Steve Sarkisian, coordinators address the media as Texas football camp opens

The Texas Longhorns football program reports for preseason training camp on Tuesday, and head coach Steve Sarkisian will mark the beginning of the new season with a press conference at 12:30 p.m. CDT. Longhorn Network will carry Sarkisian’s press conference live, as will 104.9 The Horn FM in Austin.

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In addition to Sarkisian, defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski, offensive coordinator Kyle Flood, and special teams coordinator Jeff Banks will be available. Their portions will not be aired on TV or radio.

Updates below…

Steve Sarkisian

-Sarkisian: “It is always a great time of year. I love this. We’re building towards football season. Thirty-two days out, we’re right here at DKR for our home opener, so exciting times.”

-Sarkisian: “Our guys have worked extremely hard through winter conditioning, through spring practice, through our summer conditioning program, and I think they put themselves in a really good position for fall camp.”

-Sarkisian: “Should be a very competitive training camp. I think we’ve got a very competitive roster. We’re young, which a lot of you know. Fifty-seven of our 85 scholarship kids are freshman or sophomores, so we’ve got a lot of growing up to do and we need to grow up quickly. But we are talented and should be competitive camp like I said in all three phases.”

-Sarkisian on quarterbacks, no starter named: “Clearly, there at different phases of their development.” Said Hudson Card needed to develop his comfort level in their system in year two. For Quinn Ewers, it was simply learning the system.

-Sarkisian: “I’m excited for both these guys. Both great teammates, both really coachable, both highly competitive, highly driven young men that both would love the opportunity to take the field when the first team takes the field on September 3rd.”

-Sarkisian: “From a cultural standpoint, from a team bonding standpoint, this is a great challenge for us with 35 new scholarship players, of how close and how tight-knit we can make this team.” — Said he needs to be better at making sure his staff and players are able to respond better to adversity late in games.

-Sarkisian on RB and WR talent, balancing reps: “That’s always a challenge. Those are good problems to have.” — Said preparing everyone to play physically and mentally is one goal, and distributing the football in a way where guys stay hungry and remain committed to one another.

-Sarkisian on defense: “Part of me wants to evaluate the scheme, and what players were in what spots. In a lot of these games, we went through stretches in these games where we played really good defense.” — Said he is looking to find how to create more of those stretches for longer periods of time.

-Sarkisian met with Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay during the summer: “What it did I think for me was reinforce a lot of the things that I believe in.”

-Sarkisian: “I feel like my job when I wake up every morning is to put our players and our staff in the best position to be successful. With all these changes, whether they’re big picture things and things going on in college football, or things down at our level, what we’re doing every day in our facility. I’m constantly evaluating how do we put our players in the best position to be successful.”

-Sarkisian says there isn’t anybody who won’t be able to practice on Wednesday.

-Sarkisian asked if he needs Kelvin Banks to win the starting job: “Not a great question.” — “The reality of it is, we need all of our guys to play at a high level.”

-Sarkisian on if he knows when he may name a starting quarterback: “I think I have an idea in my head, but I’m not going to tell you guys.”

-Sarkisian on defense: “I think we do have a plan in place to improve our level of consistency and play a really cool brand of football from the defensive perspective.”

-Sarkisian said he intentionally had his players run in the afternoons to have an idea of what the heat would be like on the field at Darrell K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium.

-Sarkisian says he went to Aspen, Northern California, and Laguna Beach: “I didn’t take a whole lot of time off. Quite frankly, this summer, I tried to be in Austin.”

-Sarkisian on Diamonte Tucker-Dorsey: “I love having Tuck in the program.” — Mentions he is a productive player, is good against the run, slippery versus blocks, and has good pass-rush and coverage ability.

Kyle Flood

-Flood: “The more reps, the more times they can hear the playcalls, the more times some how, some way to get the players to try to visualize what they’re doing from an assignment and technique standpoint, no doubt it’s an advantage.”

-Flood said the three traits offensive linemen of any age need are to be tough, smart, and dependable.

-Flood on who his backup center is: “That’s a great question. I’m not sure.”

-Flood says they don’t sacrifice athletic ability for size. Says he needs to have a level of athleticism with the size that “makes them special and gives them an opportunity to progress within our system.”

-Flood: “We’ve got to get production out of the room. Ultimately, will that mean some of the freshman will play? As I tell my players and I tell every recruit, the best five players are going to play, and ultimately where they play will be determined by who the best five players are.”

-Flood: “You have to have the older players in your room step into a leadership role. I do believe Jake (Majors), Junior (Angilau), and Christian, I think those three guys, they do that.”

-Flood said Andrej Karic and Christian Jones had good summers, but “when you’re talking about linemen, you don’t want to make decisions before the pads go on.”

-Flood on some of the O-line breakdowns last year: “From a technique standpoint, we weren’t consistently good enough. There’s no doubt, and it’s been a focal point of the offseason, of being a better pass set team, being better with our hands, making sure that we have an understanding of where the quarterback is in the pocket and where his movements will be if he gets disrupted in the pocket.”

Pete Kwiatkowski

-Kwiatkowski says they were “very inconsistent playing team defense as a whole. We had stretches where we were really good, then for whatever reason, adversity, bad plays in the game, guys get injured, whatever, the wheels fell off.”

-Kwiatkowski on wide zone issues: “Just executing the defenses. Whoever is the force player, whether it’s a secondary player, linebacker, or defensive lineman, doing a better job of getting the ball turned back in.” — Said at certain points, there were players who were not doing their jobs. He used the term “freelancing.” — “A lot of times last year, we would get into those stretches where the wheels were coming off and then guys started pressing and feeling like they had to do more than what they’re supposed to do, then they started guessing or trying to ad lib, and it wasn’t good.”

-Kwiatkowski: “He’s a resource to me and all our coaches. He’s been in the conference for 20-something years. He has the lay of the land in the state of Texas, so there’s a lot of info. that he has brought to the table that’s been invaluable.”

-Kwiatkowski on how to help players fight through the wall or adversity instead of cowering at it: “You make it hard on them. Whether it’s Coach Becton in the weight room or running, you stress the guys physically or mentally. They’ve got to learn how to fight through it, come together, support each other, learn from those mistakes or experiences in the past, and keep moving forward.”

.@AnwarRichardson: "Coach, I wanted to ask a little bit about the pass rush-

Pete Kwiatkowski: "What pass rush?"

— Joe Cook (@josephcook89) August 2, 2022

-Kwiatkowski: “Overshown is an impact player. He’s a guy that can do some things. Very explosive, fast guy. We’ve got some young guys we’re gonna see what they can do.”

-Kwiatkowski: “I think one of the strengths of our defense is going to be our interior linemen.”

-Kwiatkowski says his edge guys all are twitchy and quick: “They’re quick off the ball. They can change direction. They’re sudden. The good ones, they have power.”

-Kwiatkowski says he feels “okay” about linebacker depth. “We’ve got D-Mo, we’ve got Jaylan Ford who has been awesome. He’s had a really good offseason mentally and physically. We’ve got David Gbenda. Jett Bush moved back to linebacker. We’ve got Tucker-Dorsey, the transfer. I think he’s going to be a welcome addition.”

Jeff Banks

-Banks on the kicking competition: “What we have to do is we have to evaluate the kicking and the punting position with these guys in the next 15-20 days.”

-Banks: “Bert Auburn and Will Stone will be the two guys who will compete for the field goal and kickoff jobs. We have another player named Gabriel Lozano who transferred from Texas Tech who provides some really good stability there. I feel good. We have three legs that I have confidence in.”

-Banks says snapper Zach Edwards had one of the best summers of any specialist he’s had.

-Banks says he is excited about Isaac Pearson. Says he is looking to add a punter from the walk-on ranks.”

-Banks on Morice Blackwell: “I’m fired up about Mo because Mo had a little taste on scout team of playing our offense last year with the talented players we had, and he played downhill and super physical.”

-Banks said Keilan Robinson is 12 to 13 pounds heavier.

-Banks said Brenen Thompson, Savion Red, Jaydon Blue and Tarique Milton could see opportunities at return.

-Banks said they challenged Ja’Tavion Sanders to be more physical in the first 5 practices of spring ball, and they saw him excel in the next 10 practices: “He is a ‘see how I do it, follow me’ guy.”

-Banks says analyst Jeff Crosby “will be a coordinator after this year.” Does depth charts, game plans, etc. — “I want guys who work for me and with me to give me ideas.”