Steve Sarkisian details how second scrimmage will change for Texas

Texas will take the field for a second scrimmage in fall camp on Saturday, and coach Steve Sarkisian will be designing it slightly differently than the first one.

The coaches will be a little more hands-off to work on one particular angle of game management.

“A couple different kind of scenarios that we want to get better at, that we want to work on,” Sarkisian said. “Some of the substitution things, game-like substitutions where you’re rolling situations as they come, whether it’s low red zone, then you’ve got to goal line, then you go for two, there’s a lot of substitutions that have to happen there. Getting those mechanics done from the sideline in the moment are things that we’ll work on on top of playing the game and really working the game.”

Texas hosted its first scrimmage earlier this spring and it went relatively well. Expectations are sky high for the Longhorns, who return veteran starting quarterback Quinn Ewers and a host of talent around him.

Making sure all the little things are ironed out, though, will be key.

“Whether it’s the two-minute scenarios, third-, fourth-down type work there, which I thought we did a good job of last week,” Sarkisian said. “But because of how big it is in college football right now want to make sure we’re dialed in on that. (The second scrimmage) will look probably very similar, but there’s going to be little things along the way that will be different.”

Running backs still getting acclimated

One of the positions to watch in the second scrimmage will be running back, where Texas is trying to replace phenom Bijan Robinson. It obviously won’t be easy, as Robinson was a stud.

Sarkisian wasn’t ready to name a starting quarterback on Friday when asked.

“We’re not there yet,” Sarkisian said. “I think that to be fair to those guys, they need another day tomorrow.”

Even though Sarkisian declined to name a starting running back on Friday, he did share what he is looking for in a starting running back.

The former Alabama offensive coordinator has a long list of aspects he considers.

“I look for a lot of different things, you know,” Sarkisian explained. “Like today, we did a heavy two-minute situation where, ‘How do guys respond in that scenario? What does that look like? What do they look like on the goal line and in short yardage? What do they look like on regular downs? What do they look like on third down and in pass protection?’”

Texas will open up its season on Sept. 2 against Rice before traveling to Alabama in Week 2.