The Texas Longhorns kick off the 2023 season on Saturday as they take on the Rice Owls in Austin at 2:30 CT. It’s been a busy off-season full of transfers, rumors and hype, but all of that now comes to a close. In fact, it even put a smile on head coach Steve Sarkisian’s face today. Let’s break down why, and what else he had to say in Monday morning’s media availability.
Sark started off the conference by stating his excitement for Saturday but mentioned that they have a “veteran opponent coming to town” this weekend with a lot of experience and intricate schemes. His squad seems to be fully healthy and ready to go, though, as only LB Morice Blackwell will miss this week’s game. The rest of the team is 100%. Digging deeper into the less general parts of the conference, Sarkisian was asked about his overall thoughts on the position groups and asked “what’s that going to look like?” to himself when mentioning the running back room now without Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson. Currently, senior Jonathan Brooks seems to be the starter with freshman CJ Baxter behind him.
Mentioning class level, Sark was asked how he challenged the older veterans this off-season: “We’ve [Texas] put in a lot of work over three years… how do we want the movie to go this year? What are they willing to do to write the script so that script can play out?” He continued to mention embracing the hate and that “at some point, you have to hunt. You have to punch back… we have to make sure that they get our best shot”. Sark seems to not only be comfortable with the yearly hype around Texas Football, but his entire team as well stating that he feels “really connected” with his players this year. It also probably helps to have something to rally around… that being Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark’s comments in Lubbock last week telling Texas Tech to “take care of business” against Texas this coming year as he will be in Austin for the game the day after Thanksgiving. Sark’s comments towards this: “I don’t think he’s going to have his Thanksgiving dinner with us… we know who’s behind us… let’s go play”.
So, one reason for the smile is the strong understanding of his team and environment. The others include his love for the game, and how it’s “called a game for a reason”; it’s supposed to be fun. He went on to mention how other position groups are battling weekly for depth chart placement, how the offense needs “to be electric” and that the thing he feels best about this season is that “we [Texas] are a team.”
Come Saturday, this team will finally be put to the test.
-Twitter: @RSwantkowski
