Who will start at punter for Texas, plus other notes from Steve Sarkisian's Thursday Zoom

Michael Kern was active for games against Georgia and Oklahoma but did not punt, with Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian and special teams coordinator Jeff Banks leaving those responsibilities to Ian Ratliff.

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Ratliff performed admirably against Oklahoma, with three punts averaging 44.3 yards in the first live action of his career. He had a long of 50 yards in that game and the Sooners only notched 19 yards on two returns. For stepping in for Kern, Ratliff did exactly what was needed on the way to a blowout win for the Longhorns.

His performance against Georgia was a small step back. He had five punts and averaged 43.8 yards per kick with a long of 52 and only one inside the 20. Two kicks went into the end zone for a touchback. One punt was snapped from the Texas one yard-line, meaning there was a hurried pace for Ratliff to get the kick off.

With Kern off the injury report but still not yet kicking in game, what’s the true freshman punter’s status for Saturday?

“We’re hopeful Mike will be ready to go,” Sarkisian said Thursday. “I thought he’s had a couple of good practices in a row. But again, we’ll get to gameday and assess them both on the field and decide who we’ll go with there.”

Sarkisian was also asked about his program’s special teams units. Last season, the Longhorns finished ranked No. 17 in special teams SP+ and featured an All-American returner in Xavier Worthy. This season, Texas has dropped almost 100 spots in special teams SP+ to No. 115.

“Special teams, we’ve gotten so much notoriety for how aggressive we’ve been in explosive plays,” Sarkisian said. “It’s back to back weeks we’ve had big returns. We had a big one against OU with Silas (Bolden) in the punt return game. We had the long one with Matt (Golden) last week that got called back with the holding penalty. We just haven’t had a lot of opportunities in the field goal game for Bert (Auburn). I think Will Stone has kicked off tremendously. We’ve only had eight kickoff returns total in seven games that people have brought back against us, and we’re covering kicks really well.

“We haven’t gotten the splash plays: the blocked punts, the blocked field goals, or those touchdown returns. But I think we’re really close. We’re continuing to work at it, and looking forward to the second half of this season of that becoming a really impactful phase for our team.”

Looking at third downs: “I think the first part is, you want to stay out of third and longs. The further away you get from that first down marker, the percentages go down, down, down, down, down. When you start playing 3rd and 8, 3rd and 10, 3rd and 12, 3rd and 13, it gets difficult. You want to make sure you’re really maximizing 3rd and 6 or lower and you’re converting those at a really high rate. We missed some opportunities with that last week, and I would say that was something that was little bit disappointing.”

Any concern about slow starts?: “I’m not concerned at all. I think we’ve had some opportunities on these opening drives that we’ve just not capitalized on. I think our players have a lot of confidence in what we do early in the game. It just hasn’t hit exactly the way we’ve wanted to, but we believe in our process to get our guys ready to play. I’m not concerned.”

Is there a fine line in trying to see if Isaiah Bond can go or if the bye should be used to steal another week: “You answered the question for me. There’s a fine line in trying to figure that out.”

On running backs after the spotlight went on them last week because of the shape of the game: “The reality of it is we need to play better offensive football, and part of playing better offensive football is finding that balance and running the football with effectiveness, trying to find some explosive runs. I think the runners are ready to go. I think the line is ready to go. They’ve been challenged all week predicated on how last week went.”

On defending dual threats like Diego Pavia: “The key to the drill to me is being really disciplined. You’ve got to be really disciplined in the run game and your run fits. You’ve got to be disciplined in the triple option game. Then, you’ve got to be disciplined in your rush lanes and trying to collapse that pocket and not give them anywhere to escape.”

On Vandy: “Our guys don’t know. All they know is this is a top 25 matchup on the road with a sellout crowd.”

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On Quinn Ewers: “We’re going into game No. 8. I don’t know if a guy on our team is 100%. The life of a competitor as a football player, you learn to operate with those things that are going on with you like an ankle, a calf, a shoulder, a knee, an oblique, stingers. They’ve all got stuff. I don’t think by any means — and I don’t know how the question was phrased — do I think Quinn was using that (injury) as a crutch or an excuse. That’s the reality of we’re in week eight of a season. Everyone’s dealing with stuff. I thought Quinn’s had a really good week of work. I think he’s really dialed into the gameplan. Think he’s playing with a lot of confidence. I’m looking forward to him getting another opportunity as a competitor to going back out and competing at a high level.”