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Steve Sarkisian addresses Texas Longhorns penalty and discipline issues ahead of UTEP matchup

by: Evan Vieth09/08/25
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Colin Simmons (Will Gallagher/Inside Texas)

Last Saturday, Texas committed 12 penalties that amassed 115 total yards across all three phases of the game.

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The numbers brought Texas to one of the worst statistical standpoints a team can be at in its first two games of the year: bottom 10 in penalty yardage and bottom 15 in total penalties per game.

This is a sign of poor discipline, discomfort, and players getting overaggressive or just flat-out jumpy in hopes of making a play. That’s something Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian associated with EDGE Colin Simmons, a star sophomore who leads the team—and the nation—in penalties with four.

“Another guy who I think is just trying a little too hard, you know,” Sarkisian said. “It’s got to be more mindful. At the end of the day, you have to point them out.”

Sarkisian used his time talking about Simmons to further emphasize the problem with penalties and what they do to a team.

“I think in-game, what happens is, when you get a penalty, there’s a consequence the team suffers, right? You go back five yards, you go back 15 yards. The opponent gets to continue to possess the ball because you roughed a punter,” Sarkisian said. “There are consequences to penalties. Well, we need to have consequences in practice too.”

Sarkisian highlighted that idea multiple times. When a player commits a penalty, there’s a sort of embarrassment surrounding it. The game stops, and everyone in the stadium and around the country keys in on one guy. Who made a mistake? Your number is said to the stadium, and your name is now known in every living room in America.

But the real unit that suffers when penalties are committed is the team. You can walk off embarrassment; your team can’t walk off a 3rd-down conversion negated because of a hold.

With this idea in mind, Sarkisian allowed for outsiders to do their own inferring on how practice is going to look this week: a totality of consequences because of multiple players’ mistakes.

“It’s gonna be a lot harder run segment for me,” WR Parker Livingstone said, whose hold cost Texas an explosive play on the very first snap of the game.

What frustrated Sarkisian most in today’s press conference was that, because the penalties happened in all three phases and across multiple players, the team in general lacked discipline on Saturday.

“It was kind of across the board, which led myself to the idea that ‘where was our mental intensity? Where was our mental focus Saturday?'” Sarkisian said. “I know human nature is what it is. You come off of a really big game on the road for your season opener, and human nature is, let’s take a deep breath and relax. We don’t get to relax. Our mental intensity needs to be as high as it needs to be.”

Sarkisian is imploring his players to play with the correct discipline Monday through Saturday, but knows the root of the issue starts with him.

Penalties can be a hard thing to diagnose and fix as a coach. You have little control over them on game day, which makes it tough to find a way to stop them during the week. It was at least refreshing to hear Sarkisian own up to the idea that the root of the problem stems from him as a coach. As he’s said all offseason, you get what you emphasize.

It’s clear that Texas will be emphasizing the consequences of committing penalties this week. It’s get-right time for these players, and the Longhorns will be keying in on limiting infractions come their Saturday matchup against UTEP.

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