensive line isn't far behind, you know,
and so everybody's got to do their job better. Clearly,
I think they know they can play better than they've
played the last couple of weeks. And that's that's our job, myself,
Coach Flood, everybody involved, the leaders, Jake Majors, that group
got a veteran group and they've got some good football
ahead of them and they'll get.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
There, all right. He was next act to ask about,
I say, a bond.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Clearly Long Warrens missed him, even though they DeAndre Moore
had a whale of a game on Saturday, and it
was asked about the versatility of the wide receivers, but
how his bond and the rest of that receiving core
holding up.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
You know, Wingo, we're excited. You know, he was able
to get his first career start. It's unfortunately he had
a little issue in pregame. There was a little collision
with one of their guys that kind of nicked him
up a little bit. Nothing serious, but I think affected
him a little bit. Obviously, Matt Golden with a great
touchdown catch early in that game. DeAndre stepping into his role,
(03:18):
silas Bolden stepped in when when he was needed.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
It's been a it's been.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
A deep group for us that has gotten tested some
here recently. It'll be critical to get to get Isaiah
back kind of healthy. It'll be critical to get John
Tay back going because we need.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
All those guys.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Like I said, we're only eight games into this thing
and we got a long way to go, So to
get all those guys back into the fold, I think
would be good for us. But hey, Ib's a special
player when he's healthy, and I think he's you know,
given him that time was was good for him. I
know he he pushed through as good as well as
he could in the Georgia game, and I just felt
like if I could give him kind of three weeks
(03:58):
to get healthy for for the Florida game, that would
be a heck of a lot better than two.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
And so we went with it, and it worked out
in our favor.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
All right.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
He was also asked about joel Ni McDonald, who got
some extensive time played well in the game as well
in the absence of Andrew Bakuba. He was asked, is
this the best version of Jolani McDonald and one things
hard to let us all know.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
John McDonald's had a pretty interesting road.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Yeah, I think Jelanie, I still think his best football
is ahead of him. You know, you think about this
guy in high school. He was a high school quarterback,
you know that kind of you know, moonlighted on defense
when they needed him, you know, I mean, he he
was an offensive player that we just saw the raw athleticism.
(04:41):
And then we checked on his dad, and his dad
was one of the leading tacklers in TCU football history.
So we said, okay, there, it's in there somewhere there too.
And then when we got him, we didn't know how
his body was going to evolve. One day he was
an outside linebacker. The next day he was playing corner,
the next d he was at nickel, the next day
he was at safety. We were just kind of trying
(05:03):
to figure out what he could be. All the while,
he had an impact on special teams as we were going.
And so when kind of finally found a home for
him at safety this spring, you can see a lot
of growth.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
In his play.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
And I think it's been huge for him to be
in a room with a Michael taff and Andrew mccouba,
two guys who have a ton of experience that he
can lean into, and he's really grown at the position.
And again I thought he played a great game Saturday,
But I also think his best days are ahead of him.
This is his first time ever really doing this, and
so just through experience alone his I think his play
(05:37):
is going to.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Improve, all right. So next came a pretty interesting conversation
or at least revelation you might say, from Sark on
a touchdown pass to DeAndre Moore. There was a play
call change at the line of scrimmage. Nothing really that
(05:58):
unusual about that. Those things happen, Quinn, Yours, being a
veteran quarterback, could see something to make that, but it
was the way in which youers executed the change in
the play call since it was coming to the motion
man DeAndre Moore, which made it unique and a little
(06:18):
bit of a unicorn type thing because it doesn't happen
with younger quarterbacks. You've had to been in a game
a while and had a lot of experience to do
what yours did on changing plays mid motion.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
So we give the quarterbacks tools to alter route combinations
or alter a single player's route depending on the play,
depending on what we have, and so some games more
than others, I thought Quinn did a great job of
In practice, we had practiced that with him motioning and
(06:53):
then Quinn's signaling the route to him to change the
route in game. Instead of waiting for him to sign
it and to make sure that they might not get
the signal from him, he just voiced it to him
as he was running by, which I thought was pretty
a high level thing for Quinn to do, as opposed
to waiting for him to get there and signaling it
that he might be changing the play. He just told
(07:15):
him what route to run as he was jogging by,
which was a pretty veteran move. You know, that's a
guy in year three in your system that is communicating
with probably one of your smarter players on offense too,
and DeAndre more and then being in sync and being
on the same page. And so I don't think the
other nine guys on the field had any idea that
he changed the route for DeAndre on that play. So
(07:36):
pretty high level stuff with two guys that trust one another.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Yeah, that's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
That's worth of Okay, here's this was another question with
regard to being quote unquote sec ready with regard to
the coaching staff, support staff, everybody as well as the players.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Is everybody ready sec ready?
Speaker 4 (08:01):
You know, we're we're going through that now and we're
analyzing that now. You know, I think there's obviously a
lot bigger support staffs in the SEC than ours right now,
and and more more manpower and money allocated to that
aspect of the organization. Like I said, we're analyzing that now,
and and again more doesn't always mean better, but we
(08:23):
are we are analyzing it and kind of doing a
little bit of a self audit of making sure that
that we are putting everybody in the best position to
have success. And we always talk a lot about the players,
but there's a whole recruiting department right that that you
talk about in the man hours that are needed to
do that, whether it's on campus recruiting, off campus recruiting, scouting,
things of that nature.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
There's there's gas, there's analysts.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Now everybody can be a coach, and so there's a
lot of things that we're looking at structurally, uh, in
the organization to make sure that we're doing what's best
and uh, again more doesn't always mean better, uh, but
but making sure that we are we do have efficient
and adequate numbers in place so that everybody can can
do their job really well.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
All right next was discussion of the screen and using
the screen pass and the importance of it within the offense,
as well as the importance of quinn yours and the
backs being able to execute it.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Quinn is really elite, you know.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
He can get the ball out of his hands so
quickly and so accurately. I think, I think back to
Deandre's second touchdown. I mean that was some really high
level stuff. I mean, he's got a blitzer in his
face and he's able to catch and get that ball
out and as accurate as the ball was, DeAndre never
had to break stride and then he's able to make
the safety miss for a touchdown. The screen games critical
(09:41):
to what we do the shallow cross game. The checkdowns
to the running backs are.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
So big to what we do.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
I mean, we've don't I don't know if people know this.
We don't throw it deep all the time, but every
team we play seems to think that we do, and
so it's like they just love to back up. And
so the value in getting the ball to our running
backs in space with them to be able to make
people miss, even even the third and two of the
ball to Trey Wisner, that that Quinn hits him on
(10:07):
is a critical play in a first down. So the
advantages for us to getting players that are really versatile
that can do those things is huge for us. And
then having the quarterback and can distribute the ball like
Quinn canon those in those arenas.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Sark was also asked if you know after the team
got packed up following the game, they got on the bus,
they got to the charter, they got on the plane,
plane takes off. Did he get a chance to watch
the LSU Texas A and M game you know, while
on the plane, And start at a pretty interesting response
(10:46):
on why he did not get to see or see
very much of it.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
You know, you get on the plane, you get on
the bus, and you're headed back, and you know, you're
with your team.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
We're focused on what we were doing. We're on the fund.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
We got on the plane, I got my iPad open,
and I saw the first interception, and I saw him
go in the game. I saw the first touchdown and
then our you know, we took off, and so I
had to connect to Wi Fi and all that, and
I decided to take a nap. If you can believe
that I haven't napped in a while on a plane,
and so by the time I woke up, it was
thirty eight to twenty three and the game was done.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
So then I got a chance when I got home
to kind of see.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Some of the highlights. But looked like you had a
great game. Looked like a great environment. And that's a
big win for those guys.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
All right, So there it is. Some more comments from Sark.
We'll hear more from him coming up at next hour.
And uh, I did want to get to this before
we got to the break here. Man Daniel Flores tweeted
this Bojangles is headed for Maynor.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
There's going to be a Bojangles location Mayner coming.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I bring that directly to Cameron Parker's attention there because
I knew he would probably be interested in that.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
I've heard Liberty Hill, I've heard Round Rock. I've not
seen one yet. Okay, Yeah, there's supposed to be five
in the Austin area. Okay, So there's Manor, there's Liberty Hill,
Round Rock. There's two others.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Cedar Park would seem like a logical place, Cedar Park, Georgetown. Hey, hey,
okay with that, Yeah, we're waiting all right.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Uh, we'll get back through some NFL notes coming up
on Sports Radio Am thirteen under the zone of the
I r A Radio app
We're back. It's the Craig Way Show with Hall of
Fame broadcaster invoice of the Texas Longhearts, Craig Way.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Here on a Longhorn Ease Monday, Monday afternoon here on
sports Radio AM thirteen hundred The Zone, Craig Way alongside
of the producer Cameron Parker. Let's go back to hearing
from Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkesian. This is from the
news conference you heard live this morning at eleven thirty.
You always hear it live every Monday here on the Zone,
and then we recap it during the afternoon for those
(00:46):
who don't get a chance to hear it live when
it happens in the morning. One of the most talked
about elements of Saturday's game the penalties.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Texas had ten for one hundred eight yards.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
In his opening statement, which we brought you last hour,
sark mentioned that of the ten penalties incurred, seven were really,
as he called them, impactful because it nullified either long runs,
a good pass downfield, or the pick six that would
have been Kobe Black would have had a pick six
for a touchdown. All that wiped out due to penalties.
(01:21):
So he was asked with this being an open date,
a bye week, and another week leading up to the
next game with Florida at home. Is it possible to
clean up these penalties? No, we can't.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
We got our crowd noise sometimes as louder and practice,
and it actually is in the game. And the variety
of penalties was interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
We had one false start, two of our holding penalties
actually came from tight ends. It really wasn't the offensive line,
you know, And so you know, I think it got
kind of spread around enough to where it's hard to
say it's just one group. Even in past protection I'd
love to say it was just one group.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
It really wasn't.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
We had a running back issue and protection. We had
some o line issue and protections. We had an RPO
that they defended well where Quinn had to eat the
ball and take a sack. So sometimes you look at
numbers and it's easy to point to that group. The
offensive line is kind of like the quarterback, you know,
when the quarterback always gets too much praise when things
(02:19):
go well, and probably gets too much, you know, criticism
when they don't. The offensive line isn't far behind, you know,
and so everybody's got to do their job better. Clearly,
I think they know they can play better than they've
played the last couple of weeks. And that's that's our job, myself,
Coach Flood, everybody involved, the leaders, Jake Majors, that group
got a veteran group and they've got some good football
ahead of them and they'll get.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
There, all right. He was next act to ask about,
I say, a bond.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Clearly Long Warrens missed him, even though they DeAndre Moore
had a whale of a game on Saturday, and it
was asked about the versatility of the wide receivers, but
how his bond and the rest of that receiving core
holding up.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
You know, Wingo, we're excited. You know, he was able
to get his first career start. It's unfortunately he had
a little issue in pregame. There was a little collision
with one of their guys that kind of nicked him
up a little bit. Nothing serious, but I think affected
him a little bit. Obviously, Matt Golden with a great
touchdown catch early in that game. DeAndre stepping into his role,
(03:18):
silas Bolden stepped in when when he was needed.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
It's been a it's been.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
A deep group for us that has gotten tested some
here recently. It'll be critical to get to get Isaiah
back kind of healthy. It'll be critical to get John
Tay back going because we need.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
All those guys.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Like I said, we're only eight games into this thing
and we got a long way to go, So to
get all those guys back into the fold, I think
would be good for us. But hey, Ib's a special
player when he's healthy, and I think he's you know,
given him that time was was good for him. I
know he he pushed through as good as well as
he could in the Georgia game, and I just felt
like if I could give him kind of three weeks
(03:58):
to get healthy for for the Florida game, that would
be a heck of a lot better than two.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
And so we went with it, and it worked out
in our favor.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
All right.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
He was also asked about joel Ni McDonald, who got
some extensive time played well in the game as well
in the absence of Andrew Bakuba. He was asked, is
this the best version of Jolani McDonald and one things
hard to let us all know.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
John McDonald's had a pretty interesting road.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Yeah, I think Jelanie, I still think his best football
is ahead of him. You know, you think about this
guy in high school. He was a high school quarterback,
you know that kind of you know, moonlighted on defense
when they needed him, you know, I mean, he he
was an offensive player that we just saw the raw athleticism.
(04:41):
And then we checked on his dad, and his dad
was one of the leading tacklers in TCU football history.
So we said, okay, there, it's in there somewhere there too.
And then when we got him, we didn't know how
his body was going to evolve. One day he was
an outside linebacker. The next day he was playing corner,
the next d he was at nickel, the next day
he was at safety. We were just kind of trying
(05:03):
to figure out what he could be. All the while,
he had an impact on special teams as we were going.
And so when kind of finally found a home for
him at safety this spring, you can see a lot
of growth.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
In his play.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
And I think it's been huge for him to be
in a room with a Michael taff and Andrew mccouba,
two guys who have a ton of experience that he
can lean into, and he's really grown at the position.
And again I thought he played a great game Saturday,
But I also think his best days are ahead of him.
This is his first time ever really doing this, and
so just through experience alone his I think his play
(05:37):
is going to.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Improve, all right. So next came a pretty interesting conversation
or at least revelation you might say, from Sark on
a touchdown pass to DeAndre Moore. There was a play
call change at the line of scrimmage. Nothing really that
(05:58):
unusual about that. Those things happen, Quinn, Yours, being a
veteran quarterback, could see something to make that, but it
was the way in which youers executed the change in
the play call since it was coming to the motion
man DeAndre Moore, which made it unique and a little
(06:18):
bit of a unicorn type thing because it doesn't happen
with younger quarterbacks. You've had to been in a game
a while and had a lot of experience to do
what yours did on changing plays mid motion.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
So we give the quarterbacks tools to alter route combinations
or alter a single player's route depending on the play,
depending on what we have, and so some games more
than others, I thought Quinn did a great job of
In practice, we had practiced that with him motioning and
(06:53):
then Quinn's signaling the route to him to change the
route in game. Instead of waiting for him to sign
it and to make sure that they might not get
the signal from him, he just voiced it to him
as he was running by, which I thought was pretty
a high level thing for Quinn to do, as opposed
to waiting for him to get there and signaling it
that he might be changing the play. He just told
(07:15):
him what route to run as he was jogging by,
which was a pretty veteran move. You know, that's a
guy in year three in your system that is communicating
with probably one of your smarter players on offense too,
and DeAndre more and then being in sync and being
on the same page. And so I don't think the
other nine guys on the field had any idea that
he changed the route for DeAndre on that play. So
(07:36):
pretty high level stuff with two guys that trust one another.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Yeah, that's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
That's worth of Okay, here's this was another question with
regard to being quote unquote sec ready with regard to
the coaching staff, support staff, everybody as well as the players.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Is everybody ready sec ready?
Speaker 4 (08:01):
You know, we're we're going through that now and we're
analyzing that now. You know, I think there's obviously a
lot bigger support staffs in the SEC than ours right now,
and and more more manpower and money allocated to that
aspect of the organization. Like I said, we're analyzing that now,
and and again more doesn't always mean better, but we
(08:23):
are we are analyzing it and kind of doing a
little bit of a self audit of making sure that
that we are putting everybody in the best position to
have success. And we always talk a lot about the players,
but there's a whole recruiting department right that that you
talk about in the man hours that are needed to
do that, whether it's on campus recruiting, off campus recruiting, scouting,
things of that nature.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
There's there's gas, there's analysts.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Now everybody can be a coach, and so there's a
lot of things that we're looking at structurally, uh, in
the organization to make sure that we're doing what's best
and uh, again more doesn't always mean better, uh, but
but making sure that we are we do have efficient
and adequate numbers in place so that everybody can can
do their job really well.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
All right next was discussion of the screen and using
the screen pass and the importance of it within the offense,
as well as the importance of quinn yours and the
backs being able to execute it.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Quinn is really elite, you know.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
He can get the ball out of his hands so
quickly and so accurately. I think, I think back to
Deandre's second touchdown. I mean that was some really high
level stuff. I mean, he's got a blitzer in his
face and he's able to catch and get that ball
out and as accurate as the ball was, DeAndre never
had to break stride and then he's able to make
the safety miss for a touchdown. The screen games critical
(09:41):
to what we do the shallow cross game. The checkdowns
to the running backs are.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
So big to what we do.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
I mean, we've don't I don't know if people know this.
We don't throw it deep all the time, but every
team we play seems to think that we do, and
so it's like they just love to back up. And
so the value in getting the ball to our running
backs in space with them to be able to make
people miss, even even the third and two of the
ball to Trey Wisner, that that Quinn hits him on
(10:07):
is a critical play in a first down. So the
advantages for us to getting players that are really versatile
that can do those things is huge for us. And
then having the quarterback and can distribute the ball like
Quinn canon those in those arenas.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Sark was also asked if you know after the team
got packed up following the game, they got on the bus,
they got to the charter, they got on the plane,
plane takes off. Did he get a chance to watch
the LSU Texas A and M game you know, while
on the plane, And start at a pretty interesting response
(10:46):
on why he did not get to see or see
very much of it.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
You know, you get on the plane, you get on
the bus, and you're headed back, and you know, you're
with your team.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
We're focused on what we were doing. We're on the fund.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
We got on the plane, I got my iPad open,
and I saw the first interception, and I saw him
go in the game. I saw the first touchdown and
then our you know, we took off, and so I
had to connect to Wi Fi and all that, and
I decided to take a nap. If you can believe
that I haven't napped in a while on a plane,
and so by the time I woke up, it was
thirty eight to twenty three and the game was done.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
So then I got a chance when I got home
to kind of see.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Some of the highlights. But looked like you had a
great game. Looked like a great environment. And that's a
big win for those guys.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
All right, So there it is. Some more comments from Sark.
We'll hear more from him coming up at next hour.
And uh, I did want to get to this before
we got to the break here. Man Daniel Flores tweeted
this Bojangles is headed for Maynor.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
There's going to be a Bojangles location Mayner coming.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I bring that directly to Cameron Parker's attention there because
I knew he would probably be interested in that.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
I've heard Liberty Hill, I've heard Round Rock. I've not
seen one yet. Okay, Yeah, there's supposed to be five
in the Austin area. Okay, So there's Manor, there's Liberty Hill,
Round Rock. There's two others.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Cedar Park would seem like a logical place, Cedar Park, Georgetown. Hey, hey,
okay with that, Yeah, we're waiting all right.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Uh, we'll get back through some NFL notes coming up
on Sports Radio Am thirteen under the zone of the
I r A Radio app
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