Everything Steve Sarkisian said after Texas' win over Kansas
Here’s everything Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said after the No. 3 Longhorns’ 40-14 win over No. 24 Kansas.
[Join Inside Texas and get ONE MONTH of Longhorn intel for just $1!]
Opening statement: “First of all, this was a good team win for us. We keep talking about being versatile and finding different ways, and I thought today was another good example of that. Obviously the balance on offense was really critical for us. Something coming into the game that I had talked to the guys about was, let’s be really balanced today. Let’s run it the way we’re capable of running it. Let’s throw it and then find those completions. I thought we made some nice adjustments from a staff perspective that way. Any time you can throw for over 300, can rush for over 300, have a 200-yard rusher, and have two receivers basically have 100 yards receiving, that’s good balance. The ball was getting spread around the right way today. I thought we were very efficient, and although we didn’t really throw the ball over their head, we found explosive plays. We remained explosive as an offense today, which was good.
“I thought defensively, we played a really good game. They hit two plays. We had a little issue with the option game, they were running some triple option at us that we had to adjust to. That was the first touchdown, although there was a fumble involved. That’s really what the first touchdown was. They hit the big post for the touchdown off the tempo play. Outside of that, our defense played really well again. To think what they were able to do on third down and fourth down against a team that was either No. 1 or No. 2 in the country on third down conversions, to hold them for 0-for-8 and 0-for-2 on fourth down was really good football. In the end, I thought we started really well offensively. We were moving the ball, we just had our sputters as we approached the red area. We missed a couple of field goals in there. The common theme is the way we finished. I thought the second half we played really good football and finished a couple of critical drives there in the fourth quarter.
“All in all, I’m proud of the guys. It was a heck of a win against a good football team. Great environment at DKR again under the circumstances with the weather the way it was. Great environment. We set ourselves up for an awesome opportunity next week.”
On the defensive performance considering Kansas started Jason Bean instead of Jalon Daniels: “You just adjust. Once we had an idea that Daniels wasn’t going, the reality is with Kansas is they’re going to run their scheme and they’re going to run their system. Jason Bean is more than capable, he’s played a lot of football, he’s a really athletic guy. The triple option became a real factor because of his speed and defending him on that. Again, we had to defend the scheme because with the quarterback, there wasn’t such a skill set difference. Like I said, I thought we defended them really well, but the triple was an issue. You don’t see that all the time, and Kansas gets to it each week a different way. They got to it on us in that first half and caused some issues for us.”
On Ja’Tavion Sanders and Adonai Mitchell’s performance: “He got rolled up. We’re hopeful we’re going to get him back by next week. How does he respond? It’s not anything that we think is structural. It’s not a broken bone or a torn ligament or something, but how bodies respond is how they respond. I know our medical staff and he will do all the work they can to get him as healthy as they can to see if he’s going to be able to play or not next week. We’ll find out. We watched him run on the sidelines and we just didn’t feel like it was going to be in his best interest to put him back out there in the state that he was in.
“With AD, I think today was a great example. Xavier (Worthy) continues to garner so much attention. When you can have another receiver opposite him catch 10 balls for 141, then all of a sudden Xavier, we keep trying to find ways to get him completions and find one-on-one. It’s seven attempts to Xavier and he catches seven balls. That number a year ago never really used to look like that. For Xavier to catch seven balls last year, it would take 14 or 15 attempts in his direction because everybody knew we had to throw it there. Now all of a sudden when you have a complementary receiver on the other side, I think sooner or later people are going to start paying more attention to No. 5. Now with JT and with Jordan (Whittington) and the running game with Jonathon (Brooks) running the way he’s running, now we’ve got a really good variety of players that ball can get spread around to.”
On if his team is playing at the level he wants it to, and if he’s been tested by a complete team: “I’m pleased with the way we’re playing.There’s no doubt. I thought coming into the year we were a pretty good team. I felt like that as the season ahs gone on, we’ve continued to improve in areas where we’ve placed emphasis. I think we’re gaining confidence in a variety of styles in which we’re playing.
“I think we’ve played some pretty good teams. I think we’ll look back at the end of the year that so far the teams we’ve played are all probably going to be bowl teams if not competing for conference championships. I feel like we’re playing good teams. Complete team or not, I can’t gauge all that. What I do know is we’re getting faced with different styles of opponents week in and week out, and we’re responding to the challenges. I’m really proud of our guys and our preparation. I think again this week, and I think it got brought up last week in here, very business like. Our guys have really matured. If there’s something that I’m probably most proud of, it’s the maturity of this team in their ability to accept the next challenge the next week, put forth the work, and go out and perform and not panic when you go in the locker room and it’s 13-7 and you feel like it should be worse. They came out and played a really solid second half and next thing you know, you look up and it’s 40-14 or whatever it was. On that front, I’m very, very pleased at the maturity of our team because that’s what you have to do as you grow throughout the season. You have to show maturity. You have to continue to improve. Championship teams get better during the season and that’s something I think we’ve been able to do here through five weeks.”
On being 108th in touchdown rate in the red zone and what Texas needs to do to improve: “An old friend of mine said stats are like something. Once you get them, you can do anything with them. I don’t really care about stats. We keep winning. We’ve got to continue to execute better when we’re down there. I try not to get caught up in what stats say.”
On his team’s second half response: “A variety of things. I reassessed what I was calling when we were getting down there. Was I trying to be a little too cute? Did we miss some opportunities or were they just not there? I think it was kind of a combination of things. The same thing we told the guys at halftime was the plan is the plan and let’s keep moving the football. And let’s just make sure that we get ourselves refocused when we get down there to finish off the drives.”
On Kansas’ four-and-out in the third quarter: “I thought that was a huge factor in the game. It was kind of going back and forth a little bit there. To force the fourth down stop, again, it was going to be triple option again. We started defending it better, made the read a little bit tougher, and that’s when they had the exchange issue with the quarterback and the running back and ultimately created that turnover on downs. At that point, we seized the opportunity. That’s complementary football. When you play against good teams, it’s hard to create and find turnovers. When you get them, what do you do with them? I think that’s the complementary football piece we’re trying to continue to be really good at. I think that’s an area where we’ve improved. Tonight was another example of we got that turnover, we got really good field position, momentum was in our favor, and we go down and punch it in and seize the moment and momentum right there.”
On Jonathon Brooks’ day: “I think one thing that JB is doing is he’s playing with a lot of confidence. I think he’s a very patient runner. He’s always had natural running ability, and now as he’s finding opportunities in the open field he’s making safeties miss. When you can do that at running back, when you block things right and you trust the run, then you can make that last layer of defense miss, you can create explosive runs. This is three straight weeks where he’s hit home runs. As much as he’s running really good, hard yard yards between the tackles, he’s a home run hitter for us right now too. I don’t know if everybody appreciated that about him coming into the season, but if you think back over the past two years, when he’s gone in games at the end of these games, he’s hit home runs. He hit one against Kansas last year in that game. He’s done that, and now he’s putting the two together and I couldn’t be more proud of him. He’s working hard. I’ll say this. I’ve been proud of Cedric (Baxter) because he’s not 100 percent yet. For him to go out there and have 16 carries, he’s learning more and more about playing the game and how to play. For those two guys to have that night they had was pretty impressive.”
On Quinn Ewers’ running ability: “I think that he’s gaining confidence, too. He’s figuring out ‘man, maybe I’m a little faster than I thought.’ Last week probably helped on that. That’s an added weapon. That affects coverages. That affects how you cover us. If you’re going to play man principles and try to turn your back and double receivers, who has the quarterback? Now that puts the onus on the defensive line and the rush patterns because now, maybe they’re not rushing as hard because they don’t want to give him those running lanes to take off on third down. In turn, we can hold the ball a little longer and wait for some of those routes to open up. I thought he used his legs really effectively tonight and had a couple of big third down scrambles. Obviously, the touchdown run was the biggest run of them all. Then even there at the goal line with the keeper out the back door, it’s just another added weapon. It’s adding to the versatility of who we are offensively.”
On his halftime message and thoughts on Oklahoma: “What I told them is, it’s 13-7. Just trust the plan. We have a good plan right now. We need to finish some drives, but let’s not get discouraged. We’re moving the football really well. You’re executing the plan. I’m going to call it a little bit more efficiently in the red area. Let’s sure we execute what we’re doing when we’re there, and we really did. We had the one errant snap that I’m not really certain what happened with Jake (Majors) there. He snapped it and we weren’t ready for it. Outside of that, we really executed at a high level in the second half. On that front, I just appreciated the guys trusting, sticking to the plan of what we were doing.
“As far as OU, it’s a good football team. Obviously off to a great start. I’m not sure how they did today or when they play. They’re a really good team. They’ve got quality players. They’ve got good coaches. We know it’s going to be a heck of an environment for college football. It should be. It should be a spotlight on that game and all of college football next Saturday at the Cotton Bowl. We’re looking forward to it. We know it’s going to take a real week of preparation mentally, physically, and emotionally to put ourselves in position to perform next Saturday.”
On the success in the middle of the field running the ball: “We’re a pretty veteran group up front outside of DJ Campbell, who’s now growing into becoming a veteran. The one thing that DJ provides is he’s a powerful man in the interior of that offensive line. He really can move people. The experience of Jake and Hayden (Conner), Kelvin (Banks) and Christian (Jones), that group really performs well. We moved the line of scrimmage tonight. That was something I challenged them with all week. Something we challenged them with last night in our film session at the hotel (was) that we needed to re-establish a new line of scrimmage on their side of the ball.
“I thought Malik Agbo did a really nice job stepping in. He played more today than he had, obviously with JT going out. I thought his emergence at the tight end spot to go along with Gunnar Helm, all those guys play a part in making that run game come to life. I’m pleased with the progress that our run game has made. I go back to week one sitting right here and all I got asked about was our run game. The tide has turned a little there with what we’ve been able to do on the ground. That has helped our passing game. The play action passing game has come to life for us.”
