Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's the Craig Way Show with the voice of the
Texas Longhorns and Hall of Fame broadcaster Craig Way.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
All right, thanks again the Jeene Watson, our MLB insider,
joining us here to talk about Game three of the
World Series tonight between the Yankees and the Dodgers at
Yankee Stadium in New York. Let's go back to hearing
some more from longgrn's head coach Steve Sarkasian. We're talking
about going into the bye week, and so when that happens,
and I remember this happening wing in the first by
(00:36):
week after the Mississippi State game, the or coming yeah
into the Mississippi State game, I guess the conversation of
what was going to happen throughout the course of the
(00:56):
rest of the college football season and meaning one loss
teams getting into the playoff, maybe even two lost teams
getting into the playoff. And sark was asked for his
his breakdown on that, but also to start off by
talking about what he and his players describe as a standard.
We've talked about this during the course of the season.
(01:18):
When they say the standard is the standard, So.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
How far are they from their standard?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
And as a sidebar, does he think a two loss
team can get in? Is that?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
You know, I'm I'm always like that the glass half
full guy. But yet I can always see the half
empty part, you know, And I think that's probably a
healthy balance to have that I'm not just looking at
things through a straw.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
You know, we're so close, Like this.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Past game, if you would have said the game would
have finished, you know, forty five to ten, it wouldn't
have surprised me if you just watched the film and
watch some of the execution that was happening. But yet
we have things that are happening in game that are
causing the game to remain a little closer than we
would have liked.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Whether it's holding.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Penalties, whether it's tipball interceptions, whether it's a couple penalties
on defense that swing the score. And so I'm always
striving for what does perfection look like? And then I
go in this morning with the team and I walk
them through of, hey, this is the difference in forty
two or forty five to ten as compared to twenty
seven to twenty four, right, And we just talked about
(02:34):
you know, I showed a twenty one play cut up
to them this morning, But in reality, that was about
six or seven plays that swung that game in that direction.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
And so that's what we strive for at some point.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
I don't know if we're ever gonna have to play
a perfect game, but we're gonna have to play cop
closer to perfect to go achieve the things that we
want to achieve. And there's nothing wrong with that as
a competitor, right, We're not a finished product. I think
our best football is ahead of us, and we're looking
forward to that. As far as a one loss, two loss,
three loss team, no, I don't, I don't know. You know,
(03:08):
it's we're only at the halfway point. This is crazy
to think of where college football is at, what our
conference is about.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
And you watch all the games, and you know, I
get it.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
We beat a top twenty five team by three on
the road, you know, But that same team, you know,
beat a top twenty five team at home and in
his one other games. I've seen other teams lose games before.
I had to remind our players is you know, Georgia
came into our game with a loss already, right, And
so things happen. It's hard to go undefeated and this
conference is hard to go undefeated in college football. The
(03:43):
point being is can you just continue to grow and
get better and then the chips.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Fall where they may?
Speaker 4 (03:48):
You know, so, I don't know how many losses it's
gonna take to get in or not get in.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Our first mission.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Our first goal is to try to win an SEC championship,
and then we'll recalibrate after that kind of for the
second season.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
If we're able to get in now.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Next he was asked about I guess the best way
to describe it is downfield passing, about so many of
the passes being short and in the screen.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Git, wasn't this your buddy?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
C J.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Vogel asked this question? He did.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
He was asking about that about how do you deal
with that when there's so many of the passes have
been in the short game and sark had already response is.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Tell him to move up, then we'll throw it over.
They played man to man on one snap that wasn't
in the red area. We threw a touchdown pass over
their head.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Tell them to move up.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, and and CJ t his credit. He posted that
the tweet, and I think he was just trying to do,
you know, his due diligence as a journalist, and he
went on and showed some other video and stuff that
wasn't really on Sork of the passing game downfield with
the way coverages were there. He was there was nothing
wrong with it, he said, And you heard the chuckling there.
So it's kind of done half jogging telling them move
(04:58):
up because everybody's playing back.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
But when you read something.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
On social media, it could come across looking or sounding
or harsh or insensitive or whatever. And there were some
people that were wanted to take stark to task for that.
So how you just being snarky, Bob? Now you heard
the joking. He was just kind of saying it tongue
in cheek, tell him to move up? What else? What
else you're gonna do? You're gonna throw downfield into coverage
(05:24):
like that? And he talked about it. I don't know
if we put the cut yet. Ever, it's coming up
about how defenses are playing, like where we throw it
deep all the time and we don't. So you know,
you call plays on how the defense is set up, right,
I mean? And CJ I would have let him to
that asking that question. Was this morning he tweeted out
that I think eighteen of yours thirty seven pass attempts
(05:47):
traveled with five ear yards or less down the field.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
That's correct, and that's by design.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Right now. I'm sure there's some routes where Texas has
a receiver who's running a fader going deep in the field.
But when you have a two high look or a
three high look, you throw the underneath route because the
likelihood is running back receivers wide open and there's a
chance they're going to give it a big chunk of
yardist you know. That's and Start pointed out the one
touchdown where Vanderbilt played man covers led to a Geandre
More touchdown.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Right listen.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Certainly, nothing wrong with CJ asking that question. Very fair
question ask and I thought Sark cancered it pretty plain
and simply like that. It's just sometimes you can get
misconstrued when folks look at it on social media. There
was nothing wrong with the way the question was asked.
There was nothing wrong with the way the question was
answered as well. It kind of is what it is,
but folks sometimes through their own frame of reference, will
see it, read it and think about it differently, especially
(06:37):
if they didn't hear it live.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
In the moment, all right.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
So next up, I was talking about Jaylen Gilbo. He'd
been banged up, was he all right? And also the
work they have on trying to development the developmental process
of the young players.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
No, Gilbo's totally fine. I'll go I'll work backwards. And
I think for all those other guys, you know, there's
this you know, they're all.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Kind of in a different stage.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
And I don't want to talk on every guy in particular,
but I think at the end of the day, as competitors,
they all want to play more, and they all want
more opportunities to play. Sometimes it's difficult, and Jared Gibson's case,
you're when you're the third running back and how a game,
in the flow of a game goes sometimes that you
just don't get those carries that you would like. I
(07:23):
think we have a ton of trust in Jeric and
I think that he's a guy that will continue to
grow in our program. John Tay same thing. I think
getting him back rolling again is going to be good
for him and good for us.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
So we're looking forward to that.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
And ultimately the two defensive lineman, that's just about consistency.
You know, we're playing such good defensive football right now,
and guys are so doing their jobs at a high level,
and we're seeing the growth in these players that are
at the second half of their careers. The younger players,
the sooner they can understand that consistency factor, the easier
it is to get them out there and account on to.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Do those things.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
And if you recall all early on in my time here,
I was saying the same things about an Alfred Collins,
you know about Hey, what's going to be the difference
for him? It's consistency And a lot of times that's
fundamentals and techniques, that's assignment, that's that's effort, that's conditioning,
it's all those things. And so you know, Dre and
Seder are very talented players, but finding that level of
(08:20):
consistency day in and day out is going to be
the deciding factor in you know, trusting them in a
critical moment in a ballgame, you know, especially in the
Southeastern Conference.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah, that was going into Chip Brown's question about Jerre
Bledsoe and Sadir Mitchell and their development as well as
say a John Tay Cook on the offensive side. Now,
he was also asked about what he's seeing that's impressing
him about trading Moore and Colin Simmons.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Yeah, you know, I feel like Trey actually had a
heck of a game this weekend. You know, we're we're
asking a lot of variety out of him. You know,
he's playing some outside landbacker, he's playing some defensive end.
We're moving them around in kind of our flex front,
you know, over guards and asking things. He's playing the
run really well. I did thought he pressured the quarterback
(09:04):
in this game, had a couple opportunities to affect the
quarterback and move him off the spot. So have been
impressed with him. Colin has had a good year so far. Again,
this game was unique because this was not a drop
back game, you know when I mean it was third
and eight and they gotten thirty personnel and cone formation
ran a bootleg wheel route, you know, which is like
(09:25):
uncommon stuff. You know, it was a lot of sprintouts.
There was a lot of things that were a little
bit different. And clearly we've got a pretty good pass
rush and they didn't want to just drop back and
let us rush. But that's the challenge for a younger
players to not get frustrated with that and then when
your opportunity comes is to try to make your plays
when they present themselves. So looking forward to those guys
the second half of the season, that they're going to
(09:46):
be very impactful players for us.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
And one final thing from sarcast about could he fall
back on lean on his knowledge of working in the
National Football League to help the team go through a
sixteen game seasons of Prince Brian Davis has this question
because you mentioned earlier they're really kind of at the
numeracle halfway point if they were to go all the
way through and into the playoff and up to the
National Championship since they played eight games, and how he
(10:10):
helps his guys be mentally tough.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Well, I do think, you know, it was beneficial to
have played, you know, sixteen game season plus four preseason
games plus the playoffs.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
There's there's layers to that.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
And you know the other thing this offseason, I just
tried to tap into the guys that do it the best,
you know. I tapped into Bill Belichick, Andy Reid, Sean McVay,
guys who you know, year in and year out are
accustomed to being in the playoffs and then kind of
what that looks like in the length of a season
and how you get your teams ready and what do
your bye weeks look like in the NFL if you
have an in season by or if you get a
(10:44):
first round by in the playoffs, and how they attack that.
But I said this all along. You know, especially in
the Southeastern Conference, you know there's a it's taxing physically,
you know, the physical nature of play is tack but
I also think it is mentally taxing. And the idea
(11:04):
that you have to you know, maintain that level of
mental intensity and focus in your preparation week in week out.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I think it's critical.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
You know, I don't think anybody thought when our schedule
came out that when we went to Vanderbilt that would
be a top twenty five matchup right against a five
and two football team. And and so you just don't
know in this conference of when teams kind of get
hot and when they start playing better, start playing differently,
and you think, oh, they're gonna get that game, and
(11:35):
then to buy well, when we found out they're a
pretty good football team, you know, they lost I think
three games by combined ten points now or something, maybe
less than that. And so the point is every week
in our conference you have to yes, be physically prepared
to play, but also mentally prepared to play.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
And that's probably the biggest challenge.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
And so, like I talked about to the guys this week,
we got to get reconnected even off the field. You know,
we're doing things outside of football with one another as
much as it is doing things on the field together.
And I think that's part of our secret sauce a
little bit. But it's also a chance to kind of
let our hair down and relax a little bit with
one another and enjoy each other's company, because that's.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
What it's gonna take.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
We're gonna we're gonna need everybody, you know, before this
season is done. And the best way to to feel
part of is to actually be part of. And we've
got to include everybody in this thing again, not just
in practice, but outside of the facility.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, important stuff there from Sorry, we've got to wrap
up today's edition of the program on Sports Radio AM
thirteen hundred and Zone