Texas embarks on (mock) game week and other notes from Steve Sarkisian's Thursday availability

The next time Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian speaks to the media, he’ll be talking about an actual game of actual football versus an actual opponent.

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Louisiana-Monroe doesn’t come to town for another nine days. Before the Warhawks hit Austin, the Longhorns will go through a dress rehearsal at Darrell K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium this weekend.

“We really go through A-to-Z as if it’s gameday from pre-game meal, to meetings, to walk-throughs, to pre-game warm-ups, to uniforms, to actually playing and going through over 40 different scenarios as if the game were to occur,” Sarkisian said Thursday.

“We’ll kick the ball off. We’ll have to substitute. We’ve got to substitute if we get a stop, to punt return, to scoring a touchdown, to, in the middle of a drive, our center’s helmet might pop off and the back-up center’s got to be ready to go in. So we try to play out a lot of scenarios to try to get our guys ready for games.”

“Practice is difficult because a lot of what we do is scripted, and even when you scrimmage sometimes, we try to simulate game-like activities. But a lot of times it’s offense versus defense, so special teams have to have their own segment.”

“When we mock a game, we truly play it as if it’s a game and we’re all on one sideline. Going through those substitutions, TV timeouts, different things are really important to stay in the flow of the game, even for coaches.”

Now that the quarterback competition is decided, other position battles are worth watching. One of the more important battles, albeit at a lower-profile position, is between Bert Auburn and Will Stone at kicker. That competition continues.

“I think to be fair to those guys — they’re both young players — to let them continue to work through it,” Sarkisian said. “There’s no telling, one guy might be the kickoff guy and one guy might be the field goal guy. We’ll see. We’re still evaluating.”

The O-line continues to take shape, with Kelvin Banks entrenching himself as the left tackle: “I think the emergence of Kelvin has been helpful at left tackle. I think that’s given us a lot of flexibility with Andrej (Karic) and utilizing him. I think Cole Hutson has done a nice job emerging as well, so I feel comfortable up front.”

On Ethan Burke: “Ethan has been a welcome addition to the team. He’s a guy who was not here in spring, got here in the summer. He’s got a lot of length. He’s got natural rush ability. A very tough-minded kid, and he’s found his way into the two-deep. When he’s in there, he does some really positive things. We’re encouraged by him. I think the beauty for Ethan is he’s got a lot of room for growth. His best days are ahead of him, but he’s definitely made an impact.”

On Tarique Milton: “Tarique has been a great addition. Any time you can get a veteran player who has competed at a high level in big games, and coming from a good program like Iowa State, I think he’s been a great addition. When you talk to him, I think he thought coming to Texas, it was going to be a lot of glitz and glamour. He found out we had a really good culture here. I take that as a compliment coming from a guy whose program was built on their culture.”

On quarterback: “I think Quinn (Ewers) has had a good week. I’ve seen some plays where it’s ‘okay, we’re starting to take another step with him.’ Some really big-time throws on third down, some of his playmaking in the pocket. He made a nice play in two-minute today actually using his legs to create an explosive play. We’re starting to make the strides I was hopeful for.”

On Maalik Murphy‘s role this fall: “With Maalik and a lot of the guys that are threes, we try to have opportunities where our threes are not just doing scout but they’re actually working our offense and our defense, competing against one another. To make sure that they’re still getting reps, you have to get some of that scout team work because that’s what keeps the speed of the game up for them when they’ve got to go against that first defense or that second defense. All in all, continue to develop, right? We’ve got to dig into what are the things we need him to work on and want him to work on. Then we’ve got to keep pushing for him to do that. Then, we’ve got to celebrate the small victories.”