Steve Sarkisian on Texas' place in SEC race: 'We got to win Saturday'

Texas is in familiar territory. The No. 3 Longhorns have embraced the same do-or-die mentality that they adopted after losing to Oklahoma midseason last year.

Once again, Texas has one loss to its name during the home stretch of the regular season. Even though eight more teams make the 2024 College Football Playoff, as opposed to last year’s four-team field, Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian isn’t thinking about scenarios where his program backs its way into the bracket.

At the moment, there are eight SEC teams with two or fewer league losses. But Sarkisian is focused on only one of them, and that’s his group.

“We really can only control what we can control,” Sarkisian said this week leading up to a rivalry matchup with Arkansas. “We stubbed our toe a few weeks ago. We’ve been in this position before, where we feel like we go into every Saturday now from here on out like this is an SEC Championship game.

“We don’t want to leave it up to anybody else to win or lose to give us an opportunity to get into that game. We can control it ourselves right now, and that’s a great place to be in, but we have to do it one game at a time, and we have to view Saturday against Arkansas as if it’s an SEC Championship game.”

Sarkisian added: “Because, in reality, it is. If we want to get there, we got to win Saturday.”

After suffering a turnover-ridden, 30-15 defeat against now-two-loss Georgia on Oct. 19, the Longhorns have responded with back-to-back wins. They fended off Vanderbilt, 27-24, on Oct. 26. Then, after an off week, they pummeled Florida, 49-17.

Perhaps most importantly, starting quarterback Quinn Ewers is back on track. Ewers missed time earlier this year with an oblique strain. When he returned, he threw at least one interception in three straight games. Not all of those picks were his fault, but his three-turnover performance versus Georgia stuck out, considering he threw an interception and fumbled twice and was temporarily benched for backup Arch Manning in the second quarter.

Ewers came back into the game and made it interesting with a pair of third quarter touchdown passes, then remained the starter the following week against Vandy. He posted a clean sheet this past weekend versus Florida, recording five touchdowns without a single pick or fumble.

What’s more, the Longhorns’ rushing offense came to life again. Texas piled up more yards on the ground (210) against Florida than it combined for against Georgia and Vanderbilt (133). Granted Florida is second-to-last in the SEC in rushing yards allowed per game (167.33), but the Longhorns’ success in that department is still noteworthy, especially because Texas averaged 189 rushing yards the first six games of the year.

Now, Sarkisian’s team has turned its attention to an upset-minded Arkansas team that’s already knocked off another CFP hopeful this season. The Razorbacks took down Tennessee, 19-14, on Oct. 5. That was in Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium, where Texas will play this week.

With the Longhorns back in the SEC, they’ll resume a soon-to-be 80-meeting series with Arkansas on Saturday.

“In this day and age, I don’t know if you need bulletin board material because of you guys and Twitter and everything else and media coverage,” Sarkisian said, when asked about his approach to motivating his players for rivalry games.

“And so our guys read enough, see enough to know it’s a big game. My job as a coach is to keep them really clear-minded and focused on the task at hand one day at a time so that they can put themselves in position to perform well Saturday. I think when you get too emotional, your mind gets cluttered and you miss details.

“And we’re better when we’re really detail-oriented on what we need to do Saturday at 11 am.”