Spring Storyline: Importance of culture in light of coaching, player departures

Healthy, successful football programs lose players yearly to the NFL Draft. If a team has the talent on hand to go 11-1 and win its conference in the regular season, just like the Texas Longhorns did in 2023, it follows that the NFL is going to have interest in adding that talent to its ranks. See the 11 Longhorns invited to the NFL Combine as evidence of that.

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Healthy, successful football programs also see coaches and staffers leave for new opportunities as a result of that success. Jeff Choate, a former FCS head coach whose name was regularly associated with vacant West Coast jobs, took the Nevada gig in December and brought a number of former off-field Texas staffers with him to Reno. In a different yet related vein, Bo Davis left Texas for a similar role at LSU. Already well-paid in Austin, the Tigers threw a lot of money at him to get the former All-SEC lineman to return to his alma mater.

Departures can take different forms, but Steve Sarkisian still has to deal with them. High school recruiting and imPort-ed talent is how he replaced those NFL departures. He added Johnny Nansen and Kenny Baker to his coaching staff as respective replacements for Choate and Davis.

Those were the easy tasks. The difficult task that will be on Sarkisian’s to-do list all the way up until the season starts is making sure the culture those previous players and coaches worked hard to maintain stays at the level needed for success in the SEC despite the turnover.

On the coaching side of things, Sarkisian has been tasked with maintaining his program’s culture amidst previous staff changes. He plucked Tashard Choice from Lincoln Riley‘s grasp to coach the all-important Bijan Robinson, Roschon Johnson, and Jonathon Brooks. He replaced Andre Coleman with Brennan Marion, and then replaced Marion with Chris Jackson for the 2023 season to oversee a group led by Xavier Worthy.

With Nansen, Texas adds an assistant extremely familiar with how Sarkisian likes things done. The two coached together when Sark ran the show at Washington and at USC, and Nansen was teammates with Jeff Banks for one year at Washington State. If someone gets Sarkisian’s culture, it’s Nansen.

Baker presents a different challenge. He arrives with NFL experience as an assistant position coach, but his resume lacks years overseeing a position group (and recruiting blue-chip prospects) at the highest levels of college football. He also arrives at Texas due to friend-of-a-friend connections rather than any experience coaching with Sarkisian. Baker’s ability to acclimate to the culture is a two-way street, but for the culture to remain a positive for the Longhorns there will have to be effort put in by Sarkisian to ensure Baker can adequately step in for Davis (That doesn’t necessarily mean replicating the Ames bus rant).

On the players side of things, three of the four permanent captains from the 2023 season — Jaylan Ford, T’Vondre Sweat, and Jordan Whittington — are off to the NFL. Quinn Ewers is the only one from that captain quartet returning. There are other single-game captains making their return for the 2024 season: Jake Majors, Michael Taaffe, Gunnar Helm, Barryn Sorrell, Jahdae Barron, Kelvin Banks, David Gbenda, and Alfred Collins.

That corps has big shoes to fill not only when it comes to on-field production but also off-field leadership. Pressure will be on Ewers this spring not only to lead the Longhorn offense, but also to cement himself as the undisputed leader of the Texas locker room. Veterans like Barron, Majors, Gbenda, and Taaffe should offer a considerable amount of help because of the respect they have from their teammates, but when times get tough everyone looks to QB1.

Sarkisian should be able to tap into his experience under two of the best head coaches ever — Nick Saban and Pete Carroll — when working to maintain the culture and leadership his program now boasts three seasons into his tenure. Saban and Carroll both saw assistants and talented players leave on a regular basis but were able to keep things humming thanks to strong recruiting, adept hires, and the ability to foster a culture that motivated players, whether walk-on or five-star.

Strength and conditioning coach Torre Becton will hand the whistle back to Sarkisian when spring ball gets started. From there, it’ll be 15 practices spread over a month’s time before the pads are stored until August.

During that month’s time, Sarkisian not only will need to ensure his new players, leaders, and coaches get the complex schemes run on both sides of the ball, but also that they grasp the simple requirements of the program that the Longhorn players themselves are responsible for enforcing.

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Spring Storyline series

Spring Storyline: Quinn Ewers and the need to mesh with new receivers