Steve Sarkisian credits Texas seniors for remaining with program amid coaching change
The seniors at Texas signed up to play for Tom Herman, not Steve Sarkisian. That’s something that Sarkisian is aware of as the Longhorns enter their final home game of the season on Black Friday.
So, with the regular season coming to an end, Sarkisian took the time to praise Texas’ seniors for sticking with the program and with him once there was a coaching change.
“I think, inevitably, when you take over a program, you have to remember that the guys that were here in the program and the guys that were in that first recruiting class that I inherited that signed in December,” Steve Sarkisian said. “They didn’t sign up to play for Steve Sarkisian. They didn’t sign up to get coached by Kyle Flood or Bo Davis or whomever. Right? They had signed up for something different.”
Among those key players who were on the Herman-led teams and stayed for the Sarkisian era are key players like T’Vondre Sweat, Jordan Whittington, and Jaylan Ford.
“So, naturally, when you come in, you’re trying to gain and build trust. We have an old adage that we use in our building, ‘trust equals time plus consistency.’ So, one of the challenges was, even through some of the tough days, the tough games, the tough losses, was remaining consistent as a coaching staff. Remaining consistent with our message, remaining consistent of what we were asking the players to do not only on the field but off the field. Then, over time, hopefully, they could start to learn to trust us one player at a time,” Sarkisian said.
“As we went through it, I think that inevitably, probably, the overall riding theme is that I think we develop trust with our players. I think our players know I’m always gonna tell them the truth. Sometimes they may want to hear, sometimes they may not, but they know where I’m coming from that it’s ultimately in their best interest because my job as a coach and our coaching staff is to try to put our players in the best position to be successful, whether that’s on the football field, in the classroom, or in life.”
Ultimately, for Steve Sarkisian and Texas, the theme has been about trusting one another.
“If they can understand that that’s the overriding theme, then we back that up with our actions, over time we’ll start to get their trust,” Sarkisian said.
“I think that’s been kind of the journey over three years for the seniors that were here when we got here, and the guys that are still here, that have persevered through three years of it all, I owe them a ton because without them trusting the other players in the program would have a harder time trusting us. So, that’s probably the biggest thing when you talk about the buy-in.”
Steve Sarkisian on Texas’ injuries
Ahead of Texas’ final regular season game, Steve Sarkisian shared an injury update for the Longhorns.
“Injury wise, I feel actually pretty good on a Monday, coming out of a physical game Saturday night. We had a variety of guys that kind of went down. I don’t foresee any of those guys being out Friday,” Sarkisian said.
“So obviously we need to monitor that as the week goes, but I do feel confident enough today that we’ll be, we’ll have — everybody that was available Saturday night, will be available Friday. Again, probably a better served question for later in the week, when we really get to practice.”