Steve Sarkisian reveals his message to Texas players amid wide-open Big 12 race

Just five weeks into the college football season several conference races have turned into absolute chaos, with many of the preseason favorites already taking hits. Few are as fascinating as the Big 12 race, which has already seen traditional powers Oklahoma and Texas stumble.

Sitting atop the Big 12 right now are the two Kansas schools, both sporting a 2-0 mark in league play. But there is a long way to go.

“My message is the team that wins this conference is going to be the one that has perseverance and resiliency,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. “I’ll be shocked if somebody can run the table in the Big 12 undefeated. If they can, more power to them.”

Texas, which lost in overtime two weeks ago against Texas Tech, sits at 1-1 in the Big 12 standings.

The Longhorns certainly haven’t been eliminated, though their opponent this weekend, the rival Oklahoma Sooners, is teetering on the brink of a likely elimination already at 0-2 in conference play. So while the Red River Rivalry might not have the kind of top-end title implications it normally does, it could well prove an elimination game of sorts.

“I really think there’s going to be losses, there’s a lot of parity, there’s a lot of tough environments that people have to go play in. So we have to go take care of our business,” Sarkisian said. “We can’t get caught looking at the scoreboard and whose record is what. We need to focus on what we need to do to continue to get better.”

Staying focused key to Texas remaining in Big 12 race

Sarkisian’s message to his squad has been pretty clear. Forget about the records. It doesn’t matter that Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and TCU are currently ahead in the standings, boasting unblemished Big 12 records.

The Longhorns just have to keep improving. A win over West Virginia was a good start, a nice bounce-back from that loss in Lubbock.

“There’s going to be plenty of things coming out from this week’s game that we need to improve upon, especially when you look at the tape,” Sarkisian said. “But ultimately week in and week out there’s going to be great battles and there’s going to be teams that get knocked off that nobody thought. There’s going to be teams that win that people didn’t think. But at the end of the day we need to take care of what we need to do.”

Indeed. Few expected ESPN’s College GameDay to be headed to Kansas for a showdown of unbeatens with TCU coming to town.

Yet here we are.

The Longhorns certainly aren’t out of the Big 12 race yet, but there’s work to be done if they hope to claw back into the mix. It’s all about survival from here.

“This was a big win for us tonight against a really good team, and then we get it again next week,” Sarkisian said. “And that’s the same for everybody in our conference. Everybody’s going to go to different places and we kind of have to just make sure we hold serve and handle our business.”