Steve Sarkisian used discretion to help Longhorns prepare for Alabama
There’s a chess match going on inside the actual game plan for a college football game each week that helps determine how a coach calling plays on either side of the ball employs his players and what he puts on video for future opponents to see and prepare for.
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That was part of the assignment for Texas coach Steve Sarkisian in the preparation, installation and calling of plays during the Longhorns’ 37-10 win over Rice on Saturday.
Sarkisian likely knew he had enough of a talent edge against the Owls that he wouldn’t have to get deep into his playbook to win, so he deployed a largely vanilla offensive game plan for Week 1.
After all, the less Alabama – the Longhorns’ next opponent – sees in the game film, the less Nick Saban and his staff can prepare for, right?
But using that tack can also be a double-edged sword. Sarkisian and his staff would have likely been keen to see how some of his plays worked in real game action against an opponent rather than in a scrimmage.
And there’s also the thinking that if plays and coverages and alignments are on video, then an opponent is forced to prepare for those plays.
See? It’s a chess match.
“It’s always the challenge,” Sarkisian explained. “You know, we always, as coaches, in the summertime, we always get ahead and whether it’s your first few opponents of the season, whether it’s some games that you kind of naturally circle on your schedule every year, you want to make sure you do a little extra prep work that way.”
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Sarkisian said Saturday after the win over Rice that the preparation his team has done for Alabama in the preseason will make things a little easier this week.
“As we get into this week’s ball game, I think our players will feel comfortable with the game plan because we’ve done a lot of that stuff that we’re going to run in next week’s game earlier in camp,” he said. “So from a player’s perspective, they’ll understand why we do what we do.”
As far as holding back part of the attack, Sarkisian said the game plan is in flux as both teams make adjustments on the fly.
“You go in each game with a plan, you try to execute that plan and then you try to make some adjustments at halftime and in-game based off of what the opponent’s doing,” Sarkisian explained. “(Against Rice) we got some really dramatically different things than what was on tape and we had to adjust. Credit to our coaches – I thought they did, and that’s why we showed a lot of effectiveness, especially there in the third quarter.”
