Steve Sarkisian says Texas will play more receivers in 2024
Last season, only three Texas receivers logged more than 100 snaps with routes run across all 14 games. Adonai Mitchell was on the field for 492 pass plays, Xavier Worthy tallied 473, and Jordan Whittington recorded 325. The next closest receiver was Johntay Cook, who was on the field for 41 pass plays.
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That continued a five-year trend within Steve Sarkisian offenses. Three receivers typically receive the majority of the snaps, with the fourth playing on occasion. WR4 in Sarkisian’s offense doesn’t see much time due to Sarkisian’s proclivity to use multiple personnel packages and the tight, NFL style rotation he has.
That is going to change this year. Sarkisian admitted at SEC Media Days more wideouts are going to see the field thanks to the talent accumulated in Chris Jackson‘s position group.
“We are going to play more receivers,” Sarkisian said. “I think the length of the season, and because of not having all of the rapport with Quinn (Ewers), some of that we’ll have to feel out as games go. It is a very talented room for sure, and we’ve got three great transfers.”
Even during his Alabama days, Sarkisian kept the tight rotation as the picture above shows. That’s changing because of transfer additions like Isaiah Bond, Matthew Golden, and Silas Bolden, returning players like Cook, DeAndre Moore, and Ryan Niblett, and talented freshman Ryan Wingo.
“To think, I’ve got seven quality players there,” Sarkisian said. “Now, is it going to be a seven-man rotation? That will bear itself out, but I do think we’ll play more players than we have in the past.”
While Sarkisian’s process of determining who his best three receivers are will be difficult, Ewers has a challenge in front of him too. He had to build rapport with only Mitchell last year as Worthy, Whittington, and even Ja’Tavion Sanders were returners from 2022. Now, he has to create chemistry with a whole new cast of pass-catchers. So far during the Longhorns’ summer workouts, he’s liked the progress he has made.”
“I think we’ve done a pretty good job so far, and I think it’s only going to get better,” Ewers said Wednesday. “Especially during camp.”
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Sarkisian has also repeated the need to play more players in games early in the season because of the expanded College Football Playoff. If a team is playing 16 or 17 games, injuries could affect depth charts as teams progress deeper into the postseason. He again mentioned that on Wednesday.
“When you start playing this many games, I’d love to tell you we’re not going to get injuries,” Sarkisian said. “Injuries are going to occur, so we’re going to play more players probably early in the season than we have just because you don’t have some of that experience that we lost from a year ago.”
Sarkisian has some tough decisions to make. How many snaps does a true freshman like Wingo or a talented second-year player like Niblett get? At whose expense do those plays come? In previous years, this wasn’t as much of an issue because the top three wideouts were so obvious. Worthy and Mitchell weren’t coming off the field last year for a player like Casey Cain unless absolutely necessary.
These are problems the Longhorns head coach doesn’t mind having to solve as the 2024 season approaches.
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“This group is very talented and by far and away our deepest receiver corps that we’ve had in four years,” Sarkisian said.
