Everything Steve Sarkisian said after Texas' loss in the Sugar Bowl
Here’s everything Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said after the Longhorns’ 37-31 loss to Washington in the Sugar Bowl.
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COACH SARKISIAN: Okay. I think, first of all, I’ll go backwards. But the resiliency our team showed in that fourth quarter to find a way to have an opportunity to win the game, I think, is indicative of the character that we have on this team and the men that we have in that locker room.
Those guys are fighters. These fought together. As bleak as it looked there, they never gave up hope and they believed. And I think that’s how you give yourself a chance at the end.
I feel for them because I know how much they poured into this entire season. But like I told them in the locker room, we came into this season to be champions and they are. They’re Big 12 champions, and they should be very proud of that. They were a second away from playing for a national championship. And so there’s a lot to be proud of on this football team.
Unfortunately, in the game, we dug ourselves a hole with some self-inflicted wounds. And give credit to Washington, they played a very good game. [Michael] Penix got hot. They made some big plays down the field. And when they extended the lead, we got a little bit out of game plan to try to fight our way back into it.
But we found a way to get a couple stops and force some field goals that gave us a chance to get back into the game. But in the end, came up short. But there’s nothing to hang our heads about. These guys fought. And I’m very, very proud of the effort that they put into it.
Q. Steve, can you go through the last four play calls inside the 12 and starting with the swing pass to Jaydon [Blue]?
COACH SARKISIAN: He was more of a check-down on the play. We were looking for an opportunity for JT (Ja’Tavion Sanders) or J. Whit (Jordan Whittington) trying to create a one-on-one matchup for those guys to go high-point it. Naturally, they did a good job defending it. And Quinn [Ewers] did a good job of just getting the ball out to Blue with a chance in space, but had to get out of bounds.
It’s a tricky situation in that you’re out of timeouts. So we have to be very careful that we don’t complete a ball short of the goal line or pretty much the game is going to end at that point.
So when you’re forced to throw it into the end zone each time, it makes it difficult, especially when they’re defending the end zone. So we were just trying to create some matchups with some different route combinations to create some one-on-ones and to give our playmakers a chance to make a play. And we just weren’t quite able to do it. So that’s the way it goes sometimes.
Q. Steve, I was wondering if you could just talk about the challenge to get pressure on Michael Penix and just kind of the challenge that that placed on your secondary to defend against guys.
COACH SARKISIAN: Yeah. No, I think there were times we did create some pressure. We just couldn’t get him on the ground. And that was probably the most frustrating part. He was elusive in the pocket. And he did a good job of avoiding the rush and then keeping his eyes. And then I thought they did a good job of taking advantage of some one-on-one matchups when they got them.
And it just kind of felt like every time they threw it, and we were in pretty good coverage, they made the play. And that’s a credit to them. They’re a good offense and a good passing offense especially. It showed. We just couldn’t get him on the ground. We couldn’t generate enough pressure. I thought our guys were fighting with the pass rush. We couldn’t put enough pressure on the tackles, quite frankly, to get a holding call to even get them off schedule. They really played on schedule all night, and that makes it difficult.
The times we did get him into some third-and-longs, we had the ability to get off the field. But we just couldn’t get him on the ground. I thought there were some decent pressures in there. We just didn’t get him on the ground.
Q. Steve, I don’t know if you feel like the 30 days off maybe affected y’all’s offensive rhythm more. It just didn’t seem like y’all were quite in sync like you were all year.
COACH SARKISIAN: Yeah, to your point, I think, for whatever reason, we had some uncharacteristic kind of anxiousness at the line of scrimmage, where we had different people kind of with false-start penalties. And those things are difficult because sometimes we’re trying to play, let’s get to second and 5 and now we can operate. And then you get a false start and it goes back at second and 10. Or you do something on first and 10, it’s incomplete. That’s okay. And then you false start and it’s second and 15.
So those were some things that were a little disappointing. And I don’t know if that’s because of the lay-off or just sometimes being in the environment and you’re a little excited to go play. But I thought we rebounded from those things.
And we ran the ball really well early in the game. But like I said, when you fall behind, it kind of stressed us where we had to kind of not lean on the run like we wanted to. And I thought that really changed as much of the game as anything to where we really couldn’t lean into the run and then complement it with the passing game. We had to really start throwing it and then mix runs when we could.
Q. Coach Sarkisian, you talked about the resilience of the team, the fight to the last second. Is this something that you guys practice, or is this just the culture and character of the team?
COACH SARKISIAN: It’s a belief. We push our guys hard. Like I told them in the locker room, this has been a 12-month journey. We started winter conditioning last January. And those workouts aren’t always fun, all right? But we’re building character in those workouts. It’s cold. We go in the morning. We practice really hard. Our practices are demanding.
Our summer workouts, when we run in DKR (Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium) in the afternoon and it’s 120 degrees, that’s for a reason. It’s to build character, and it’s to develop the mental toughness and the resiliency. And then we get to training camp, and we practice hard. And there’s a belief in our style and what we do.
And I think it showed this season. There was a lot of games that came down to the wire for us this year. We found a way to win. And we put ourselves in position again tonight to have a chance to win the game. It just didn’t happen.
But I think that that just speaks to the mental toughness that these guys have, the resiliency and, also, the connection that they have for one another. Just like Jaylan [Ford] said, these guys never lost faith. They believed that we were going to win that game. And it was just how. That was the biggest thing, was well, how are we going to do it? We know we’re going to, it’s just how. And unfortunately, we came up short tonight.
But that’s the life of sport. When you get into sport, all you can do is put forth maximum effort in your preparation, get yourself in the right frame of mind, and then play as hard as you can. And in the end, somebody’s going to win and somebody’s going to lose.
And either way, that should build character and that should help these guys in whatever they end up going doing in life, that how to go about your business on a daily basis and put yourself in position to be successful, you got a chance in this life. And hopefully, they can walk out of this season knowing that.
Q. Coach Sark, obviously, you’ve been building over the last couple of years to get to this point. How do you then, going forward, maintain this level of success and then kind of building forward to get to the ultimate goal where you want to be?
COACH SARKISIAN: Well, I think that we have to make sure that — This doesn’t just happen, right? It took 12 months of hard work. We have to make sure that complacency doesn’t set in. We have got to be mindful of that. And then we go right back to the foundation of building the team, like I said, in those things I discussed, whether it is winter conditioning, spring ball, summer workouts, training camp, Culture Wednesdays, all the things that we do.
Make sure that we still handle our business in the classroom. Make sure that we still handle our business in our community, because I think that, ultimately, you have to rebuild the character each year of your team.
And we have to be mindful that it doesn’t just happen. It takes hard work. And I think that there’s a lot of lessons to be learned that the value of that hard work that we put in is the reason that we’re in this position. So we’re going to have to get right back to it again.
Q. In the second half, it looked like a lot of the receptions were more in the flat. Whereas, in the first half, a lot of the plays that Washington had, offensively, were more down the field. Was that more of a scheme adjustment? Was that just something that they were doing offensively that was putting you guys in some difficult situations? Can you just explain the difference in their first-half attack versus the second-half attack?
COACH SARKISIAN: Probably a better question for Coach [Kalen] DeBoer, quite frankly. We try to, obviously, protect ourselves a little bit more against the deep ball, and maybe that’s the reason the ball was going out to the flat. But I don’t know if that was their intent or not. Like I said, that’s probably a better question for him.
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Q. Sark, just evaluate Quinn’s performance tonight.
COACH SARKISIAN: Yeah, I thought Quinn [Ewers] had a really gutsy performance tonight. Thought he utilized his legs extremely well. They were really trying to deploy and match routes and cover people. And when that happened, he found some running lanes to use his legs to extend plays. I thought he had made some big-time throws at critical moments, especially late in the ballgame. Gave us a chance to win. Down 13 in the fourth quarter with not a lot of time left. And we had the ball on the 12 with whatever it is, with a chance to win the ball game. That doesn’t happen unless he’s played his heart out and making some really big-time throws for us. Thank you, all. Appreciate your support all year. Thank you.
