Three Things from Sark: Weekly championship games, looking at Vanderbilt, next up at safety

After the Texas Longhorns’ 30-15 loss to the Georgia Bulldogs on Saturday night, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian met with the media on Monday morning to recap the wild weekend in Austin and look ahead to this week’s road trip to Vanderbilt. Here were the highlights.

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“We have to put ourselves in Atlanta, right?”

The 2023 Texas Longhorns lost a mid-October game in a similar fashion to how the 2024 Longhorns fell on Saturday night. That forced Sarkisian‘s program which was then in a division-less league to run the table in order to make the Big 12 Championship.

The way the Longhorns approached that challenge was to say that every remaining week on the schedule following last year’s loss to the Sooners was a Big 12 Championship game. Houston, BYU, Kansas State, TCU, Iowa State, and Texas Tech were all Big 12 Championship games Texas won on the way to the actual Big 12 Championship in Arlington. Texas left Jerry World with the trophy in tow after defeating Oklahoma State.

The Longhorns plan to take a very, very similar approach this season in hopes of winning another conference title.

“Similar to last year in the Big 12 with no divisions, now we come into the SEC and there’s no divisions again,” Sarkisian said. “A lot of the teams that are at or near the top of our conference standings right now, we don’t play. Some of them we do, a lot of them we don’t.

“We have to really make sure that we take care of our business one week at a time. We can’t just point to one or two games and say ‘if we win that one, we’re going to be okay.’ It really feels like from here on out, we’re kind of in an SEC Championship game. That’s the same mentality that we had last year in the Big 12, that every game matters to that degree, and we have to put ourselves in Atlanta, right?”

The LSU Tigers and Texas A&M Aggies sit atop the SEC currently at 4-0 and 3-0 in the league, respectively. The Longhorns are grouped with Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri, and Vanderbilt as teams with just one conference loss. Texas plays Texas A&M and Vanderbilt, and obviously already played the Bulldogs.

To make it to Atlanta, Texas will envision that’s where they’re playing every week.

“If that’s where we want to be, we need to put ourselves there every Saturday,” Sarkisian said. “That’s what we’re competing for.”

Vanderbilt means another ranked matchup

The Longhorns have a third consecutive game against a ranked opponent this Saturday as they head to Nashville to take on the No. 25 Vanderbilt Commodores. Vandy has defeated Virginia Tech, Alcorn State, Alabama, Kentucky, and Ball State and has dropped games against Georgia State and Missouri.

Sarkisian noted the Commodores have a stout defense under head coach Clark Lea and make the most of the game clock. Vanderbilt leads the SEC in time of possession and is No. 11 nationally with 33:00 minutes with the ball per game.

“They’re really efficient, and they play really good complementary football,” Sarkisian said. “With that, you’ve got to maximize your possessions offensively. You’ve got to make your plays count, you can’t count your plays.”

Sarkisian also mentioned that quarterback Diego Pavia has put a competitive, winning mentality into the ‘Dores and creates a significant challenge. Plus, Lea has earned a lot respect from Sarkisian for crafting a challenging opponent and evolving from when he was defensive coordinator at Notre Dame (Sarkisian and Lea crossed paths in the 2020 Rose Bowl when Sark was at Alabama. The Crimson Tide racked up 437 total yards).

“Who he was at Notre Dame is a little bit different than who he is today defensively,”Sarkisian said. “Not completely, but a little bit. That shows the evolution right? We’re always trying to evolve as coaches. A ton of respect for him.”

Next up at safety

Sarkisian described Andrew Mukuba, who left Saturday’s game with a knee injury, as questionable.

What does that mean for the safety position?

“I think Michael (Taaffe) and Jelani (McDonald) are more than likely to be our starters on Saturday,” Sarkisian said. “I think Jordon Johnson-Rubell is a guy who has gotten snaps for us and a guy who has earned, I think, the opportunity to get more playing time. Naturally, we have the versatility of Jahdae (Barron), that we’ve trained him at safety and he’s playing some safety for us this year. He’s a bit of a Swiss Army knife for us.”

Sarkisian said the ability to rest Mukuba over the course of this week and the second bye was why the decision was made. Against Vanderbilt, the Longhorns are confident they can manage. Against opponents to come, they’ll need No. 4.

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“I think we’ll be fine from a rotational standpoint, but the sooner we can get Andrew back will be helpful for us,” Sarkisian said.