Three things to know from Sark: Thoughts on Rice, Brett Yormark's comments, depth chart tidbits

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian was available to the media on Monday and touched on a number of topics including his excitement for the start of football season, his optimism for the 2023 Longhorns, and the need to embrace the hate entering the program’s final season as a member of the Big 12.

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“Game week,” Sarkisian said.” Awesome time of the year. Felt odd Saturday after our mock game going home and watching college football and not being a part of it. Not sure how Week 0 works. Obviously, this is an exciting time for us, our fans, our students.”

The return of the season means the return of 100,000+ in Darrell K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium, where Texas will have several different festivities plan to honor legends of the past.

“I’m excited that we get to have our fans back in DKR, our students,” Sarkisian said. “It’s going to be an exciting time. Great atmosphere. I know we’re doing a couple of cool things Saturday, honoring Derrick Johnson going into the hall of fame, honoring the ’63 national championship team Saturday. Those are all great events surrounding the game.”

Here are three things to know from Sarkisian’s Monday press conference

The challenge Rice presents in Week 1

Sarkisian opened his first season at Texas with a win over Rice in 2021. He hopes to open the 2023 season with a win over Rice yet again.

“We’ve got a veteran opponent coming to town,” Sarkisian said. “Rice is a team that has a great deal of experience, returning a lot of starters especially on the defensive side of the ball. They got a quarterback who’s played with a ton of experience, he’s played twice here in his career. They’re hard-nosed. They’re tough. They’ve got very intricate schemes, so we’ve got our work cut out for us from a preparation standpoint.”

Most of the experience Sarkisian is referencing is from a 5-8 Owl team that made (and lost) a bowl last year due to Academic Progress Rate and not due to reaching the six-win bowl eligibility threshold.

The quarterback with a lot of experience? He’s set for his fourth debut season at a new school.

JT Daniels will be making his third career start at Texas. His first was in 2018 as a freshman at USC. His second was last year with West Virginia, which was his third school following a stop at Georgia.

With Rice, Daniels looks to obtain a better outcome than the two losses where he was a combined 59-for-96 for 575 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. He’ll be under center for an offense Sarkisian made sure to give its due praise on Monday, along with accompanying accolades for the Owl defense and special teams.

“We get challenged by Rice in two ways most notably,” Sarkisian said. “One, their style of play. Like I said it’s very intricate in all three phases and they’ve got really good coaches. Then the way they play, they play hard. They play tough. They’re relentless that way. We’ve got our work cut out for us on that.”

Responding to Brett Yormark

Last week, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark made waves in Texas, the conference, and across college football with his remarks given at a Texas Tech booster club event featuring Red Raider head coach Joey McGuire.

“Coach, I’m not going to put any pressure on you, but I’m going to be in Austin on Thanksgiving,” Yormark said Wednesday. “And you better take care of business like you did right here in Lubbock last year.”

Sarkisian was asked about those comments on Monday. While there was some displeasure with Yormark’s comments that implored Texas Tech to beat Texas during their game scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving, the Longhorn head coach took the high road and mentioned the repeated need to embrace the hate from other programs in 2023.

Steve Sarkisian responds to comments in Lubbock last week by Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark. Well done by Sarkisian #AllGasNoBrakes @ontexasfootball @InsideTexas pic.twitter.com/RuhSWTPvDT

— Gerry Hamilton (@GHamilton_On3) August 28, 2023

“Jokingly aside but not, I got a letter from the commissioner about sportsmanship the day before that speech, and so I’m trying to figure out what are we promoting to our student-athletes and then go say those types of things,” Sarkisian said. “I’m guessing he’s not going to have his Thanksgiving dinner with us the night before that game.

“The reality of it is, there’s a lot that has been made about that, a lot has been made about a t-shirt being made. Let’s not make this more than it is, man. This is about us. We’re focused on what we need to do and why we get to do it.

“We’re proud to be part of the University of Texas. We’re proud to represent the burnt orange and white. We’re proud to represent 550,000 living alumni. We’re proud to represent four national championship teams. We’re proud to get to go do that, and we know who’s behind us. That’s okay, now let’s go play.”

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No public depth chart yet, but some details on individual players

Similar to last season, a depth chart was not released by the Texas media relations staff on Monday morning. If one comes, it could arrive at any point before toe meets leather on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.

There were some notes on injuries announced by Sarkisian, as well as tidbits on some players who will contribute early in their careers.

• Morice Blackwell will be out for “a couple of weeks,” but Sarkisian said every other player will be available.

• No indication was given as to who would start at right guard, but Sarkisian said both DJ Campbell and Cole Hutson will see snaps at the position this weekend.

• Sarkisian said running backs like Jonathon Brooks and CJ Baxter “have a pretty good idea now” of what the pecking order at the position, before continuing with praise for each: “There’s physical stature and running style of a physical nature. I think both those guys are not just physical at the point of attack but they’re elusive in the open field. They got good pass receiving skills, and they’re both very smart. In our system, the running back, his intellect is important. Both those guys are smart players.”

• At backup quarterback between Maalik Murphy and Arch Manning: “Who do we feel like come Thursday is the guy that earned that opportunity to be the backup this week, that’ll be who the backup is.”

• At running back, similar goes for the depth chart: “The running back position, the same. We’ve got a lot of information to still take in here these first few ballgames. That’s how that position is going to go.”

• “And the corner position too. We’ve got four corners we feel comfortable with in Ryan (Watts), Gavin (Holmes), Malik (Muhammad), and then Terrance (Brooks). For them to show us throughout the week that they’re ready to go and who is ready to play, then we can decide and make those tough calls later in the week.”