Everything Steve Sarkisian said on the SEC Coaches Teleconference

Here’s everything Steve Sarkisian said on the SEC Coaches Teleconference on Wednesday afternoon.

[Sign up for Inside Texas TODAY and ONE MONTH for $1!]

Steve Sarkisian’s opening statement: “Great opportunity for our team, heck of a challenge playing at Georgia in a night game. Tremendous home record. Think Coach Smart and his staff have assembled a tremendous group of players, talented group, well coached. Got a great deal of fight about them, so a heck of a challenge for our guys but also a great opportunity so we’re looking forward to it.”

Steve Sarkisian on leading Texas into the SEC and the opportunity to have three AP top-10 wins: “Obviously, this conference is grueling. Every year, I think people look at schedules and think ‘oh, they’ve got an easy schedule’ or ‘they’ve got a hard one.’ You don’t really know until teams start taking the field and you got to start playing. Teams deal with injuries and some teams don’t. Teams fire their coaches and some teams don’t. We’ve had a very challenging slate for sure of not only the quality of the opponents that we’re playing, but also some of the environments and the road games at night. I think one thing about our conference that just holds true week in and week out (is) literally anybody in our conference, it doesn’t matter who they are, can beat anybody else in our conference on any given Saturday. I think that’s what makes our conference so difficult. It’s not about getting up for one or two games a year. It’s not getting up for three top-10 matchups or the third one this year. You’ve got to get up for them every week because every team is capable of beating anybody else. I think that’s the toll that it takes when you play in this conference. There’s a physical toll that this league takes on your team, but also I think there’s a mental toll that it takes. I think that’s where the toughness aspect is so critical in the SEC. There’s a physical toughness you have to have, but there’s a mental toughness you have to have to get yourself prepared to play every Saturday and to be at your best because if you’re not, you’re going to be in a dogfight and you’re going to be trying to find a way to win late. You learn a lot about your team in this league. We’ve learned a lot about our team. It’s a great league to be part of. It’s challenging. You have to grow up, and you have to grow up quickly.”

Steve Sarkisian on what Texas and Oklahoma provide in the SEC: “I think it was very strategic by the SEC to, if you were going to expand, where were they going to expand and how were they going to expand? Obviously, they went and got two great brands that are national brands in the southwest are very influential nationally. For the Southeastern Conference, to expand the way that they did west, I think was great for the conference. You’ve got two national brands, high quality programs that have won a lot of games and championships over the years but yet are two programs they know at the end of the day are going to be good year in and year out. The conference is tough. It’s difficult. It’s only going to get harder. We’re going to nine games. It’s like, holy cow, here we go. We’re playing eight now and then we’re going to nine. I think we all have got to keep recruiting well and keep developing our players because it’s hard to keep everybody healthy for that long season.”

Steve Sarkisian on how his team’s extended time on the road have helped prepare the program for tough road games: “I think for us, the first game of the season, right? We opened at Ohio State with them coming off of winning the national championship. The exposure of playing in that environment, and then as you touched on, we went four straight road games. We didn’t play at home for 42 days. Being in some of those environments, being in some tough overtime games, having to bounce back playing in a rivalry game, all those things helped us mature. More so than that, it helped us grow closer together as a team. Football is the ultimate team sport. You win as a team and you lose as a team. Ultimately, I think that we are playing as a team now better than we have all season long. That includes all three phases of offense, defense, and special teams. The connectivity from player to player, coach to player, coach to coach is at an all-time high for us right now. I think that’s what it takes when you go into these environments like we’re going into Saturday night. You’ve got to be really connected. You’re going to need all three phases. In these types of hostile environments, you’ve got to lock arms and you’ve got to fight collectively together. You can’t rely on one aspect of your team to get it done.”

Steve Sarkisian on how familiarity between the two programs impacts these games: “I think there’s probably some credit to Nick Saban in there. Kirby’s history with Coach Saban and obviously mine, there’s some modeling to how to build a roster, how to build a staff, how to build a team. We both have evolved from our time with Nick. But I think there’s a foundation there. Some of that foundation is the line of scrimmage, the play of the line of scrimmage, and the physicality that’s needed at the line of scrimmage. The multitude of schemes, you watch both teams play and there’s a lot of offense on both sides. There’s a lot of defense. There’s strategic defense predicated on situational football and first- and second-down football, third-down football, red area, things of that nature. I think there’s a mentality of they’ve won a ton of games under Kirby.

I always say if there’s a standard for college football in the last decade, it’s been Georgia and the consistency with which they’ve done it with different players and different coaches. I think what we’ve done now in the short term having been to the playoffs the last two years and now striving for a third consecutive year, there’s a style, mentality, and competitive spirit that both teams play with. I think that’s what makes these games when we play them so intriguing to the fans. Just look at the viewership of the first two times we played them and the amount of numbers and millions of people that watched the first two games. Just wait until you see the numbers from this Saturday night of how many people watch this game. There’s high level players, there’s NFL players, there’s high-level schemes, great environment, competitive spirit, and that’s what we want. That’s the beauty of college football. That’s why kids go to Georgia. That’s why kids come to Texas. To play in these games, and I think most everybody involved is looking forward to Saturday night at 7:30.”

Steve Sarkisian on if Georgia uses Gunner Stockton as a runner in a way similar to how Vanderbilt uses Diego Pavia: “I think they’re similar. They’re similar players in essence in similar schemes. That’s probably a better question for Kirby in how they design stuff for him. I know they use him and he’s effective, and the use him in critical moments for sure.”