Steve Sarkisian's Longhorns respond to 'a lot of sh*t getting talked about our team'

After Texas’ loss to Florida, the pile-on started. How’d the Longhorns go from preseason No. 1 to unranked? What was wrong with Arch Manning? Was he a flop?

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The run game didn’t exist, the Longhorns O-line was porous, and the vaunted defense was pushed around. The season was on the brink and maybe Texas was a flash in the pan.

How could this team possibly get it together? With a statement 23-6 win over the Oklahoma Sooners.

“It’s easy to succumb to the outside noise, and there was a lot of sh*t getting talked about our team and about these guys,” Steve Sarkisian said. “I think they responded.”

Without a doubt. Texas beat up on Oklahoma in all three phases. The Longhorns, who could not do anything on the ground last week, notched 136 yards on 35 carries. The Longhorn O-line, which started true freshman Nick Brooks at left guard and saw a good amount of bumps and bruises during the game, overcame a slow start and found a groove in the run game.

Quintrevion Wisner led the Longhorns with 22 carries for 94 yards. An Oklahoma rushing defense that was only giving up 75 yards per game surrendered yardage to Texas at a steady clip. Sarkisian’s offense not only was able to remain on schedule, they were able to maintain possession. Texas held the ball for 13:26 in the third quarter and for 19:11 in the second half.

“We needed to make them defend the run,” Sarkisian said. “I thought we did that today. It was a gut-check moment for us that way, especially to start the second half to get that done.”

Manning, in his first start in this contest, did his job as well. He protected the football with a 21-for-27 day for 166 yards and a touchdown.

The main storyline for the OU offense entering this contest revolved around John Mateer. The Sooner quarterback, who had surgery on his throwing hand 17 days ago, was cleared Thursday for action and was under center to start the game. Oklahoma relied on him to be the engine of the offense and Pete Kwiatkowski‘s defense made sure that engine sputtered often.

Mateer was 20-for-38 for 202 yards with three interceptions. He was sacked five times, with Colin Simmons notching 2.5 of those sacks. He was part of an overall effort from Oklahoma that did not score a touchdown. That made it back-to-back years where that happened.

“Three of the last four,” Sarkisian made sure to note with a bit of a chip on his shoulder.

Some of that sh*t Sarkisian was talking about? He didn’t want for there to be any reason for anyone to discount this win. Conversations about Davis Beville in 2022 and Michael Hawkins in 2024 have tried to lessen the value of Texas’ dominant victories in those games. If it was Hawkins again on Saturday, Sarkisian knows there would have been people who continued to doubt his team’s ability in this game.

Mateer playing meant for Sarkisian, his team left no doubt.

“I’m glad the quarterback played,” Sarkisian said. “John Mateer is a heck of a player, but I didn’t want to come up here and answer ‘what if he would have played?’ The fact that we created three turnovers, got five sacks. When you look at our defense, there was a lot of great playmakers today and a lot of guys did some different things.”

As mentioned, Texas made the most of all three phases. Ryan Niblett brought a punt back 75 yards in the fourth quarter for a touchdown that put Texas up two scores. Mason Shipley was 3-for-5 on field goals, missing only his attempts that were 50+ yards. Everything worked for Texas after nothing seemed to work against Florida.

Sarkisian carried an attitude into his postgame comments, one that he obviously shared with the team prior to the contest and that his team carried into the Cotton Bowl. It was one he mentioned his team will need going forward in SEC play.

“If we can play the way we played today, we’re plenty good enough to compete with any team in our conference,” Sarkisian said. “But we’ve got to play that way.”

That’s exactly what the Longhorns did on Saturday in the Fair Park, shushing critics, taking all the sh*t talk Texas heard over the past week, and using it as fuel on their way to a significant win for Sarkisian and for his program.