Steve Sarkisian reveals Texas had a 'come to Jesus' meeting on penalties after SEC Championship

A season-high 11 penalites proved to be Texas‘ undoing as Georgia rallied back to win the 2024 SEC Championship Game in overtime earlier this month.

Now, as the third-ranked Longhorns (12-2) return to the site of that collapse, Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, for a College Football Playoff national quarterfinal game against fourth-seeded Arizona State (11-2) in Wednesday’s Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl (1 pm ET, ABC/ESPN), they do so with a biblically-inspired focus on avoiding self-inflicted wounds.

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Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian recently revealed the Longhorns had a proverbial “come-to-Jesus meeting” in the days following that SEC Championship loss that paid immediate dividends in their last game, a 38-24 win over ACC champion Clemson in their CFP first-round matchup Dec. 21 in Austin.

“We had a real come-to-Jesus meeting after the SEC Championship game when we essentially lost that game because of penalties,” Sarkisian said this week on a Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl teleconference. “We just said we’re not going to do that anymore. We’re going to play as clean football as we can play, as fundamentally-sound football as we can play. We’ll still be aggressive, we never want to lose our stinger, we never want to lose our aggressiveness, but we can play smarter.”

That message was heard loud and clear against Clemson, where Texas had a season-low two penalties for just 10 yards. And even those prompted another discussion about penalties this week.

“Honestly, I critiqued one of the penalties that we got today. You can’t hit the quarterback late, and that’s one of the two penalties (last) Saturday,” Sarkisian continued. “So, we’re continually trying to preach playing smarter football, as well as playing hard and playing tough and playing physical. Quite frankly, that just came out of a come-to-Jesus meeting coming out of the SEC Championship game.”

Steve Sarkisian wishes he discovered Cam Skattebo before he transferred to Arizona State

The Sun Devils have had an incredible run, fueled by star running back Cam Skattebo.

It’s his second season at Arizona State, following two years with Sacramento State. Preparing for an impactful running back Skattebo has Sarkisian wondering what could’ve been if Texas was the team to discover him out of the portal.

“In all reality, I wish I would’ve discovered Cam when he was transferring the first time around. I was unaware,” Sarkisian joked, speaking with the media. “So, kudos to them. They found him, and he’s a heck of a player.”

Regardless of his regret, Sarkisian made sure to give Kenny Dillingham and the Sun Devils staff a ton of credit for the way they’ve developed their star running back. All told, Skattebo rushed for 1,569 yards and 19 touchdowns in 2024, just missing out on a trip to New York City for the Heisman Trophy ceremony.

Steve Samra contribued to this report.