Steve Sarkisian shares why he has confidence after Texas' 2022 season

Despite losing in the Alamo Bowl, the Texas Longhorns showed clear signs of improvement in Steve Sarkisian’s second season. The question now becomes whether or not Texas can continue to improve moving forward.

Luckily, for the Longhorns, Sarkisian is confident that Texas will continue to improve moving forward.

“Yeah, I think, one, our culture,” Steve Sarkisian said. “I know I’ve been harping on this, but I mean that. I think we have a team that is full of competitors. I think we have a team that really is fighting to win and they’re fighting to win together.”

There are still places where Sarkisian thinks Texas needs to improve. He won’t pretend like the Longhorns are a finished product. However, those improvements and changes are already being made.

“I think we can still make improvements there, of just making sure that we’re really poised and composed in critical moments of the game,” Sarkisian explained.

“But I also look at just the improvement we made defensively. That offense is a high-flying offense, and they’ve shredded a lot of people. To make them earn it the way that we did tonight, again, we would have loved to have gotten off the field on 3rd down better, and I think that that’s something that we need to address in the off-season is our own ability to convert 3rd downs. I think that needs to improve, and our ability to get off the field on defense on 3rd down needs to improve.”

In two seasons at Texas, Sarkisian has posted a 13-12 record. That includes the loss in the Alamo Bowl. However, the Longhorns did add three more wins in 2022 than they had in 2021.

“There’s a lot of factors in that that go into it,” Sarkisian said.

Importantly, Sarkisian insists that he is proud of his players. He says that the program needs to continue to be a developmental one, especially when they get back to work before next season.

“There’s a lot for me as a coach to be proud of these guys and what they were able to do from year one to year two, but a sign of a good program is continued growth and improvement, and I think that our developmental program has got to come right back into effect in January and our off-season conditioning program and our football development, and then get ourselves ready for spring ball so we can continue to grow and then implement these young players that are showing up here mid-year,” Sarkisian concluded.