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LIVE UPDATES: Texas HC Steve Sarkisian reviews Kentucky, looks ahead to Mississippi State

Joe Cookby: Joe Cook6 hours agojosephcook89
Paul Finebaum calls out Steve Sarkisian for Florida comments, throws stray at James Franklin
[Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian will be available to the media today at 11:30 a.m. to recap the Longhorns’ win over Kentucky and look ahead to Mississippi State.

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Updates below

Steve Sarkisian’s Monday press conference

Steve Sarkisian starts with his typical recap: “I echo a lot of the same things I said in the postgame… Mason Shipley, what a performance. Guy is 11-of-13 on the year and his two misses are from 55 and 56. Ryan Niblett, again. Those were huge returns for us in the game. Jack Bouwmeester, tremendous.”

Sarkisian mentions the ability to get the needed fourth down stops early and late were critical. Notes the need for improvement in rush lanes.

Sarkisian on the offense: “One thing that I wasn’t as aware of postgame, then you look at the tape, when we talked about 3rd downs — and I was talking about 3rd and longs after the game — we actually were pretty effective in our third and longs. Where we were ineffective was third and 1-5. We were 1-for-7 on third and 1-6… We were ineffective in that area of the game Saturday, which in turn didn’t allow us to extend drives, didn’t allows us to keep the defense off the field, didn’t allow us to move the football to score more points. That was an area where I definitely think we need to improve.”

Sarkisian: “I was very disappointed in myself and our ability to end the game with the ball in our hands and kick a field goal to win it late. We were in one mode to get ourselves into scoring range, and we got into that mode. I did not do a good enough job of communicating to the offense at that point we were in field goal range.”

Sarkisian: “At the end of the day offensively, I’ve got to do a better job. I’ve got to do a better job of putting all of our players in position to be successful, that’s blocking people, that’s throwing the ball to open people, that’s running routes precisely where they need to be. That’s on nobody but me. When you can look in the mirror first and say I’m responsible to try to get this fixed and get better at it. Very comfortable with that.”

Steve Sarkisian on if the offensive problems can be fixed in season or if they are long time: “I would probably say they’re both. I think any issue can be fixed short term. One of the easiest ways to fix something if you’re not running a specific scheme well, you don’t have to call it.”

Steve Sarkisian on Arch Manning: “For a quarterback, when you get those opportunities when you have layups, I don’t think you need to overthink it. You just need to take the layup. I think that’s challenging when you feel like you’re working in a game. He had to work Saturday night.” — “You just need to do what you do and just throw the ball and play catch.”

Steve Sarkisian on cleaning up penalties, mentions that offensively they only had two penalties: “That is a much better number than where we were a month ago when it was a disaster on offense. We’ve cleaned that aspect of our game up. Unfortunately, the two penalties on offense occurred one in the fourth quarter and then one in overtime.” — “I think we have improved pretty dramatically from a penalty standpoint, knock on wood. We need to continue that.”

Steve Sarkisian said CJ Baxter was “at practice today.” — “Hopefully we can get Cedric more into the fold.”

Steve Sarkisian on the offense: “As a staff, you have to have the real conversation of what do we do to help our players be successful? It’s not about what I know, what looks good on the whiteboard when you draw it up, it’s what are our guys going to execute really well predicated on the defense that we’re playing and where are our strengths? Without divulging what we’re going to do game plan wise, I do think you’ll see some more adjustments this week to what we do. At the end of the day, we have to make sure we’re playing complementary football with our defense.”

Steve Sarkisian on the RPO aspect of his offense: “I think where we’ve evolved is maybe there aren’t as many RPOs but we’re reading more people and he has the ability to pull the ball. You have to find that balance. Maybe with Quinn in the past, that was a RPO read. With Arch, maybe that’s a zone read option. You can only do so much. We only have so many plays in a game. We had some opportunities the other night to throw some RPO type plays. I didn’t think we got separation and so we’ve got to be better at that on the perimeter. That part of our offense still needs to be there. People need to defend that.”

Steve Sarkisian on why he keeps play-calling: “That’s why I got hired. I was a really good offensive coordinator. I believe in what we’re able to do. Every year, we have to continually evolve. There’s years where we’re going to be better on offense than we are on defense. There’s going to be years we’re better on defense than we are on offense. It’s like, if I was the best outside sales guy and I had a startup company, surely I’m going to go to the sales meetings if I’m trying to sell something. If that’s one of your strengths, I’m always going to tap into the strengths that I have and I think being a play-caller on offense is one of my strengths. Some may disagree. That’s okay.”

Steve Sarkisian: “Michael Taaffe reminded me in the locker room after the game the other night the SEC champs of last year went to that same stadium and won 13-12. It’s not always about how pretty wins are in our conference. Sometimes you’ve got to find a way to win. We were able to do that, and now our focus is on by any means necessary. We’ve got to find a way to win Saturday in Starkville, Mississippi. It’s going to be a challenge. It’s going to be a tough game.”

Steve Sarkisian: “When you expose yourself to issues, and if you’re not blocking movement very well, when you go study a team to get ready to play for and they’re not a big movement operation, they’re going to do some things that have caused you issues in the past. I didn’t think we responded very well to Kentucky… They moved more than maybe our guys were anticipating. So the reactions to that movement and how we picked it up was not ideal. We have to plan better to get them prepared for what might be, not just what’s always on tape. That’s on me to get that done from an offensive perspective.”

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