Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian on CJ Baxter's injury, the RB room, and Tre Wisner's role
August 8, 2024 • 12 mins
Hour 1 continues with updates from the Paris Olympics. Texas Longhorns football coach Steve Sarkisian began hisThursday's media availability with comments on CJ Baxter's injury and his thoughts on the second week of practice. He then answers questions about the depth at running back, the possibility of adding another player to the position, Tre Wisner's role, and the importance of Saturday's scrimmage.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
It's the craig Way Show with the voice of the
Texas Longhorns and Hall of Vain broadcasting Craig Way.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Under ninety seconds remaining in the first quarter of that
Olympic Men's basketball semifinal Serbia, and so far Team USA
having a tough goal of it. They have struggled to
take care of the basketball. They've been turning it over.
And the only guy who didn't struggling, Steph Curry, is
seventeen of the US twenty three points, seventeen of their
(00:42):
twenty three and that coming in the first quarter. Otherwise,
they've had some struggles and it hasn't all been Nicola
Yokich either. They've had a balanced at tax. So minute
fourteen to go in the opening quarters, twenty nine to
twenty three Serbia, they've led by as many as seven.
They're up six right now, and we'll keep you updated
on that one. But right now, the US looks like
(01:04):
a team that is a team of all stars that
hasn't played together that much, even though they've had all
of those practices and the Olympic exhibitions and then rolling
through all of pool play and then through the Metal
Round to get to this point. But looking. I don't
know if sloppy's a right we're I guess in some
respects it could be, but just looking a little stale
(01:27):
and offense other than when Curry is hitting shots. So again,
down six twenty nine, twenty three with a minute remaining
in the first quarter. All right, a Long WRT football
team was back at practice this morning, and of course,
the news spread pretty quickly yesterday that CJ. Baxter was
going to be gone for the season because of the
(01:47):
knee injury. As you might imagine, that would be part
of what Long Wort's head coach Stieve Sarkisian would be
asked about in the post practice media availability today. It
was but sarka dress as part of his opening comments
following this morning's practice.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
First of all, I'd like to say today was a
heck of a practice. I was proud of our guys.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
You know, we.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Had practiced Saturday, we had taken Sunday off. I mean,
we went hard Monday and Tuesday. We took Wednesday off
and came back and worked today. We'll have a little
lighter practice tomorrow and thermal scrimmage Saturday. And I thought
the energy, the work ethic, the physicality of practice. The
intent which our guys practice with today was really impressive.
(02:33):
I commended him for that up there on the field
right now. So we're making good strides across the board
in all three phases. Special teams is really starting to
come now, looking what it's supposed to look like. We're
getting into all of the different phases of the game now,
whether it's base downs, third downs, fourth downs, you know,
red area, low, red goal line, So we're really working
(02:55):
those things. And then we'll introduce two minutes tomorrow. So
the game is starting to come together for our guys now,
which is encouraging.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Obviously, we got some unfortunate news coming out of practice
the other day with Cedric Baxter being lost for the season.
I hate it for the kid, the same way I
talked about Leonge Lafal the other day. If you polled
our team were the top three teammates on our team,
Cedric Baxter would be in that top one, two or
three as well. And as much as we love him
(03:24):
for the player that he is, we love him more
for the teammate that he is. And you know, our
thoughts and prayers are with him. We're encouraged by all
the doctors that he's going to make a really healthy
recovery and we'll have him back for next season. So
again from our perspective, you know, we'll be okay. Naturally,
we're gonna have to make some adjustments, like anything, anytime
(03:45):
you lose a player, got to make some adjustments. But
I think that's the value of trying to recruit and
recruit at a high level and the way we practice
the way that we do with a lot of the
two spots and a lot of our guys are getting
reps and so we're plenty deep enough to still be
a very good football team. Again, we would love to
have him, but that's that's the nature of football, and
you have to be able to withstand and deal with
(04:07):
injuries whenever they present themselves, whether they're in training camp
or whether they're late in the season, potential playoff injuries
and such. So, so you have to develop your entire roster,
and I think our staf's doing a really good job
of that right now.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Obviously within the context developing the entire roster. Sark was
definitely going to be asked about this running back situation
in the running back room now with the with Cedric
Baxter outs so with cj Al and you know, Jayden
Blue there probably at the top of the heat, but
there are plenty of other names as well. So the
question for Sark is is he happy with a depthy
(04:42):
hasn't running back and if not, or even giving it
some more thought, is there the possibility of moving a
different player into that position.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
As of right now, I feel really good about the
four guys that we have. They're all playing at a
high level, you know, with with Jaden and Trey and
then Christian and Jeric, you know, to be fair to
the rest of the guys and the roster, I kind
of want to give him through this first scrimmage. They've
been working out a position to give him a chance
to play in this first scrimmage and then you know,
we'll assess on a staff as a staff on Sunday
(05:13):
when we evaluate the entire roster, if that's something that.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
We may do.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Okay, So, continuing on the theme about the running back,
you heard Sart say he wanted to give those four
guys Jayden Blue there along with Trey Wisner and Christian
Clark and Jared Gibson. He wanted to give them a
fair shot to show them what they can do in
the scrimmage when they have that. So now with Baxter out,
(05:42):
does that make the scrimmage all that more important?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
No, I with that with no question. But what we
always think kind of down the road, We're always thinking
contingency planning. And so you know, we've touched all along
from day one that more guys are going to have
to play for us this fall, and we're it's going
to require our freshmen to to get indoctrinated to college
football quicker. Essentially, we have four kind of preseason games
(06:08):
before we get into SEC play UH, and we want
to play a lot of people, and to play a
lot of people, that means young players have to play,
most notably those two backs, and so hopefully you know,
they can get some good experience this weekend UH and
continue to grow as players. I've been impressed with both
those two young two young guys here early on in camp.
They're working really hard. They got natural ability, They're both
(06:29):
physical players. So it's not a development in a sense
of man they need to get bigger over an offseason.
These guys are more than equipped physically to do it.
They're just going to need to get them their reps.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Remember that back To was a freshman a year ago
and that Trey Wisner was as well and got a
chance to get some carries. He was mainly used on
special teams, but is Wiser the number two guy right now? Again,
there's always camp competition, But Sark was asked about to
Trey Wisner.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Trey's a baller. He uh, you know, we saw the
physicality that Trey possessed last year on special teams. I mean,
he was a demon on special teams for us last year.
That was a deep running back room that he was
sitting in, you know, with Jonathan and Keelan and then
Cedric and Jaden, So you know when you were sitting
there as the fifth back and then we had save
on Even at Wildcat he didn't maybe get as many
(07:19):
carries in game, but we saw what he could do
at practice and then you know when he got his
few shots there against Tech and against Oklahoma State, he
ran hard, he ran physical, He's fast, but the one
thing he possesses he's a really versatile player. And even
going back to high school, you know, and that's that
that championship team they had at De Soto, So the
heck of a team. Trey was all over the field
(07:41):
and catching balls, running the ball, playing physical. He provides
great energy. He's an awesome teammate. So, like I said,
we're really fortunate to have him here.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
And so if Weisner is indeed and like he was
episoda and he was a sark mentioned all over the field.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
He was used.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
By Claude matthis they had coaching so many different roles,
running back, slot, receiver, even lining as white out special
teams dB. He used him all over the place. And
of course Trey was largely used in special teams a
season ago, with lining up on the slot occasionally and
then obviously getting some carries in the backfield. So now
(08:22):
does Trey Wisner's role on special teams, which was important
last year, does it change with the injury to Baxter
which might cause you know, Wisner to need more time
more work there in the backfield.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Well, I don't know about that. You know, I remember
in twenty twenty when DeVante Smith won the Heisman Trophy,
he was a gunner for us on that team, and
he became the punk returner when Jalen Wadell got hurt.
So guys love the opportunity to play on special teams
for us, we take a lot of pride in that. Now, granted,
we have to be mindful of that, and that's why
(09:00):
we're pushing so many of these young guys to step
up and show what they can do. And that's where
your depth has got to kick in, right whether it's
at a specific position or on special teams. And like
I said, we feel really good about the depth we
have and Coach Banks does a great job. He's the
best in the country getting those guys ready to play, all.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Right, So it's going to be interesting see how goes.
Players will have a day off tomorrow, they have the
they have the scrimmage on Saturday, so actually the'll work tomorrow.
They have a scrimmage on Saturday and then off on Sunday,
So we'll see how it goes from there, and we'll
hear more from Sark during the course of the day,
and we'll hear from long Warren players as well. We
(09:40):
should tell you right now, Team USA is in trouble.
They're down fourteen points to Serbia with seven forty to
go in the first half, and it doesn't seem to
matter right now what line up Steve Kurr is putting
on the floor, Lebron Durant, Steph Curry. It doesn't seem
(10:00):
to matter. One thing. That is very apparent in this game.
Obviously it was different from the first two meetings between
the US and Serbia, but even it's different from the
other games that the United States has played, both in
pool play and in the middle round. Is they're being
dd up, they are being defended at you know, quite
(10:22):
the clip and it was twenty five to twenty and
right now, this is a fourteen to five run for
Serbia to run this out to a fourteen point advantage.
Right now. Now the US is trailed by those kinds
of amounts, like the amounts like they did in the
game against South Sudan, but that was in the pool play.
(10:43):
This is serious in the semifinal round now. So the
US is gonna have to find an answer here somewhere
because Serbia is doing it, and they're doing it with
total team basketball. It's not all Nikola Yokich. He's had
his contribution, but they got other guys contributing.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, great ball, moving all around, good shooting, and a
lot of these a lot of the buckets they're getting
are just kind of wide open looks so some sloppy defense,
some sloppy miscommunication from Team USA, sloppy turnovers, and then
one right there. If you're watching, you just saw Lebron
try and find Bam out of bile wide open in
the basket, should be an easy dunk and said the
passes behind was out of bounce in Serbian basketball. So
(11:18):
just little things like that. But only a six point
defin sorry, only a fourteen point deficit. Still second quarter.
These are the best players in the world on Team USA.
I still think they find a way to pull it out,
but they're gonna need more than Steph Curry to do so.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
On offense, yeah, they're gonna they are. Indeed're gonna have
to turn it back around and figure out some things
there to get to go because right now it is
a it's a problem for them. So we'll see. And again,
a lot of that has to do with combinations and
you know which units kind of click together, and you
got to shoot well, and they're not doing that right now,
(11:52):
so you have to shoot the basketball better than what
they're doing, so that makes a big difference. Awesome, Okay,
coming up, we'll have Inconceivable, which includes an Olympic note,
it's got a fast food note, and it's got some
freaky stuff thanks to our friend CB. Tomorrow maybe Florida
Man Friday. Today is Florida Fish Thursday, so we'll get
(12:16):
to that, that and a lot more as we continue
here on this Thursday afternoon. Glad to have you with
us here here 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 Vain broadcasting Craig Way.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Under ninety seconds remaining in the first quarter of that
Olympic Men's basketball semifinal Serbia, and so far Team USA
having a tough goal of it. They have struggled to
take care of the basketball. They've been turning it over.
And the only guy who didn't struggling, Steph Curry, is
seventeen of the US twenty three points, seventeen of their
(00:42):
twenty three and that coming in the first quarter. Otherwise,
they've had some struggles and it hasn't all been Nicola
Yokich either. They've had a balanced at tax. So minute
fourteen to go in the opening quarters, twenty nine to
twenty three Serbia, they've led by as many as seven.
They're up six right now, and we'll keep you updated
on that one. But right now, the US looks like
(01:04):
a team that is a team of all stars that
hasn't played together that much, even though they've had all
of those practices and the Olympic exhibitions and then rolling
through all of pool play and then through the Metal
Round to get to this point. But looking. I don't
know if sloppy's a right we're I guess in some
respects it could be, but just looking a little stale
(01:27):
and offense other than when Curry is hitting shots. So again,
down six twenty nine, twenty three with a minute remaining
in the first quarter. All right, a Long WRT football
team was back at practice this morning, and of course,
the news spread pretty quickly yesterday that CJ. Baxter was
going to be gone for the season because of the
(01:47):
knee injury. As you might imagine, that would be part
of what Long Wort's head coach Stieve Sarkisian would be
asked about in the post practice media availability today. It
was but sarka dress as part of his opening comments
following this morning's practice.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
First of all, I'd like to say today was a
heck of a practice. I was proud of our guys.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
You know, we.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Had practiced Saturday, we had taken Sunday off. I mean,
we went hard Monday and Tuesday. We took Wednesday off
and came back and worked today. We'll have a little
lighter practice tomorrow and thermal scrimmage Saturday. And I thought
the energy, the work ethic, the physicality of practice. The
intent which our guys practice with today was really impressive.
(02:33):
I commended him for that up there on the field
right now. So we're making good strides across the board
in all three phases. Special teams is really starting to
come now, looking what it's supposed to look like. We're
getting into all of the different phases of the game now,
whether it's base downs, third downs, fourth downs, you know,
red area, low, red goal line, So we're really working
(02:55):
those things. And then we'll introduce two minutes tomorrow. So
the game is starting to come together for our guys now,
which is encouraging.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Obviously, we got some unfortunate news coming out of practice
the other day with Cedric Baxter being lost for the season.
I hate it for the kid, the same way I
talked about Leonge Lafal the other day. If you polled
our team were the top three teammates on our team,
Cedric Baxter would be in that top one, two or
three as well. And as much as we love him
(03:24):
for the player that he is, we love him more
for the teammate that he is. And you know, our
thoughts and prayers are with him. We're encouraged by all
the doctors that he's going to make a really healthy
recovery and we'll have him back for next season. So
again from our perspective, you know, we'll be okay. Naturally,
we're gonna have to make some adjustments, like anything, anytime
(03:45):
you lose a player, got to make some adjustments. But
I think that's the value of trying to recruit and
recruit at a high level and the way we practice
the way that we do with a lot of the
two spots and a lot of our guys are getting
reps and so we're plenty deep enough to still be
a very good football team. Again, we would love to
have him, but that's that's the nature of football, and
you have to be able to withstand and deal with
(04:07):
injuries whenever they present themselves, whether they're in training camp
or whether they're late in the season, potential playoff injuries
and such. So, so you have to develop your entire roster,
and I think our staf's doing a really good job
of that right now.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Obviously within the context developing the entire roster. Sark was
definitely going to be asked about this running back situation
in the running back room now with the with Cedric
Baxter outs so with cj Al and you know, Jayden
Blue there probably at the top of the heat, but
there are plenty of other names as well. So the
question for Sark is is he happy with a depthy
(04:42):
hasn't running back and if not, or even giving it
some more thought, is there the possibility of moving a
different player into that position.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
As of right now, I feel really good about the
four guys that we have. They're all playing at a
high level, you know, with with Jaden and Trey and
then Christian and Jeric, you know, to be fair to
the rest of the guys and the roster, I kind
of want to give him through this first scrimmage. They've
been working out a position to give him a chance
to play in this first scrimmage and then you know,
we'll assess on a staff as a staff on Sunday
(05:13):
when we evaluate the entire roster, if that's something that.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
We may do.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Okay, So, continuing on the theme about the running back,
you heard Sart say he wanted to give those four
guys Jayden Blue there along with Trey Wisner and Christian
Clark and Jared Gibson. He wanted to give them a
fair shot to show them what they can do in
the scrimmage when they have that. So now with Baxter out,
(05:42):
does that make the scrimmage all that more important?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
No, I with that with no question. But what we
always think kind of down the road, We're always thinking
contingency planning. And so you know, we've touched all along
from day one that more guys are going to have
to play for us this fall, and we're it's going
to require our freshmen to to get indoctrinated to college
football quicker. Essentially, we have four kind of preseason games
(06:08):
before we get into SEC play UH, and we want
to play a lot of people, and to play a
lot of people, that means young players have to play,
most notably those two backs, and so hopefully you know,
they can get some good experience this weekend UH and
continue to grow as players. I've been impressed with both
those two young two young guys here early on in camp.
They're working really hard. They got natural ability, They're both
(06:29):
physical players. So it's not a development in a sense
of man they need to get bigger over an offseason.
These guys are more than equipped physically to do it.
They're just going to need to get them their reps.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Remember that back To was a freshman a year ago
and that Trey Wisner was as well and got a
chance to get some carries. He was mainly used on
special teams, but is Wiser the number two guy right now? Again,
there's always camp competition, But Sark was asked about to
Trey Wisner.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Trey's a baller. He uh, you know, we saw the
physicality that Trey possessed last year on special teams. I mean,
he was a demon on special teams for us last year.
That was a deep running back room that he was
sitting in, you know, with Jonathan and Keelan and then
Cedric and Jaden, So you know when you were sitting
there as the fifth back and then we had save
on Even at Wildcat he didn't maybe get as many
(07:19):
carries in game, but we saw what he could do
at practice and then you know when he got his
few shots there against Tech and against Oklahoma State, he
ran hard, he ran physical, He's fast, but the one
thing he possesses he's a really versatile player. And even
going back to high school, you know, and that's that
that championship team they had at De Soto, So the
heck of a team. Trey was all over the field
(07:41):
and catching balls, running the ball, playing physical. He provides
great energy. He's an awesome teammate. So, like I said,
we're really fortunate to have him here.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
And so if Weisner is indeed and like he was
episoda and he was a sark mentioned all over the field.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
He was used.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
By Claude matthis they had coaching so many different roles,
running back, slot, receiver, even lining as white out special
teams dB. He used him all over the place. And
of course Trey was largely used in special teams a
season ago, with lining up on the slot occasionally and
then obviously getting some carries in the backfield. So now
(08:22):
does Trey Wisner's role on special teams, which was important
last year, does it change with the injury to Baxter
which might cause you know, Wisner to need more time
more work there in the backfield.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Well, I don't know about that. You know, I remember
in twenty twenty when DeVante Smith won the Heisman Trophy,
he was a gunner for us on that team, and
he became the punk returner when Jalen Wadell got hurt.
So guys love the opportunity to play on special teams
for us, we take a lot of pride in that. Now, granted,
we have to be mindful of that, and that's why
(09:00):
we're pushing so many of these young guys to step
up and show what they can do. And that's where
your depth has got to kick in, right whether it's
at a specific position or on special teams. And like
I said, we feel really good about the depth we
have and Coach Banks does a great job. He's the
best in the country getting those guys ready to play, all.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Right, So it's going to be interesting see how goes.
Players will have a day off tomorrow, they have the
they have the scrimmage on Saturday, so actually the'll work tomorrow.
They have a scrimmage on Saturday and then off on Sunday,
So we'll see how it goes from there, and we'll
hear more from Sark during the course of the day,
and we'll hear from long Warren players as well. We
(09:40):
should tell you right now, Team USA is in trouble.
They're down fourteen points to Serbia with seven forty to
go in the first half, and it doesn't seem to
matter right now what line up Steve Kurr is putting
on the floor, Lebron Durant, Steph Curry. It doesn't seem
(10:00):
to matter. One thing. That is very apparent in this game.
Obviously it was different from the first two meetings between
the US and Serbia, but even it's different from the
other games that the United States has played, both in
pool play and in the middle round. Is they're being
dd up, they are being defended at you know, quite
(10:22):
the clip and it was twenty five to twenty and
right now, this is a fourteen to five run for
Serbia to run this out to a fourteen point advantage.
Right now. Now the US is trailed by those kinds
of amounts, like the amounts like they did in the
game against South Sudan, but that was in the pool play.
(10:43):
This is serious in the semifinal round now. So the
US is gonna have to find an answer here somewhere
because Serbia is doing it, and they're doing it with
total team basketball. It's not all Nikola Yokich. He's had
his contribution, but they got other guys contributing.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, great ball, moving all around, good shooting, and a
lot of these a lot of the buckets they're getting
are just kind of wide open looks so some sloppy defense,
some sloppy miscommunication from Team USA, sloppy turnovers, and then
one right there. If you're watching, you just saw Lebron
try and find Bam out of bile wide open in
the basket, should be an easy dunk and said the
passes behind was out of bounce in Serbian basketball. So
(11:18):
just little things like that. But only a six point
defin sorry, only a fourteen point deficit. Still second quarter.
These are the best players in the world on Team USA.
I still think they find a way to pull it out,
but they're gonna need more than Steph Curry to do so.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
On offense, yeah, they're gonna they are. Indeed're gonna have
to turn it back around and figure out some things
there to get to go because right now it is
a it's a problem for them. So we'll see. And again,
a lot of that has to do with combinations and
you know which units kind of click together, and you
got to shoot well, and they're not doing that right now,
(11:52):
so you have to shoot the basketball better than what
they're doing, so that makes a big difference. Awesome, Okay,
coming up, we'll have Inconceivable, which includes an Olympic note,
it's got a fast food note, and it's got some
freaky stuff thanks to our friend CB. Tomorrow maybe Florida
Man Friday. Today is Florida Fish Thursday, so we'll get
(12:16):
to that, that and a lot more as we continue
here on this Thursday afternoon. Glad to have you with
us here here on sports Radio AM thirteen under the
zone of the iHeartRadio app.
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