Kyle Flood praises Texas’ talent retention, doesn’t see ‘impact on the field’ from transfer departures

Recently, Texas Longhorns offensive coordinator Kyle Flood praised head coach Steve Sarkisian. In particular, he thinks that the culture in the program and the connection that Sarkisian have with players has helped Texas retain talent.

As Fall Camp gets started, Flood explained that the connection Sarkisian has with players likely keeps some out of the transfer portal.

“I don’t know that there’s one example,” Kyle Flood said. “It’s really, it’s a daily basis kind of thing but I think what you can point to is look no further than, if you say, ‘Alright, I think every team right now with the portal has got players that are coming into the program. They’ve got players that are leaving, but really, for us, we have not had very many if any players who have moved away from Texas who were having a real impact on the field.”

The transfer portal and the one-time transfer rule have largely changed how rosters are built and retained. Player movement is common and relatively easy, even among star players who are getting good playing time.

Those moves happen for a wide variety of reasons. So, it’s hard to say there’s one way to prevent transfers. However, as Kyle Flood explained, the culture at Texas keeps players from wanting to leave.

“Some guys have moved away looking for more playing time where maybe they didn’t see a window of opportunity. That’s understandable. That’s probably one of the good things about the portal, it allows players to do that,” Flood said.

“But you see other programs where players who have had an impact leave anyway, and I think part of the reason that has not happened here is the connections that Sark has with these guys.”

Steve Sarkisian says Texas is on a mission

Expectations are high for the Longhorns in their final Big 12 season. As Steve Sarkisian explained, Texas is on a mission to live up to those expectations in 2023.

“I think this team is on a mission. They’ve taken this mindset of being on a mission. They’ve kind of adopted the John Wick mentality. I know Quinn (Ewers) has touched on and Jordan (Whittington) has touched on that they’ve really focused. And I think that’s probably the thing. They want to go do this, they want to be focused on the task at hand,” Sarkisian said.

“I think they’ve assumed this mentality of ‘Embrace the hate.’ We get it, we’re the University of Texas. We get it, this is our last year in the Big 12. We can sit there and be a punching bag or we can go attack the people that we are going to play. I’ve think they’ve assumed that responsibility to say, ‘We’re going to go after everybody else too.’ I think that’s the right mentality to have.”