LIVE UPDATES: Steve Sarkisian recaps UTEP, looks ahead to SHSU

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian will be available to the media at 11:30 a.m. to recap the Longhorns’ win over UTEP and to look ahead to Sam Houston. You can watch it on Longhorn Network here.

[Sign up for Inside Texas TODAY for $1 and get the BEST Longhorns coverage!]

Live updates to follow.

Steve Sarkisian: “Cedric got hurt first play of the game. Hamstring injury. We don’t think it’s overly significant but he’ll be out this week just from a precautionary standpoint to hopefully get him ready for SEC play.”

Sarkisian says that Cole Hutson, Kobe Black, and Xavier Filsaime are all questionable for Sam Houston.

Sarkisian: “Naturally, we missed a few things in the passing game, and it was like ‘we’re so close.’ Part of me is really excited about that because I know how close we are to this thing hitting on all cylinders. That’s our job as coaches and as players to get us to that point, and I believe we will.”

Sarkisian: “Things to clean up, but more importantly for us is (it’s) kind of exciting because I think the things that we need to clean up are very fixable. That part’s exciting to me because I can envision what it’s going to look like when we do clean it up.”

Sarkisian: “If Arch was having a bunch of mental errors and not operating the offense well, that maybe would have required to take him out. I didn’t think that was the case. Different things require different things to get your point across. We handled it accordingly. We’ll handle it accordingly this week and expect him to come out and have a great game Saturday.”

Sarkisian on Arch Manning: “I think some of this is really good. Here’s a guy who’s had an awesome life. The way he’s grown up, where he played, the school he went to, the people he’s been surrounded by. I think you learn a lot about yourself through adversity and overcoming adversity and getting on the other side of that adversity. To have some of this adversity that he has right now, and when he gets on the other side of it, I think all of this is going to serve not only well for him but well for us as a team. Love the challenge for him. Love the challenge for us. He’s a strong minded guy. He’s got great work ethic. Great poise. Great composure. He’s an awesome teammate, so I love the end of the movie for him when he gets on the other side of this. Looking forward to it.”

Sark on the QB run game: “We leaned into (Arch) running the ball a little more. We’ve got to wrap our heads around that’s kind of our offense, leaning into the QB run game.” — Sark also wanted to learn about the three young RBs last Saturday.

Steve Sarkisian on Connor Stroh: “I think the thing for us is we, for so many years, had so much continuity up front and so much trust in a lot of those guys that even maybe when we weren’t at our best, they could work well together. Striving for that continuity right now I think is important. We just felt like going into the week, we’re gauging it on a week to week basis. I thought Connor had a really good week of practice, felt comfortable with him in there.” — Said they tried to repeat some calls to get into a little bit of rhythm in blocking the ‘multitude of looks that we were getting rather than just running new plays.’

Sarkisian on not playing an FCS team in the non-conference: “The reality of it is, you’re trying to find the right balance. Can we hang our hat and say we’re one of the few that doesn’t play an FCS school? that’s great and all. But you can play some really good FCS teams too that are high quality opponents, and maybe a Power Four school that isn’t quite as good.”

Sarkisian on Graceson Littleton: “We didn’t recruit him for three years. We recruited the guy for like 2.5 months maybe. Then he decided to flip and come here but he came in with a workmanlike mentality, and it shows. It’s paying off for him.”

Sarkisian gave a shoutout to his practice squad players just now, saying he praised them in today’s team meeting and handed out multiple awards to the players.

Sarkisian on Arch Manning: “I anticipate he’s going to right this ship quickly and that’s a credit to the players and coaches around him and helping him do that.”

Sarkisian on fans booing his team: “If they were booing about the way we were playing, just imagine how we were feeling about the way we were playing at some of that juncture in the first half. Understandable, but don’t give up on us too quickly. I think we’ve got a pretty good team.”

Sarkisian mentions Texas has created a turnover in 19 straight home games.

Sark on 3rd down: “Early in the game, we have a 3rd and 1, we don’t convert, a 3rd and 2, we don’t convert, a 3rd and 4, we don’t convert. Those are the ones we gotta have.” — “We have to remain aggressive. We’re an attack-oriented team.”

Steve Sarkisian on acclimating his defensive linemen: “Getting them acclimated not only to the defense but to our culture and our style of play I think was really important. The development of those guys in their time, they’re all in different phases and stages as we go, but we’re starting to see them all start to elevate.”

Sarkisian: “I think not having a couple of our veterans on offense consistently has affected the flow of how we play.” — Mentions Wisner, Moore, Baxter.

Sarkisian: “I’m not naive to think we wouldn’t have some growing pains. I just want those growing pains to get us as tall as fast as we can and feel good and start playing. That’s the race that we’re in. I’m comfortable in saying we’re going to get there. I just want to get there sooner rather than later. Like everybody else, we want to see a well oiled machine offensively, special teams, on defense, playing our best football when our best is needed. So we’ve got to get there as quickly as possible.”

Sark on going for it so often on fourth down:

"Analytics became a big part of football. Everybody has an analytical approach to what they do. But, to be honest with you, I haven't checked with 'The Book'."

Says the two 'The Book' wouldn't have liked, Texas converted.

— Evan Vieth (@EvanVieth) September 15, 2025

Sarkisian on freshmen WRs, says Ryan Niblett and Daylan McCutcheon stepped in for DeAndre Moore plenty. Says Kaliq Lockett has shown real progression: “The flow of the game didn’t offer an opportunity to get those guys in there more.”