What Steve Sarkisian said on the SEC Coaches Teleconference

Like every Wednesday, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian was on the SEC Coaches Teleconference for a 10-minute session with the media. Aside from explaining how Velton Gardner is out for the rest of the season, here’s what Sarkisian had to say.

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Opening Statement: “Good to get back on the field this Saturday coming off our second bye. Getting ready to play a Florida team that in my opinion has gotten better all year long. They’ve played really good over the last month and a half. Clearly, their record isn’t indicative of how good of a football team Coach Napier has and the job he’s done in developing that team. Should be a great ballgame. Like I said, looking forward to getting back on the field and competing.”

Q. How close do you think the offense is to connecting and operating the way that you want to see it?

Steve Sarkisian: "Yeah, I think we're pretty close."

— Inside Texas (@InsideTexas) November 6, 2024

On what it’s like going through a season with two bye weeks: “It obviously makes it long. The length of the season, when you really analyze it from front to back and you look at kicking off the season in August, then all of us having goals and aspirations of playing until January 20, and now with the format of the 12-team playoff if you’re fortunate enough to get in that, I think there is a lot of value in the two byes this year. Again, it’s not always ideal. Sometimes you just want to keep playing. I can say this for us, I think the byes came at really good times. We definitely had some injuries we were dealing with in the first bye. Dealing with some injuries in the second bye. We had some things we needed to work on, especially offensively where we’re trying to get ourselves back to the standard at which we can play. The timing was good for us this time around, again.”

On what’s impressed him about Florida and the job Napier has done: “They beat Mississippi State pretty handily. They beat UCF pretty handily. They go to Knoxville and lose to Tennessee in overtime. I think they’re ranked 6th or 7th in the country right now. Then they turn around and beat Kentucky pretty handily. They’re tied 20-20 with the No. 3 team in the country Georgia last week with seven minutes to go, and that’s playing with their third quarterback. I commend Billy for the job he’s done of keeping that team playing at a really high level. They play really good defense. They’re physical on the offensive side of the ball. Definitely really well coached in all three phases.”

Steve Sarkisian on if Texas and Florida share similarities as a program and schools: "I think there's some familiarity there. I'm sure a lot of other schools would deem themselves in the same light."

— Inside Texas (@InsideTexas) November 6, 2024

On Andrew Mukuba and Isaiah Bond: “They both have had a good week so far.”

On Jermayne Lole: “We’re going to need the complete player in Jermayne. Florida has got a really physical offensive line and they’re a physical offensive football team. First and foremost, our ability to stop the run is going to be critical on Saturday. He’s got to play a big part in that.”

On getting Arch Manning snaps and where he needs to improve: “I think Arch is doing a really nice job. Gosh, we were fortunate to have him step in the way that he did for those two and a half games. He got some starts under his belt. I think he continues to work at his overall understanding with what we’re doing schematically, and working on some of the fundamentals and details that we’re asking.”

On Florida’s eight interceptions and the problems the Gator secondary can provide: “They’ve got a good scheme that you can see their players have gained confidence in as the year has gone on. They’re really physical at the line of scrimmage. Because of that, I think they can deploy people in the secondary from a coverage perspective and mix coverages and disguise coverages. On the flip side, they’ll be aggressive at times, they’ll pressure you, and force the quarterback into some poor decisions. I think they just do a good job of all that. They’ve got quality players. They’ve got a good scheme that the players have gained confidence in. Then, it’s mixing all they do to force some poor decisions from the quarterback’s perspective.”

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On Florida’s offensive line and the limited amount of sacks the Gators have surrendered: “I think Billy and I are cut from a similar cloth in that he believes in running the ball. When you run it and you can utilize the play action pass and give your offensive line a little better positioning, that helps. They really haven’t been in games where they’ve just been behind and where they’ve had to drop back, drop back, drop back. They’ve been able to maintain some balance. Again, that forces defenses to not just pin the ears back and rush the passer, but have to defend the run. They can run play action pass. They can run bootlegs and keepers and sprintouts. The launch point can change. They’ve got some pretty good players and big guys up front. Because of their ability to run the football, it allows them to take some of their pressure off that offensive line with the style of play.”