'They made two big plays': What Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said after Cotton Bowl

ARLINGTON, Texas — Ohio State outlasted Texas 28-14 in an epic Cotton Bowl national semifinal on Friday night to advance to the national title game.

For the Longhorns, their season is now over after finishing runner-up in the SEC and losing in the College Football Playoff semifinal for the second straight year.

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian met with the media for a press conference after the game to break down what went wrong for his team in the loss to Ohio State. Here’s what he said:

Opening statement…

Yeah, hell of a football game. Two really good teams battling. They made two big plays, you know? They hit the screen at the end of the first half and got the sack fumble on fourth down there for a touchdown. Two really good teams. Ton of credit to Ohio State. They’re a very good football team, well-coached, hard-fought game. I’m really proud of our players for the resiliency they showed tonight to fight back to get into the game, to have an opportunity first to go on the one, and weren’t able to put it in. So as I told them, today’s game is the life of a competitor. You put yourself in this arena. You compete your tail off. But we have nothing to hang our heads about, by the way they competed, not only tonight but this entire season.

On the Ohio State fourth-quarter goal-line stand…

Yeah really, the first two plays, we threw the ball into the end zone, we got back-to-back PIs. When we got down to the one, we went to a heavy package, which is Jerrick’s package. We ran it, and we obviously didn’t get much movement at all. And we had a plan to try to get the ball on the edge when we got down there. They went to big people. I can’t quite tell — It was on the far side of where it got leaky. But that’s one of those plays, if you block it all right, you get in the end zone, and we didn’t, and we lose quite a bit of yardage. And at that point, you’re kind of stuck behind the eight ball because we knew we were in four-down territory because of the score of the game. And I was okay even if we didn’t score, not that I didn’t want score, but thinking, all right, they’re going to have to be backed up, and we’ll probably get one more possession with good field position. The last thing you think is the sack, and it’s going to bounce right to the guy, and he’s going to run for a touchdown. So, it’s unfortunate that that was the circumstances, because it was a really nice drive by the offense to get all the way down there. First and goal on the one and we don’t score, you, quite frankly, probably don’t deserve to win that way.

On Quinn Ewers’ career at Texas…

I’m super proud of Quinn. He’s taught me a lot, probably unknowingly to him, because what he went through every year dealing with injury, what he goes through where I don’t know if he’d ever live up to the standards of what everybody thinks he’s supposed to be. But at the end of the day, all he did was show up every day and work and be a great leader and be a great teammate. And that’s a real credit to him because human nature, in this day and age, is to look at Twitter, to look at Instagram, to look at social media and articles written and fan boards and whatever else. And you can ride that emotional roller coaster of whatever you think public opinion could be, and that could be the opinion of one or a hundred or whatever. But this guy never did that. All he did was come to work every day. All he did was be a great teammate. All he did was work on his craft, get himself as healthy as he could when he was injured, and then show up when it was time to show up. Maybe outside of the first two games, I don’t think he played a game this year 100% healthy. And he fought through everything. Never complained about it one time. And I think that’s why he has so much respect from his teammates.

On the Ohio State RB TreVeyon Henderson screen for a touchdown late in the first half…

It really was a simulated pressure. It was not like we were trying to blitz and blitz them. We were still seven guys in coverage. They called the screen, they blocked it well, and they got it in the hands of a really good playmaker. [TreVeyon] Henderson’s got real speed, and they blocked it well. We were always concerned about him when he got into the open field. So it wasn’t like we were bringing five or six. It was a four-man rush. Good call by them, good execution. It’s unfortunate that they hit the screen. I think there was maybe 24 seconds or something to go in the half. I don’t think anybody was anticipating that. [Ohio State] Definitely stole some momentum. But that’s why I was so proud of our guys to bounce back the way that they did in the third quarter.