May 27, 2025 • 15 mins
Steve Sarkisian spoke with the media at SEC Spring Meetings in Destin, FL, and discussed his thoughts on spring practice, the reported $40 million roster, the QB room, the College Football Playoff format, the current landscape of the transfer portal and NIL, and much more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
SEC meetings are going on in Destin, Florida, and log
WARN's head football coach, Steve's Arkesian meeting with the media.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Going to see everybody, going to see everybody.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
He's got nice hands down here in Florida. This is good,
kind of an exciting time of the year. You know,
I always say that in our sport there's kind of,
you know, kind of check marks along the year of
where you're at, and this is obviously one of them
when it comes to spring meetings. To know that, you know,
summers right around the corner. We're getting back with our
(00:32):
players and getting ready to go for the fall. So,
like I said, it's good to see everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Sorry, you maybe.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
A lot of talking about football to play up.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
I know you're gonna learn more about your bothday a
couple of days you have.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Some setting to like here's what I You know, you've
been in a couple of what you think should maybe
be the right number.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Or what are the things when you jure that conversation,
when you jure those conversations that are sort of on
your mind to learn or maybe provides some feedback. Yeah,
you know, I think you know, I've lived this life
going all the way back to early two thousands, right
when I was an assistant coach at USC, and we
(01:15):
didn't we didn't have a playoff, and and I think
that there.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Was I remember a year at UH at SC we.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Had a great football team, and the way the computers
spit it out in the end, I think LSU might
have played Oklahoma and we played Michigan and the Rose Bowl,
and I think there was split champions that year.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I think it was US and LSU were split champions.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
And then we grew into a two team playoff, and
we grew into a four team playoff, and and now
we've grown into where we're at today, and I I
I I think at the end of the day, we
all just want to put the best teams to have
an opportunity to compete for a championship. And now more
than ever, you know the length of the season. You know,
(01:59):
last year we played sixteen games, and that was just
to get to the semi finals. We would have been
seventeen right to win a championship. And so the idea
I think we've all got to.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Wrap our brain around.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I don't know if we'll ever see an undefeated national
champion again. If we do, that's a really good team because.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
It's just so difficult.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
And it's not so it's difficult, yes, because of the
quality of the opponents you play, but it's so difficult
to stay healthy that long. I mean, you're gonna have
teams in years like we had last year where you
lose your starting quarterback and how do you respond to
your quarterback being down and you lose both your left
tackles that happened to us last year or your left tackle.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Then you're right tackling. Do you have the debt to endure?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
And so I think you're gonna see teams more and
more now two losses, three losses, maybe even four losses
that get in not very different than the NCAA baseball
tournament of what that looks like. I'd looked at Vanderbilt,
I think is the number one seed. There was a
point in the season they were eleven and ten, and
now they're the number one seed in the baseball tournament.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
And so I don't know.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
And we kind of saw it in basketball this year
with Florida and then winning the national this idea of
somebody's going to go sixteen to zero in college football.
Man put a statue up somewhere of that team, because
I just don't know if that's gonna happen again. And
so the idea that I think, you know, every the
powers of beer trying to get it right, I think
is a good, healthy discussion, and I understand not everybody's
(03:31):
on the same page right now. Hopefully we can get
to that point to where that is that we're giving
the best teams the opportunity to get into that playoff,
because that's really what it is.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
It's a playoff and you're.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Rewarding teams that We've got a committee that's trying to
say who are the best teams that should deserve an
opportunity to compete for a national championship. And so we've
got our conference championship, there's a regular season, we've had
a playoff, and we've.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Had a champion game. What is that going to look
like moving forward?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Then there's the playoff And so I don't know if
I have all the answers. I'm excited to hear. What
are the talks, you know, and where are we at?
What I do know is from our perspective, this conference
is really hard.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
You know, the SEC is tough and it's tough on
every level.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
I think that this past spring, this eighteen straight years,
the SEC has had the most draft picks in the
NFL Draft. You know, this year we broke the record
with seventy nine draft picks going to the NFL Draft.
And so for year after year after year, the best
players have been coming from from the Southeastern Conference and
we love being part of it. But I also I
surely don't want to punish our teams for playing quality
(04:43):
opponents week in and week out, and then all of
a sudden you look up and it's two years in
a row the SEC hasn't had.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
A team in the national championship game.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
That doesn't make sense all the time, right, And so
we've got to make sure that we've got enough opportunities
to compete for national championship.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Lean championship weekend, idea playing weekend as somebody that played
in the championship game last year, this.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Is well, you know, I value the championship game weekend.
Like I said, I've been in this conference. This is
now going to be my fifth year, uh three as
an assistant and now two as a head coach, and
it means something to win an SEC championship. And anybody
that tells you it's diminished, they're lying. It means a lot.
(05:26):
It means a lot in our in our building, and
I'm sure and everybody else is building to those players,
you know. And so I think one of the challenges
of that is, you know, in a lot of other sports,
they have a regular season champion and then they have
a tournament, a conference tournament champion.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
We don't have that in football.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
You know, last year we were a seven and one
team at the end of the regular season, I think
Georgia was six and two, and there was a few
six and two teams, and then we played Georgia and
we got beat you know, and Georgia was the conference
champion last year, And so what is that going to
look like moving forward? We just I can to have
a conference champion or we're gonna have a Rayvus season champion,
and that's it. How is this all going to play out?
But I also looked at it from our fans perspective.
(06:08):
That was a lot on our fans, you know, to say,
you know, we're gonna go to Atlanta and play a
conference championship game. Then we had to play the first
round of the playoffs, and then we had to go
back to Atlanta for the Peach Bowl, then we had
to go to Dallas, and so you're putting a lot
on fans to start to travel different than in some
of the other sports tournaments where they have, you know,
(06:30):
like this weekend in baseball, we got four teams coming
to Austin that are all competing to get to a
Super Regional and things of that nature. So I just
think we've we've got to do a great job from
a college football perspective to really look at it from
every angle and to say what's best for our sport
and to make sure that we're the quality of play
(06:51):
is at the highest level, but also not taking it
away from the student athletes because they want to win
a conference championship. You know, this is an amazing conference
and so to compete for one of those is incredible.
But yet putting yourself in position to compete for a
national championship is again a tremendous goal that all of
us have going into every season. But I hope we
(07:14):
don't lose that because it does mean a lot. But again,
we've got to be mindful of some of the other
factors that this has. Everybody wants more teams. Everybody wants
more games, TV wants more. I get all that, but
let's not lose sight of some of those things that
we got into this sport for a long time ago.
That that still mean a lot to a lot of
us that are involved.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Do you feel like kay, the coaches are pretty united
and one of one quarter win though, and that being January.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I don't know the exact timing of when that should be.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
I do think we're all in agreement that one transfer
portal would be beneficial. Again, we're trying to we're team builders.
That's what we do, right, and it's hard to build
a team when you've got two different portals and you're
not sure who's on your team, who's coming, who's going,
and you do your best to build a culture to
where hopefully you can retain those players and bring in
(08:08):
some good players. And again, we've all benefited from that.
But I think if we can uniform that a little
bit at some point in spring, I think would be helpful.
What that exact time is, I don't know yet. I
do know from my perspective for two years now, I
have been in the playoffs the back to back years
that December portal window was brutal where we had I
(08:30):
think nine guys go in and then ten guys go
in the next year while we were still playing in
the college football playoffs, and that.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Was very difficult.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
So I'm definitely an advocate for that portal being after
the playoffs are done.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
But when in spring, when does that occur? I don't
know yet.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
I don't know because you want to start building that
team too right, and may seems kind of late. Like
I said, I think somewhere in spring is probably the right.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Timing. What does that look like?
Speaker 5 (09:02):
You know?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Is that is that late January? Is that February? Is
that March?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I don't know what you know, what does that exactly
look like? And I haven't heard everybody's thoughts on that,
And that's what these meetings are forced to trying.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
To figure that out.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
That that might spur some thoughts for me and maybe
others have some feelings that I have on.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
The on the issue.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Have a really high profile program in course of my
great players, but I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Can you insulate a player these days?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
And just speaking on arts, I mean, there's been so
much publicity and build up now to the role he's
going to play how do you how do you manage
that or do you manage that?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I know, whether Payton was in Tennessee. I think he
had some help with that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
I don't know if you can insulate it not not anymore,
you know, I don't know when Peyton was around.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
I don't know if there were cell phones and then
all those things.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Right, So it's a little different, a little different time
and a little different era than than what our guys
operate in now. You guys all didn't have Twitter accounts
back then either, and you didn't report instantaneously and you
didn't just retweet what the next guy wrote about because
that's kind of what you guys do now. That's fine, okay,
But the idea of that for Arch, part of coming
(10:08):
to the University of Texas is building that brand, is
getting some of that exposure. And so, yes, do we
support him as much as we can, like we do
all of our players. But it's also a great platform
for our guys and so it's not all negative. There's
a lot of positives to this, But at the end
of the day, for a guy like Arch in this instance,
(10:31):
I want to make sure that he enjoys this experience too. Right,
here's lifelong dream, right of being the starting quarterback of
the University of Texas. Now it's his opportunity. I want
to make sure that he has a great experience. Part
of that is the exposure. Part of that is protecting
him and putting some guardrails up on that so that
he can enjoy the experience.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
Steve, you built this program. I know you've worked under
Save the Train, you worked under Peak, but you also
had a lot of conversation with NFL coaches. How important
were those conversations and you doing what you do now,
the OTIA style scheduling and the way you're running it.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, we've We've definitely tried to you know, I've been fortunate.
I think in our era of coaching, you could probably say,
you know, Nick Sabe and Pete Carroll are two of
the top three, maybe four coaches in my era of
a young coach growing up in our profession.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
It's always very fortunate that way.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
So I've got great experience that I that I definitely
lean into. But I also think that we have to
forever evolve, you know, we have to continually adapt to
the new player, the new times, the new regiment, the
new the new things that are that are put on
our players plates and what's best for us. It's easy
(11:48):
to do what you've done before. That's that's the easy
thing to do. And sometimes it's more difficult to to
step outside of the box and to get a little
bit uncomfortable and to maybe just start to do things
a little bit differently.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Having your team's best interest in mind.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
And that's what we've tried to do while we were here,
all the while not not losing sight of what's our
foundation and what's our program built upon. And so we
take a lot of pride in that of, Okay, where
is college football headed, what does it look like in
the NFL and what are they doing now, and what
does their product look like and where they feel like
in the NFL they wish they could be a little
(12:27):
bit better, And then how do we combine those two
things to do what's best for us. We're still in
the We're still a developmental program different than the NFL.
We still you know, I had twenty one high school
kids in spring practice this year that are still trying
to figure out, you know, what is what is a
stance right?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
What you know?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
So we're developing differently than they are in the NFL.
So just to say just be just like they are
in the NFL probably not realistic. But there's components to
the NFL that that we can start to tap into
that I think would serve our place players better long term,
not only this season but throughout their career.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Developmental conversation.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
When you got the job, did you have a conversation
with your staff or cow Flood in particular, about you're
going to develop offensive line of high school as many
poles as you had flowed back, good lead players who
left a lot of programs were gone in the portal
to do that, you're bringing in more hang and grown guys.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
How critical is that in that particular position to develop.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I think it's important in that, you know, we we've
recruited pretty good here in the last four years, and
not just the old line, but a lot of positions
and other positions maybe.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Not so well.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
And you know, we've utilized the portal like a lot
of schools have to fill needs. You know, we haven't
tried to build our roster through the portal. We've tried
to fill needs in the portal, and we just haven't
felt like we've had those needs at the offensive line,
We've recruited it well. Coach Flood is a great teacher,
he's a great coach. We've got good continuity in that room.
(14:04):
We've got good leadership in that room. And so I
think one of the natural things I was asked this earlier,
people are going to say we're going to be a
young football team this fall. We're not necessarily young. We
just got some new faces, guys who have been in
our program, who have been who have been working on
their craft, who have been developing, and now it's their opportunity.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
They're not necessarily young. These are guys in.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Their third and fourth years in our program that now
it's their time to compete and to show what they're
capable of doing. And part of that for us is
to live through maybe some of the growing pains that
we just don't have the continuity that we've had the
last couple of years. But there's still a lot of
good players that if we felt like they weren't good enough,
maybe we would have gone into the portal.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
But we felt like we had more.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Pressing needs that we needed to address and that that
room was going to be good enough for us to
compete at a high.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Level as long worn's head coach. Steve Sarkishan from the
SEC media days talking about the adjustments they've made with
the Age at football calendar, not the schedule, but the
calendar perceived
SEC meetings are going on in Destin, Florida, and log
WARN's head football coach, Steve's Arkesian meeting with the media.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Going to see everybody, going to see everybody.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
He's got nice hands down here in Florida. This is good,
kind of an exciting time of the year. You know,
I always say that in our sport there's kind of,
you know, kind of check marks along the year of
where you're at, and this is obviously one of them
when it comes to spring meetings. To know that, you know,
summers right around the corner. We're getting back with our
(00:32):
players and getting ready to go for the fall. So,
like I said, it's good to see everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Sorry, you maybe.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
A lot of talking about football to play up.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
I know you're gonna learn more about your bothday a
couple of days you have.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Some setting to like here's what I You know, you've
been in a couple of what you think should maybe
be the right number.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Or what are the things when you jure that conversation,
when you jure those conversations that are sort of on
your mind to learn or maybe provides some feedback. Yeah,
you know, I think you know, I've lived this life
going all the way back to early two thousands, right
when I was an assistant coach at USC, and we
(01:15):
didn't we didn't have a playoff, and and I think
that there.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Was I remember a year at UH at SC we.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Had a great football team, and the way the computers
spit it out in the end, I think LSU might
have played Oklahoma and we played Michigan and the Rose Bowl,
and I think there was split champions that year.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I think it was US and LSU were split champions.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
And then we grew into a two team playoff, and
we grew into a four team playoff, and and now
we've grown into where we're at today, and I I
I I think at the end of the day, we
all just want to put the best teams to have
an opportunity to compete for a championship. And now more
than ever, you know the length of the season. You know,
(01:59):
last year we played sixteen games, and that was just
to get to the semi finals. We would have been
seventeen right to win a championship. And so the idea
I think we've all got to.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Wrap our brain around.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I don't know if we'll ever see an undefeated national
champion again. If we do, that's a really good team because.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
It's just so difficult.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
And it's not so it's difficult, yes, because of the
quality of the opponents you play, but it's so difficult
to stay healthy that long. I mean, you're gonna have
teams in years like we had last year where you
lose your starting quarterback and how do you respond to
your quarterback being down and you lose both your left
tackles that happened to us last year or your left tackle.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Then you're right tackling. Do you have the debt to endure?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
And so I think you're gonna see teams more and
more now two losses, three losses, maybe even four losses
that get in not very different than the NCAA baseball
tournament of what that looks like. I'd looked at Vanderbilt,
I think is the number one seed. There was a
point in the season they were eleven and ten, and
now they're the number one seed in the baseball tournament.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
And so I don't know.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
And we kind of saw it in basketball this year
with Florida and then winning the national this idea of
somebody's going to go sixteen to zero in college football.
Man put a statue up somewhere of that team, because
I just don't know if that's gonna happen again. And
so the idea that I think, you know, every the
powers of beer trying to get it right, I think
is a good, healthy discussion, and I understand not everybody's
(03:31):
on the same page right now. Hopefully we can get
to that point to where that is that we're giving
the best teams the opportunity to get into that playoff,
because that's really what it is.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
It's a playoff and you're.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Rewarding teams that We've got a committee that's trying to
say who are the best teams that should deserve an
opportunity to compete for a national championship. And so we've
got our conference championship, there's a regular season, we've had
a playoff, and we've.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Had a champion game. What is that going to look
like moving forward?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Then there's the playoff And so I don't know if
I have all the answers. I'm excited to hear. What
are the talks, you know, and where are we at?
What I do know is from our perspective, this conference
is really hard.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
You know, the SEC is tough and it's tough on
every level.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
I think that this past spring, this eighteen straight years,
the SEC has had the most draft picks in the
NFL Draft. You know, this year we broke the record
with seventy nine draft picks going to the NFL Draft.
And so for year after year after year, the best
players have been coming from from the Southeastern Conference and
we love being part of it. But I also I
surely don't want to punish our teams for playing quality
(04:43):
opponents week in and week out, and then all of
a sudden you look up and it's two years in
a row the SEC hasn't had.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
A team in the national championship game.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
That doesn't make sense all the time, right, And so
we've got to make sure that we've got enough opportunities
to compete for national championship.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Lean championship weekend, idea playing weekend as somebody that played
in the championship game last year, this.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Is well, you know, I value the championship game weekend.
Like I said, I've been in this conference. This is
now going to be my fifth year, uh three as
an assistant and now two as a head coach, and
it means something to win an SEC championship. And anybody
that tells you it's diminished, they're lying. It means a lot.
(05:26):
It means a lot in our in our building, and
I'm sure and everybody else is building to those players,
you know. And so I think one of the challenges
of that is, you know, in a lot of other sports,
they have a regular season champion and then they have
a tournament, a conference tournament champion.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
We don't have that in football.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
You know, last year we were a seven and one
team at the end of the regular season, I think
Georgia was six and two, and there was a few
six and two teams, and then we played Georgia and
we got beat you know, and Georgia was the conference
champion last year, And so what is that going to
look like moving forward? We just I can to have
a conference champion or we're gonna have a Rayvus season champion,
and that's it. How is this all going to play out?
But I also looked at it from our fans perspective.
(06:08):
That was a lot on our fans, you know, to say,
you know, we're gonna go to Atlanta and play a
conference championship game. Then we had to play the first
round of the playoffs, and then we had to go
back to Atlanta for the Peach Bowl, then we had
to go to Dallas, and so you're putting a lot
on fans to start to travel different than in some
of the other sports tournaments where they have, you know,
(06:30):
like this weekend in baseball, we got four teams coming
to Austin that are all competing to get to a
Super Regional and things of that nature. So I just
think we've we've got to do a great job from
a college football perspective to really look at it from
every angle and to say what's best for our sport
and to make sure that we're the quality of play
(06:51):
is at the highest level, but also not taking it
away from the student athletes because they want to win
a conference championship. You know, this is an amazing conference
and so to compete for one of those is incredible.
But yet putting yourself in position to compete for a
national championship is again a tremendous goal that all of
us have going into every season. But I hope we
(07:14):
don't lose that because it does mean a lot. But again,
we've got to be mindful of some of the other
factors that this has. Everybody wants more teams. Everybody wants
more games, TV wants more. I get all that, but
let's not lose sight of some of those things that
we got into this sport for a long time ago.
That that still mean a lot to a lot of
us that are involved.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Do you feel like kay, the coaches are pretty united
and one of one quarter win though, and that being January.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I don't know the exact timing of when that should be.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
I do think we're all in agreement that one transfer
portal would be beneficial. Again, we're trying to we're team builders.
That's what we do, right, and it's hard to build
a team when you've got two different portals and you're
not sure who's on your team, who's coming, who's going,
and you do your best to build a culture to
where hopefully you can retain those players and bring in
(08:08):
some good players. And again, we've all benefited from that.
But I think if we can uniform that a little
bit at some point in spring, I think would be helpful.
What that exact time is, I don't know yet. I
do know from my perspective for two years now, I
have been in the playoffs the back to back years
that December portal window was brutal where we had I
(08:30):
think nine guys go in and then ten guys go
in the next year while we were still playing in
the college football playoffs, and that.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Was very difficult.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
So I'm definitely an advocate for that portal being after
the playoffs are done.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
But when in spring, when does that occur? I don't
know yet.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
I don't know because you want to start building that
team too right, and may seems kind of late. Like
I said, I think somewhere in spring is probably the right.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Timing. What does that look like?
Speaker 5 (09:02):
You know?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Is that is that late January? Is that February? Is
that March?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I don't know what you know, what does that exactly
look like? And I haven't heard everybody's thoughts on that,
And that's what these meetings are forced to trying.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
To figure that out.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
That that might spur some thoughts for me and maybe
others have some feelings that I have on.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
The on the issue.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Have a really high profile program in course of my
great players, but I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Can you insulate a player these days?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
And just speaking on arts, I mean, there's been so
much publicity and build up now to the role he's
going to play how do you how do you manage
that or do you manage that?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I know, whether Payton was in Tennessee. I think he
had some help with that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
I don't know if you can insulate it not not anymore,
you know, I don't know when Peyton was around.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
I don't know if there were cell phones and then
all those things.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Right, So it's a little different, a little different time
and a little different era than than what our guys
operate in now. You guys all didn't have Twitter accounts
back then either, and you didn't report instantaneously and you
didn't just retweet what the next guy wrote about because
that's kind of what you guys do now. That's fine, okay,
But the idea of that for Arch, part of coming
(10:08):
to the University of Texas is building that brand, is
getting some of that exposure. And so, yes, do we
support him as much as we can, like we do
all of our players. But it's also a great platform
for our guys and so it's not all negative. There's
a lot of positives to this, But at the end
of the day, for a guy like Arch in this instance,
(10:31):
I want to make sure that he enjoys this experience too. Right,
here's lifelong dream, right of being the starting quarterback of
the University of Texas. Now it's his opportunity. I want
to make sure that he has a great experience. Part
of that is the exposure. Part of that is protecting
him and putting some guardrails up on that so that
he can enjoy the experience.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
Steve, you built this program. I know you've worked under
Save the Train, you worked under Peak, but you also
had a lot of conversation with NFL coaches. How important
were those conversations and you doing what you do now,
the OTIA style scheduling and the way you're running it.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, we've We've definitely tried to you know, I've been fortunate.
I think in our era of coaching, you could probably say,
you know, Nick Sabe and Pete Carroll are two of
the top three, maybe four coaches in my era of
a young coach growing up in our profession.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
It's always very fortunate that way.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
So I've got great experience that I that I definitely
lean into. But I also think that we have to
forever evolve, you know, we have to continually adapt to
the new player, the new times, the new regiment, the
new the new things that are that are put on
our players plates and what's best for us. It's easy
(11:48):
to do what you've done before. That's that's the easy
thing to do. And sometimes it's more difficult to to
step outside of the box and to get a little
bit uncomfortable and to maybe just start to do things
a little bit differently.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Having your team's best interest in mind.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
And that's what we've tried to do while we were here,
all the while not not losing sight of what's our
foundation and what's our program built upon. And so we
take a lot of pride in that of, Okay, where
is college football headed, what does it look like in
the NFL and what are they doing now, and what
does their product look like and where they feel like
in the NFL they wish they could be a little
(12:27):
bit better, And then how do we combine those two
things to do what's best for us. We're still in
the We're still a developmental program different than the NFL.
We still you know, I had twenty one high school
kids in spring practice this year that are still trying
to figure out, you know, what is what is a
stance right?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
What you know?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
So we're developing differently than they are in the NFL.
So just to say just be just like they are
in the NFL probably not realistic. But there's components to
the NFL that that we can start to tap into
that I think would serve our place players better long term,
not only this season but throughout their career.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Developmental conversation.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
When you got the job, did you have a conversation
with your staff or cow Flood in particular, about you're
going to develop offensive line of high school as many
poles as you had flowed back, good lead players who
left a lot of programs were gone in the portal
to do that, you're bringing in more hang and grown guys.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
How critical is that in that particular position to develop.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I think it's important in that, you know, we we've
recruited pretty good here in the last four years, and
not just the old line, but a lot of positions
and other positions maybe.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Not so well.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
And you know, we've utilized the portal like a lot
of schools have to fill needs. You know, we haven't
tried to build our roster through the portal. We've tried
to fill needs in the portal, and we just haven't
felt like we've had those needs at the offensive line,
We've recruited it well. Coach Flood is a great teacher,
he's a great coach. We've got good continuity in that room.
(14:04):
We've got good leadership in that room. And so I
think one of the natural things I was asked this earlier,
people are going to say we're going to be a
young football team this fall. We're not necessarily young. We
just got some new faces, guys who have been in
our program, who have been who have been working on
their craft, who have been developing, and now it's their opportunity.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
They're not necessarily young. These are guys in.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Their third and fourth years in our program that now
it's their time to compete and to show what they're
capable of doing. And part of that for us is
to live through maybe some of the growing pains that
we just don't have the continuity that we've had the
last couple of years. But there's still a lot of
good players that if we felt like they weren't good enough,
maybe we would have gone into the portal.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
But we felt like we had more.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Pressing needs that we needed to address and that that
room was going to be good enough for us to
compete at a high.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Level as long worn's head coach. Steve Sarkishan from the
SEC media days talking about the adjustments they've made with
the Age at football calendar, not the schedule, but the
calendar perceived
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