As spring practices carry on, Steve Sarkisian looking for more thermostats in his program
When you do something over and over and over, at some point monotony sets in. That no doubt applies to football players going through spring practices.
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Texas has gone through four spring practices so far. That’s not enough time for monotony to be an epidemic like tackling issues were a decade ago, but Steve Sarkisian and his fellow Longhorn coaches have to guard against players electing to simply go through the motions.
So how does he do that? By asking his players to be a regulator instead of regulated. Or, as Sarkisian put it, being a thermostat as opposed to a thermometer.
“One of the challenges as you grow throughout spring ball is really trying to maximize every one of these 15 opportunities that we get,” Sarkisian said. “That was something that we talked about with the team post-practice today. We use an analogy: you can be a thermostat or you can be a thermometer. Thermostats, they set the temperature. They bring the energy. They set the temperature. Thermometers, they just react to what is set.
“We need more guys that take the field with real intent. We need more guys that take the field with great energy so that the other players that may not know quite yet can fall in line with what that looks like. I thought that was a good lesson for us today. Still got a lot of really good work done, but we’re always trying to get better. We’re always trying to find areas of improvement and what that can look like.”
Sarkisian didn’t label any specific players as being thermometers during his Monday post-practice press conference. He also didn’t say that Monday’s practice was a poor one. Sarkisian mentioned Saturday’s practice was very physical and that he understood the challenge of turning around and practicing on Monday after a tough weekend session.
He also mentioned a few players who stepped up and functioned as thermostats during Texas’ fourth spring practice.
“I thought Alfred Collins looked really good today, was very intentional with his approach,” Sarkisian said. “Barryn Sorrell, Ethan Burke always bring it that way. I think a couple of new faces, I think Trey Moore brings it. He’s wired right up front. I thought Cedric Baxter and Jaydon Blue, again, just continue to assert themselves. I’d be remiss if I didn’t reference Tre Wisner. He’s had a really good four days for us to start this thing off. It’s hard to pinpoint everybody, but there’s been some guys who have brought it for four straight days. It’s been impressive, so hopefully everybody can fall in line with that so they know what it looks like.”
Sarkisian was asked about whether Texas joining the SEC, something players are reminded of constantly via patches on jerseys displayed at the Moncrief-Neuhaus Athletic Center, served as a motivation for his program. He pushed back against that idea, saying conference affiliation and opponent shouldn’t be what gets his team up for practices or games.
“Our motivations should come internally,” Sarkisian said. “We’ve been that way for quite some time. We try not to get motivated by external factors because I think that’s when you take those dips in performance. You try to look across the field, and now I’m supposed to play a certain way because that’s who’s over there? We want to set the standard for the way we play.”
He went back to the idea of cultivating players who set the standard as opposed to simply living up to it. It’s a challenge that Texas will have to face all of 2024, but primarily in the short term with 11 more spring practices to go.
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“Quite frankly, we want to be the thermostat,” Sarkisian said. “We want to set our temperature. We want to play a certain way and to our standard. That’s what we coach to. That’s what we play to.”
