Everything Steve Sarkisian said after Texas' loss in the SEC Championship

ATLANTA — Here’s everything Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said following the Longhorns’ 22-19 overtime loss to Georgia in the SEC Championship.

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Transcription via ASAP Sports.

Opening statement: First of all, this is the life of a competitor, okay? You get into this arena, you compete at the highest level against quality opponents. There’s going to be sways and flows in a ballgame that are sometimes going your way and sometimes don’t.

I think the challenging games like this is to maximize the opportunities when you get them. In the first half we had some great opportunities and we just couldn’t capitalize the way we would have liked.

Clearly the penalties were an issue in the first half where we stalled out on some things and for the in some third-and-longs and whatnot.

Our defense played a fantastic first half. I think it was like 260 yards to 54. But the score was 6-3. Clearly we went capitalizing on the opportunities we had.

They made the change at quarterback. I think it sparked them some, provided some different style of offense running the quarterback. I thought our guys showed a great deal of resiliency and fight today to fight back to force overtime.

But at the end of the day we weren’t effective enough in the high red to put touchdowns on the board. I think that in and of itself was probably a microcosm of the game because we had plenty of opportunities, but we didn’t capitalize on them.

The beauty for us is this stings, it’s hard, but we get a chance to regroup in a couple weeks and get into the College Football Playoff and go compete for a national championship. I think we’re plenty good enough to go win that, but we’re going to need to get healthy so we can put our best foot forward to make that happen.

Q. Steve, how excited are you to see what your team’s going to come back and do? You have two weeks to challenge them to fix this. How excited are you about this challenge?

STEVE SARKISIAN: Yeah, I have no doubt. These guys give me no reason for pause that they won’t rebound and play really good football in two weeks.

They’ve done that over the last two years. This group will always bounce back. Our backs were against the wall a year ago. We had to win out to get to the Big 12 championship game. This year our backs were against the wall. We had to win out to get to Atlanta. They did that.

Their ability is to respond to adversity, as they touched on, not hang their heads, get right back to work. It’s something that I continually am impressed by the resolve that they have.

Like I said, I have no pause they’ll come back ready to work here next week. We got to manage these two weeks the right way. We’ve got to get as healthy as we can get for a four-game season.

Q. In the high red, from a play-caller’s perspective, did it seem like something Georgia was doing or inefficiency on your guys’ part?

STEVE SARKISIAN: Probably a combination. They’re a good football team. They’ve got good schemes, good players. There were a couple bang-bang plays we weren’t able to get.

I think the negative plays kind of hurt us when we got there. I think a couple of the penalties when we got down there hurt us, as well. You’re playing behind the chains, which is never where you want to be in the red area.

Anytime you’re in third-and-long in the high red, red, those are difficult circumstances to be in.

I wish we could have executed a little bit better earlier in the game and stretch the lead when we had some better opportunities. Late in the game, at the end of the ballgame, some of those throw-type situations…

The overtime was kind of a microcosm of the game. We couldn’t put the ball in the end zone. We had to settle for a field goal. That opened the door for them to score and win the ballgame.

If we’re fortunate enough to see them again, we’re going to have to improve in that area.

Q. I can sense your emotions. Tough loss. The regular time in the game was over, and going into overtime, you left it all on the field. Can you talk to fans who might be listening, what were you going through? It’s like you never get to see somebody fight like that.

STEVE SARKISIAN: Yeah, no, this was a heck of a football team. Like I said, I have a ton of respect for their program and their team. What Kirby (Smart) has done here for seven, eight years now. We knew it was going to take 60 minutes. I didn’t know it was going to take 60 minutes plus overtime.

We challenged them on Monday about whatever you got in your tank, we got to empty the tank Saturday. We’ll have plenty of time to recharge our batteries and refuel our tank.

I think every guy that was out there battling, competing, left it all out there. That’s all you can ask as a coach.

Q. Whether it’s the false start or Jaylon not getting that block on that return, how do you clean up those little things?

STEVE SARKISIAN: I think they’re two separate things. We’ve had an issue with false starts on field goals. We have to clean that up on timing. I think that’s the second time in two or three weeks that’s occurred.

In the midst of a play in game, your football reactions just kick in. Sometimes you make the block, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you see things happen, you didn’t see it happen.

I don’t know. I have to look at the tape on that particular play.

But then there’s other heady plays, like the last play of the first half, Anthony Hill is lateraling the ball to Barryn (Sorrell), we’re trying to get in the end zone because our guys knew it was the last play.

I think our football awareness is pretty high. There’s some things clearly we need to improve upon because I think we had, I’m not sure, maybe four holdings or something in the game today again, which was something that had reared its ugly head kind of mid-season. I thought we had it rectified. Tonight it showed back up again.

Q. When you guys have the best record in the SEC in regular season, do you feel like you should have to play in this game to win the SEC in the 12-team Playoff era? How do you feel adding another 60 minutes of wear and tear on you and Georgia?

STEVE SARKISIAN: I really value this game. I think this game means a ton to the Southeastern Conference. We joined this conference. I was fortunate enough to be part of this conference as an assistant, coached in it twice.

This is a heck of a game. It’s an honor to play in it. It was an honor to play in it today. We didn’t come out on top.

Especially the way it’s structured where not everybody gets to play everybody, I think it’s probably the right thing to do, to have a championship game.

Now it’s our job to kind of regroup and get ourselves as healthy as we can to go compete in a Playoff.

We have time. We essentially have a bye to get ready for that game. We’ll do the best we can. I know our players will from a rehab and recovery standpoint. We’ll find out who we’re playing, put together a plan and go to work.

Q. It’s hard to do big picture perspective right after a game, when you look at the season, the success you have had this year and last year, the disappointment of the Georgia losses this season, where is your head at as relates to where you are now and how do you press forward?

STEVE SARKISIAN: We’re going to compete for a national championship. That’s where my mind is at.

Q. On the fake punt, at that point in the game, the ball is on the field, what were you seeing?

STEVE SARKISIAN: We had a return set up. They ran a motion. I thought we actually defended it relatively well. We had a return on where we were doubling the gunner. We lost some of our edge containment there. I thought Jahdae did a heck of a job of chasing the motion. The kid they flipped the ball to is a 10.2 100 meter guy. I know him well, recruited him out of high school. It turns into a foot race at that moment.

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It wasn’t like we got completely duped and had no clue. By the same Jahdae could make that tackle, it was fourth and five or something, and they might have gained six or seven yards on the play. It was a bang-bang play. Nice play by them. Good execution.