How involved will Steve Sarkisian be in defensive coach-to-player communications?

Steve Sarkisian will be in Quinn Ewers‘ ear, or maybe Arch Manning‘s or Trey Owens‘, when calling plays this season with the new one-way helmet communication devices. But how often will his voice be heard by defensive players?

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On Wednesday during the SEC Coaches Teleconference, Sarkisian said he plans to be more of an overseer than to get involved with Pete Kwiatkowski‘s communication process with whoever wears the green dot on the Longhorn defense.

“Naturally he calls it,” Sarkisian said. “I try to do my best not to meddle with him and allowing him to find his rhythm. That’s definitely one of his strengths, calling defenses. I do try to offer some things as afar as formations or different things that look either consistent with what they did or it might be inconsistent – it might be a new wrinkle. It might be some certain plays they might have coming off of some of those formations or personnel groupings. There are times when I might recommend a thing or two there, but quite frankly its almost more about allowing him to find his rhythm to call it.”

At no point in his answer or in his discussion about the topic did he mention communicating with the Longhorn defensive player wearing the device. He’ll leave that up to Kwiatkowski.

Though Sarkisian hasn’t outright said who will be wearing the one-way radio, Texas linebacker Anthony Hill is the likely bearer of that responsibility. Hill, a sophomore who earned co-Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year honors last season, said his work in the preseason with the comms device has made his life easier on the field.

“It’s been pretty useful because you don’t have to look to the sideline and you can see what’s going on in front of you with the formations and everything and get it out so the defense can know the call early so we can be ready to align and play,” Hill said Monday.

But the voice Hill hears will likely be Kwiatkowski’s and Kwiatkowski’s alone.

“My communication with the player defensively is really not,” Sarkisian said. “He’s the one that’s calling the plays. I have the ability to do that, but quite frankly it’s really going to be more about PK communicating with those guys more so than me. He’s the guy that’s calling the plays.”

Sarkisian will speak with his quarterbacks and other offensive coaches in between drives, but most of those discussions will be managed by those assistants. At quarterback, the position Sarkisian calls the most important in sports, AJ Milwee is the one who will be the one relaying needed information following drives. Sarkisian said he has the “utmost confidence” in his quarterbacks coach.

“He’s with those guys every day in the meeting room and on the field,” Sarkisian said. “He’s with them on the sidelines during the games. Their rapport, their relationship is one I have a ton respect for and value.”

Sark’s plans to not meddle with defensive players are similar to those of other play-calling head coaches in the SEC. Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea, who calls the Commodore defense, isn’t letting his responsibilities as play-caller take away from being able to oversee his entire team. That said, he won’t be in his quarterback’s ear. He’ll leave that up to Tim Beck (and not the old UT assistant).

“Once our offense is on the field, my attention will be on the field,” Lea said yesterday. “I’ll switch over to the offensive line at that point and I’ll be paying attention to everything that we’re doing in terms of the communication obviously and then also the situations that arise, too. It’s my responsibility to make the critical decisions of when to go and when to punt, so on and so forth. I don’t want to remove myself from that.”

Similar applies for Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko, who will let Collin Klein handle things with Conner Weigman. Elko and Jay Bateman will share play-calling responsibilities for the Aggie defense.

“I think that’s probably where as the head coach, I could probably cause more harm than good,” Elko said. “I don’t know that having multiple voices on those headsets is going to be beneficial, offense or defense. I think the way we’ve talked about it is going after the NFL model where there’s only one communicator.”

While helmet comms are a novel thing in 2024, it’s not something Sarkisian thinks will be that big of an adjustment. Plus, when it comes to defense, it’s not something he plans to get overly involved in.

Other major notes from Sark from the SEC Coaches Teleconference

Steve Sarkisian: “It should be a great event celebrating 100 years of Darrell K Royal – (Texas) Memorial Stadium, having an opportunity to honor our athletic department winning the Directors’ Cup a year ago, honoring the national champions from last year, and honoring all of the  Olympians from the University of Texas this past summer from Paris.”

Celebrating 100 years of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium 🤘 pic.twitter.com/OevrOIznWN

— Texas Football (@TexasFootball) August 28, 2024

Obsession with winning: “Since we got back from New Orleans last year, we’ve had a very hungry football team. A team that has been not just hungry but obsessed with getting back to that moment and trying to further themselves and compete for a national championship. Like I said, we’ve got great leadership on this team. We’ve got a lot of veteran players that have been in this program for three or four years that have an idea of what I takes to get back there. They’ve done a great job of leading our young players, our very talented younger players, on what the demands are.”

Will you have any players who will be unavailable for Saturday’s game: “No, we’re good to go.” — Aside from CJ Baxter and Christian Clark, of course

What’s he unsure about regarding his team entering week one?: “I feel really good about our team, but I question every aspect of our team. I question us as coaches. That’s the life of a coach. You want to make sure you leave no stone unturned and that you make sure that all of your coaches are prepared schematically. And that you’ve got your contingency plans ready. You want to make sure that all of your players are prepared physically, emotionally, schematically, fundamentally, and that your contingency plans are prepared.”

Gameday outfit: “I love dressing for gameday. I think for me, that’s all part of Saturday after Saturday… I love Saturday’s in the fall. Part of Saturdays in the fall for me is that I get to play dress up. I get to wear some of the things that maybe I don’t get to wear on a daily basis as a coach. I look forward to doing that. I think our players do to. We enjoy that aspect as well.”

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A GOAT-shaped hole: “It just kind of feels like the right time to be joining the SEC with Coach Saban retiring and us coming into the league. That’s way I said very early on nothing but respect for the programs, the teams, and the schools that we’ve got to compete against. But by the same token, here at the university of Texas, the standard is the standard. Our job is to compete for championships year in and year out regardless off the conference. Yes, it’s a new conference, but the standard hasn’t changed.”