Steve Sarkisian believes his modified spring practices were beneficial for the Longhorns

The Texas football program will report back for summer workouts this weekend and begin the process of preparing for 2025 training camp early next week. In addition to workouts with strength coach Torre Becton, the Longhorns will be working with assistant coaches in skills training with a football. The only things separating a lot of these skills training sessions from being an actual practice is the length of time on the field and the lack of helmets and shoulder pads.

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The team had most of the month of May off after 15 spring practices in March and April. Those spring practices looked a little different, with Steve Sarkisian and company electing to use an “OTA” style system akin to those used by NFL teams. The change saved some players from accumulating hits after the grind of the 2024 season and gave other players opportunities to develop. Sarkisian believes those spring practices set a good foundation for the summer, and the change provided exactly what he wanted entering the 2025 campaign.

“I thought it was good for us,” Sarkisian said. “I saw a lot of development on our team across the board. I thought it was really critical for the 22 high school kids, but really 21 since we didn’t have Jonah (Williams) this spring, the 21 high school kids to bring them along to get them ready for the summer.”

Sarkisian has often talked about how he’ll need to make use of most of his roster during a 16 or 17 game season, and having players like talented freshmen Justus Terry, Lance Jackson, and Kaliq Lockett as close to ready for action as possible will be key. Practices designed to make that happen are incredibly important in helping the Longhorns achieve their goals.

It wasn’t just for his high school players. Transfers and coaches reaped the benefits of the new structure as well.

“Then, we can get them ready for fall camp,” Sarkisian said. “I saw it with our transfers and I saw it with new coaches, really learning our systems, our ways, the way we go about our business. Implementing schemes. This is one of the first times we’ve had a whole new secondary coaching staff to go along with getting that on board with (Pete Kwiatkowski), what that looks like, and what we’re trying to do.”

Terry Joseph and Blake Gideon, his two previous secondary coaches, left for new roles after the 2024 season. Joseph took a job with the New Orleans Saints while Gideon received his first defensive coordinator opportunity with Georgia Tech. To replace that group, Sarkisian brought in Mark Orphey from Rutgers and Duane Akina from Arizona. As Sarkisian explained, Orphey and Akina learning how Kwiatkowski operated was a significant part of OTAs.

One other aspect was seen as a positive for Texas. Instead of two-spotting, which is best described as running two practices at once, Texas elected to just one spot for most of the spring. Coaches and players honed in on technique in the opportunities, with younger players getting the chance to watch how older players did things. When some of the more veteran players were kept out, that gave reps to the younger players. But because of the difference in structure related to how often the program practiced with contact, players nursing ailments of any sort could still get reps in without major risk of reinjury.

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“I thought it was really beneficial for us on a lot of levels,” Sarkisian said. “From an injury standpoint, it allowed players who were limited in practice to still practice and get quality work out of practice and not feel like we were just scrimmaging everyday to where they couldn’t do things when you go to a scrimmage format.”

Texas starts the summer workout program on Monday, and by all accounts Sarkisian believes his modified spring practice format provided a solid foundation for the next portion of the calendar year.