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Steve Sarkisian explains how he made his team from two pods of players

Joe Cookby:Joe Cook•05/02/23•

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Steve Sarkisian (Will Gallagher/Inside Texas)

Steve Sarkisian added Ovie Oghoufo, Ray Thornton, Ben Davis, and Keilan Robinson via the transfer portal, plus David Abiara and Xavier Worthy from the high school ranks ahead of the 2021 season. Everyone else, including almost all of Texas’ 2021 recruiting class, signed with the Longhorns with the intent of playing for former head coach Tom Herman. On January 2, 2021, that all changed when Herman was let go and Sarkisian was hired hours later.

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Sarkisian’s assessment of the roster early in his tenure led him to a commonly held conclusion by first-year coaches: a lot of the players weren’t recruited for his style of play on offense or defense. Of course, some players are versatile enough to fit into any scheme. That wasn’t exactly true of all the offensive and defensive linemen Sarkisian found in Moncrief, as evidenced by four of those six additions being EDGE players. Still, Sarkisian understood that didn’t alter the expectations for the football program at Texas.

The 5-7 season that followed was a disappointing one. Ahead of 2022, Sarkisian installed more players better suited for his schemes, including quarterback Quinn Ewers. A better record was the result with the 8-5 record.

Sarkisian’s words at a Touchdown Club of Houston luncheon last week indicate that with more players that fit his parameters on the roster, he believes the upward trend will continue.

“Now, we’re going into year three and maybe we had to make some compromises in year one schematically to fit the personnel we had,” Sarkisian said. “Now all of a sudden, and you guys have heard me say this, we look like my football team now because we’ve recruited players that fit the bill physically and we’ve recruited players that fit us culturally. We don’t have to make as many compromises as we did in year one. We can play a style and a brand of football that is very comfortable for me. That comes from recruiting. That comes from the portal.”

Sarkisian didn’t stop there and move on to another answer, which would have ignored all the Longhorns who decided to stick around. Key pieces of the 2023 team, like Jahdae Barron, Jerrin Thompson, Jaylan Ford, T’Vondre Sweat, Barryn Sorrell, Jordan Whittington, and Ja’Tavion Sanders were all players Sarkisian inherited upon his arrival in Austin.

Those players who elected to stay are just as critical of a component on the roster as the ones Sarkisian brought in, especially with the experience many of them provide.

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“Then there’s this whole other pod of returning players,” Sarkisian said. “Players that we inherited in year one that bought into what we believed in culturally, bought into what we believed in schematically, and stuck through this thing for three years while they’ve had buddies graduate and go onto the NFL; while lot of them had buddies graduate and go into the real world; while they’ve had buddies transfer and go to other universities, these guys have stayed true to the program.

“Now all of a sudden, I’ve got these two pods of people: guys that we’ve recruited that believe in what we believe in and guys that stuck in our program that have bought into what we believe in. Now, that has become our locker room.”

These statements echo other recent sentiments from Sarkisian, who went into detail about how the 2023 roster looks more like his team in an appearance on the Pivot Podcast.

His more recent words in Houston show that those comments aren’t just related to the players he brought in, but also the ones who decided to stick around even after the coaching change in 2021.

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