October 28, 2024 • 12 mins
Steve Sarkisian visited with the media for his Monday press conference to recap the Longhorns' win over Vanderbilt. Hear him recap the game and give out his thoughts on the penalties and turnovers that continue to plague Texas. Sark then answers questions about DeAndre Moore's play and recruiting for 2025.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's the Craig Way Show with the voice of the
Texas Longhorns and Hall of Fame Broadcasting.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Craig glad to have you with us on a Monday
afternoon here on sports Radio AM thirteen hundred The Zone,
a Long Worn's Monday where we recap Texas long Orne
game in here from the head coach. So, without further ado,
you heard it if you had the chance this morning
(00:31):
to listen to it live here on the Zone. This morning,
we had the opportunity to bring you Long Worn head
coach Steve Sarcaisian's weekly news conference in its entirety, but
we break it up and bring pieces of it to
you throughout the course of the afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So let's do that right now.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Starting with some detailed information coming in Sart's opening statement, here's.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
A little recap.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
I think of the last ballgame before we talk about
kind of where we're at, where we're headed is you know,
first of all, just thanking our fans again, you know,
you think about and talking to some of the players afterwards.
The impact that our fans had on the road was
was awesome to have their support the way that we did.
I also think this past week and kind of speaks
(01:16):
to the aspect.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Of where we've come as a program.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
For our ninth straight road win, I think that that
talks to the kind of the mindset, the mentality our
players have on the road, and and going on the
road is not always ideal. It's not always perfect circumstances,
and this week was not, which we'll talk about, but
sticking together having the mental fortitude, the mental toughness uh
(01:45):
to to go do that on the road where other
people have have gone and lost, I think is I
think continues to speak to where we're headed as a program.
So I was really proud of our team for that
and and where we've gotten to on the road, where
early on in our time here, winning on the road
was difficult, and I think that we've adopted that mentality
of winning on the road, which is which is.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Great as far as the ball game goes.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
You know, you never know kind of the impact of
everything until you boil it back down and you start
to look at it. You know, we had ten penalties
in the game, and seven of them were really impactful penalties.
You know, there's times that you can get penalties and
you know it's a fall starts five yards you know
it's first and fifteen and there's nothing really to see here,
but you have four penalties on offense that really negated
(02:33):
four explosive runs.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
And so what does that.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Impact have not only on the result of what that
drive could have been, but where it kind.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Of sets you back. That's the first part.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
The second part we get we get a holding on
a kickoff return to start on our first return to where, yeah,
what might not have been a great return. We get
the ball, I think on the fourteen or fifteen yard line,
but we get a holding penalty.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Now we have to start inside our own ten.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
The odds of you score starting inside of your own
ten diminish immensely. We have two penalties on the defensive
side of the ball, one on a fourth and seven
a pass interference penalty that we're in great position.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Manny's an awesome position.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I think if he could do it all over again,
he turned around a little quicker, he might even intercept it.
But the result of a pass interference on fourth and
seven resulted in seven points on that drive for Vanderbilt.
And then later in the game we get a roughing
the passer penalty on an interception return for a touchdown
that in turn results in a touchdown for Vanderbilt again,
(03:35):
and so you're just looking at that's a fourteen point
swing on one play, a seven point swing on another play,
a probably a seven point swing when you have to
start inside your own ten yard line to start a drive,
and then four explosive runs getting called back. Those are
impactful plays in a game. And so our penalties did
(03:57):
not come at the ideal time. I don't know if
there is an ideal time, but those penalties did not
occur at the right time, and we have to be better.
That's eighteen penalties now in the last two ball games,
and we have to clean that up. I think that
on the other side of it is the turnovers. You know,
really for our defense to go create four turnovers in
(04:17):
that game, I know we only got three, but they
really created four. We had the one called back roughing
the passer after he'd thrown the ball against a team
that only had two turnovers all year. Was an awesome
job by that unit to get that done, and so
happy about that obviously offensively, now this is six turnovers
in two games, and you can't predict how and when
(04:39):
turnovers happen or occur. I really think these were just
kind of the ball bounces a certain way sometimes it
was unfortunate for Quinn to have kind of two tip
balls that land in their arms.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
But the impact of those.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Two turnovers fourteen points off of two turnovers. We gave
them two short feels that they turned into points, and
so playing complimentary football matters, and so that's another area
where we need to improve. And then in the red area,
you know, we've been playing such great red zone defense
now for really two years, and for them to go
(05:12):
three for three in the red area on touchdowns, two
of them are really unbroken plays. The first one should
be a dead play. It's a throwback wheel route that
we defend and then we lose lose leverage on the
quarterback on third down he runs around us for a touchdown.
And then another one is on a fourth down where
he's scrambling to his right and kind of flings the
ball into the end zone and I think Jelani McDonald's
(05:35):
probably gonna intercept the ball, but Leon g Lafal gets
his hands on it first and tips it underneath Jelena
McDonald's hands, right into the cradling arms of their defenders.
So a little bit of bad luck there, but we've
got to continue to try to defend our end zone
better and so that aspect of it. The ball has
got to become paramount in the program. I thought third
(05:55):
down we were back to normal. I know a lot
of talk going into the game was us on third day,
but I think offensively nine to fifteen, some big conversions there,
and then defensively to hold them three to twelve, which
they were leading the conference in third down conversion rate
was huge for us, and so there was a lot
of I thought key players in this game. I thought
DeAndre Moore played a fantastic football game. Obviously, his impact
(06:18):
on the offensive side of the ball, you know, a
couple of touchdown catches, some really some really big plays.
But what he did on special teams, what a tremendous
job fielding the punt down on the one yard line.
Obviously he was the guy who was who fielded the
on side kick there at the end of the game.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
So how reliable he's becoming.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
The program touched on Quinn going back and even looking
at the tape, thought Quinn had a tremendous game, you know,
especially coming off of last week where you know your
first pass is a tipped interception and you can get
kind of you can get kind of down. And for
him to come back and go seventeen completions in a row,
two hundred yards, three touchdowns, I think just speaks to
(06:56):
the volumes of kind of his his mental fortitude, the
resiliency he showed. I was really proud of him for that. Defensively,
Michael taff had a great ball game. Jolana McDonald's first
career start.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Great game.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
I thought Alfred Collins, Jermaine Lola were really good. I
thought Treo Trey Moore, excuse me how a great game.
Anthony Hill continues to play good football for us. So
we're fortunate a lot of our high level players are
still playing at a high level. But as we're transitioning
into this by I was thinking to myself, Okay, we're
seven and one, we're eight games in to this season,
(07:33):
and the goal is to be playing January twentieth, And
if you want to play it at January twenty twentieth,
you're at minimum playing eight more games. And so when
you look at it this way, we're at the halfway
point and might have to play nine, you know, depending
on how it goes, and so what are we doing
this week to continue to build up the depth of
(07:54):
our roster of our younger players, because we never know.
We've seen the injury bug bite us at a few
position now where young players need to get ready to play,
and so this week is really important for that of
making sure that we're getting our young guys ready to
go when their numbers called. We need to get some
of the guys that have been nicked up healthy and
(08:15):
get them back into the fold, and then we need
our other guys to get fresh. You know, at this
point in the season, at the end of October, as
we head into early November, nobody's operating at one hundred
percent of what their ability is.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Everybody's dealing with something.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
But as I touched on with the team, as close
as we can get them back to one hundred percent,
the better that's going to serve us over this four
game stretch here that we have coming up. And so
we've got things that we need to work on schematically,
We've got things we need to work on philosophically that
that are true to our program. We've got things to
work on for individual players, whether they're a young player
or a veteran player.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
That's that's we need to get healthy.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
But all in all, proud through eight games to be
where we're at. We know our best football still ahead
of us, and now it's our job to get that
out of everybody so that we can play the best
football we need to play that is required in November.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
All right, So there's the opening statement.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Now to the questions.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
The first one was asked about DeAndre Moore, who caught
those two touchdown passes, had another big catch in the game,
and of course the guy recovered the on side kick
at the end of the game, and about DeAndre Moore's development,
whether it's a receiver and as a leader.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I thought DeAndre did something that was very mature last season.
I think he realized, Okay, I'm not a frontline guy,
and how do I learn from the guys that do
it the right way?
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And he literally.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Watched Jordan Whittington every day and has tried to emulate
Jordan Whittington every day. And we all know how I feel,
and everybody in our organization feels about Jay Witt and
the leadership he provided, his willingness to do the dirty work.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
It wasn't about the stats.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Ever for him, and DeAndre came into this season in springball,
in summer, in training camp with that same mentality. And
the credit I give him is early on in the year,
I think he went two games without a catch, but
he was starting in the same role that Jaywitt was playing,
and never did he lose that leadership, lose that energy,
(10:14):
willing to do the dirty work. And now he's had
some games where he's really reaped the benefits of just
staying positive, continuing to work. But I know this, he
has got a ton of respect in that locker room
from his peers about the work ethic, what he puts
into it, the team player that he is, his willingness
to play on special teams, and so I think everybody's
(10:34):
happy and excited for him. But also I think he's
earned that voice because of what he does, and so
when he speaks up, I really think our team listens.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
A question that was kind of outside the boundaries of
just talking about the game just played in the games
to come. It was more a generalization question overall about
still trying to work out the NCAA with the lawsuit thing,
and how many scholarships if it go if it as
rumored goes to one hundred and five full scholarship ships,
(11:03):
and again rumored is Sark and his staff are they
recruiting four more scholarships next year, But Sark points out
that it's still only rumor right now.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I don't think we can do that yet, you know, Joe,
I think that we have to operate as if things
are what they are, because the last thing I want
to do is take a bunch of commitments and then
they turn around and say, no, you only have eighty five.
And then what do I say to these seven, eight
ten kids that, hey, sorry you can't come. You know,
I just I don't think that's the right thing to do.
(11:36):
So we're going to operate as if we're at eighty
five until they tell us otherwise, and then we'll have
to adjust and pivot at that point from there.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I just I'd hate it to go the other way.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Maybe other schools can maybe get away with doing that,
but not here. You know, I don't think that that
would bode well.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
All right, So there's some thoughts and that opening statement
from the press conference from long Worn's head coach Steve Sarkisian.
We'll hear more from Sark coming up now next hour
in the four o'clock hour. Also in the four o'clock hour,
Gene Watson, our MLB insider, will join us to preview
tonight's third game of the World Series and his thoughts
on where the series stands and all that sort of stuff,
(12:13):
So we'll get to that as well. Up next inconceivable
for a Monday afternoon on sports Radio AM thirteen under
the zone of the iHeartRadio app.
It's the Craig Way Show with the voice of the
Texas Longhorns and Hall of Fame Broadcasting.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Craig glad to have you with us on a Monday
afternoon here on sports Radio AM thirteen hundred The Zone,
a Long Worn's Monday where we recap Texas long Orne
game in here from the head coach. So, without further ado,
you heard it if you had the chance this morning
(00:31):
to listen to it live here on the Zone. This morning,
we had the opportunity to bring you Long Worn head
coach Steve Sarcaisian's weekly news conference in its entirety, but
we break it up and bring pieces of it to
you throughout the course of the afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So let's do that right now.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Starting with some detailed information coming in Sart's opening statement, here's.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
A little recap.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
I think of the last ballgame before we talk about
kind of where we're at, where we're headed is you know,
first of all, just thanking our fans again, you know,
you think about and talking to some of the players afterwards.
The impact that our fans had on the road was
was awesome to have their support the way that we did.
I also think this past week and kind of speaks
(01:16):
to the aspect.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Of where we've come as a program.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
For our ninth straight road win, I think that that
talks to the kind of the mindset, the mentality our
players have on the road, and and going on the
road is not always ideal. It's not always perfect circumstances,
and this week was not, which we'll talk about, but
sticking together having the mental fortitude, the mental toughness uh
(01:45):
to to go do that on the road where other
people have have gone and lost, I think is I
think continues to speak to where we're headed as a program.
So I was really proud of our team for that
and and where we've gotten to on the road, where
early on in our time here, winning on the road
was difficult, and I think that we've adopted that mentality
of winning on the road, which is which is.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Great as far as the ball game goes.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
You know, you never know kind of the impact of
everything until you boil it back down and you start
to look at it. You know, we had ten penalties
in the game, and seven of them were really impactful penalties.
You know, there's times that you can get penalties and
you know it's a fall starts five yards you know
it's first and fifteen and there's nothing really to see here,
but you have four penalties on offense that really negated
(02:33):
four explosive runs.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
And so what does that.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Impact have not only on the result of what that
drive could have been, but where it kind.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Of sets you back. That's the first part.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
The second part we get we get a holding on
a kickoff return to start on our first return to where, yeah,
what might not have been a great return. We get
the ball, I think on the fourteen or fifteen yard line,
but we get a holding penalty.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Now we have to start inside our own ten.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
The odds of you score starting inside of your own
ten diminish immensely. We have two penalties on the defensive
side of the ball, one on a fourth and seven
a pass interference penalty that we're in great position.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Manny's an awesome position.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I think if he could do it all over again,
he turned around a little quicker, he might even intercept it.
But the result of a pass interference on fourth and
seven resulted in seven points on that drive for Vanderbilt.
And then later in the game we get a roughing
the passer penalty on an interception return for a touchdown
that in turn results in a touchdown for Vanderbilt again,
(03:35):
and so you're just looking at that's a fourteen point
swing on one play, a seven point swing on another play,
a probably a seven point swing when you have to
start inside your own ten yard line to start a drive,
and then four explosive runs getting called back. Those are
impactful plays in a game. And so our penalties did
(03:57):
not come at the ideal time. I don't know if
there is an ideal time, but those penalties did not
occur at the right time, and we have to be better.
That's eighteen penalties now in the last two ball games,
and we have to clean that up. I think that
on the other side of it is the turnovers. You know,
really for our defense to go create four turnovers in
(04:17):
that game, I know we only got three, but they
really created four. We had the one called back roughing
the passer after he'd thrown the ball against a team
that only had two turnovers all year. Was an awesome
job by that unit to get that done, and so
happy about that obviously offensively, now this is six turnovers
in two games, and you can't predict how and when
(04:39):
turnovers happen or occur. I really think these were just
kind of the ball bounces a certain way sometimes it
was unfortunate for Quinn to have kind of two tip
balls that land in their arms.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
But the impact of those.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Two turnovers fourteen points off of two turnovers. We gave
them two short feels that they turned into points, and
so playing complimentary football matters, and so that's another area
where we need to improve. And then in the red area,
you know, we've been playing such great red zone defense
now for really two years, and for them to go
(05:12):
three for three in the red area on touchdowns, two
of them are really unbroken plays. The first one should
be a dead play. It's a throwback wheel route that
we defend and then we lose lose leverage on the
quarterback on third down he runs around us for a touchdown.
And then another one is on a fourth down where
he's scrambling to his right and kind of flings the
ball into the end zone and I think Jelani McDonald's
(05:35):
probably gonna intercept the ball, but Leon g Lafal gets
his hands on it first and tips it underneath Jelena
McDonald's hands, right into the cradling arms of their defenders.
So a little bit of bad luck there, but we've
got to continue to try to defend our end zone
better and so that aspect of it. The ball has
got to become paramount in the program. I thought third
(05:55):
down we were back to normal. I know a lot
of talk going into the game was us on third day,
but I think offensively nine to fifteen, some big conversions there,
and then defensively to hold them three to twelve, which
they were leading the conference in third down conversion rate
was huge for us, and so there was a lot
of I thought key players in this game. I thought
DeAndre Moore played a fantastic football game. Obviously, his impact
(06:18):
on the offensive side of the ball, you know, a
couple of touchdown catches, some really some really big plays.
But what he did on special teams, what a tremendous
job fielding the punt down on the one yard line.
Obviously he was the guy who was who fielded the
on side kick there at the end of the game.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
So how reliable he's becoming.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
The program touched on Quinn going back and even looking
at the tape, thought Quinn had a tremendous game, you know,
especially coming off of last week where you know your
first pass is a tipped interception and you can get
kind of you can get kind of down. And for
him to come back and go seventeen completions in a row,
two hundred yards, three touchdowns, I think just speaks to
(06:56):
the volumes of kind of his his mental fortitude, the
resiliency he showed. I was really proud of him for that. Defensively,
Michael taff had a great ball game. Jolana McDonald's first
career start.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Great game.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
I thought Alfred Collins, Jermaine Lola were really good. I
thought Treo Trey Moore, excuse me how a great game.
Anthony Hill continues to play good football for us. So
we're fortunate a lot of our high level players are
still playing at a high level. But as we're transitioning
into this by I was thinking to myself, Okay, we're
seven and one, we're eight games in to this season,
(07:33):
and the goal is to be playing January twentieth, And
if you want to play it at January twenty twentieth,
you're at minimum playing eight more games. And so when
you look at it this way, we're at the halfway
point and might have to play nine, you know, depending
on how it goes, and so what are we doing
this week to continue to build up the depth of
(07:54):
our roster of our younger players, because we never know.
We've seen the injury bug bite us at a few
position now where young players need to get ready to play,
and so this week is really important for that of
making sure that we're getting our young guys ready to
go when their numbers called. We need to get some
of the guys that have been nicked up healthy and
(08:15):
get them back into the fold, and then we need
our other guys to get fresh. You know, at this
point in the season, at the end of October, as
we head into early November, nobody's operating at one hundred
percent of what their ability is.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Everybody's dealing with something.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
But as I touched on with the team, as close
as we can get them back to one hundred percent,
the better that's going to serve us over this four
game stretch here that we have coming up. And so
we've got things that we need to work on schematically,
We've got things we need to work on philosophically that
that are true to our program. We've got things to
work on for individual players, whether they're a young player
or a veteran player.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
That's that's we need to get healthy.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
But all in all, proud through eight games to be
where we're at. We know our best football still ahead
of us, and now it's our job to get that
out of everybody so that we can play the best
football we need to play that is required in November.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
All right, So there's the opening statement.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Now to the questions.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
The first one was asked about DeAndre Moore, who caught
those two touchdown passes, had another big catch in the game,
and of course the guy recovered the on side kick
at the end of the game, and about DeAndre Moore's development,
whether it's a receiver and as a leader.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I thought DeAndre did something that was very mature last season.
I think he realized, Okay, I'm not a frontline guy,
and how do I learn from the guys that do
it the right way?
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And he literally.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Watched Jordan Whittington every day and has tried to emulate
Jordan Whittington every day. And we all know how I feel,
and everybody in our organization feels about Jay Witt and
the leadership he provided, his willingness to do the dirty work.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
It wasn't about the stats.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Ever for him, and DeAndre came into this season in springball,
in summer, in training camp with that same mentality. And
the credit I give him is early on in the year,
I think he went two games without a catch, but
he was starting in the same role that Jaywitt was playing,
and never did he lose that leadership, lose that energy,
(10:14):
willing to do the dirty work. And now he's had
some games where he's really reaped the benefits of just
staying positive, continuing to work. But I know this, he
has got a ton of respect in that locker room
from his peers about the work ethic, what he puts
into it, the team player that he is, his willingness
to play on special teams, and so I think everybody's
(10:34):
happy and excited for him. But also I think he's
earned that voice because of what he does, and so
when he speaks up, I really think our team listens.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
A question that was kind of outside the boundaries of
just talking about the game just played in the games
to come. It was more a generalization question overall about
still trying to work out the NCAA with the lawsuit thing,
and how many scholarships if it go if it as
rumored goes to one hundred and five full scholarship ships,
(11:03):
and again rumored is Sark and his staff are they
recruiting four more scholarships next year, But Sark points out
that it's still only rumor right now.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I don't think we can do that yet, you know, Joe,
I think that we have to operate as if things
are what they are, because the last thing I want
to do is take a bunch of commitments and then
they turn around and say, no, you only have eighty five.
And then what do I say to these seven, eight
ten kids that, hey, sorry you can't come. You know,
I just I don't think that's the right thing to do.
(11:36):
So we're going to operate as if we're at eighty
five until they tell us otherwise, and then we'll have
to adjust and pivot at that point from there.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I just I'd hate it to go the other way.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Maybe other schools can maybe get away with doing that,
but not here. You know, I don't think that that
would bode well.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
All right, So there's some thoughts and that opening statement
from the press conference from long Worn's head coach Steve Sarkisian.
We'll hear more from Sark coming up now next hour
in the four o'clock hour. Also in the four o'clock hour,
Gene Watson, our MLB insider, will join us to preview
tonight's third game of the World Series and his thoughts
on where the series stands and all that sort of stuff,
(12:13):
So we'll get to that as well. Up next inconceivable
for a Monday afternoon on sports Radio AM thirteen under
the zone of the iHeartRadio app.
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