Skip to main content
Texas

Texas continues to evolve its pre-snap identity ahead of Week 1 matchup in Columbus

by: Evan Vieth08/18/25
On3 image
Arch Manning (Will Gallagher/Inside Texas)

A week ago, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian walked to the stand and was honest with the media about the limitations of his offense so far. Sarkisian expects an offense to be behind its defense in the early stages of fall camp, but the number of pre-snap problems the Longhorns had was alarming to the shot-caller.

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

From reporting on Inside Texas, you might be aware that the offensive line, especially first-year starter Brandon Baker, struggled with pre-snap penalties. The offense in general seemed not to be as honed in on the intricacies of a Sarkisian offense and the amount of strain that he puts on movement and communication before the snap.

As a result, Sarkisian told us on Saturday that he spent the ensuing week emphasizing to his young offense the importance of working in the pre-snap.

“I was kicking myself last Saturday because I probably wasn’t hard enough on some of the pre-snap things in practice. And then it reared its ugly head in the scrimmage,” Sarkisian said. “And so, hey, I made it a real point this week, and they were probably like, ‘Coach Sark being a jerk.’ Well, I’m being a jerk for the best interest of them, so that they can perform.”

Sarkisian seemed to have made the correct decision. The pre-snap operations were significantly improved on Saturday, largely due to starting quarterback Arch Manning’s familiarity with the offense.

Think about what’s at stake specifically with this year’s group. Last year’s team returned five starters, not to mention multiple players with multiple years of experience in the room or at other programs taking new positions. They not only had more experience but got an extra week to prepare for their big out-of-conference game. Even with that, Texas committed eight penalties in the Big House on offense and struggled to convert later in the game in the more off-script cycles of play-calling.

This year’s offense returns just three starters, is generally younger, and has to prepare for Week One. No tune-ups.

To combat that, Sarkisian has employed tactics to simulate what The Shoe in Columbus will feel like.

“Here, the next two weeks, we’ve really got to start incorporating crowd noise,” Sarkisian said. “We’ve used crowd noise more in training camp the last two and a half weeks than we have in any training camp. Now, I do think there’s something about the crowd noise that forces a little bit of different mental intensity and focus, and we’ve generally operated pretty well on the road, but we’ve got some new players. And I think back to last year at Michigan, we had a couple of false starts early with Cam Williams, one of his first starts on the road. So we’re going to be mindful of those things, and we’ll get a sense and a feel of kind of how we do over the next two weeks.”

Funneling crowd noise into practice is far from a new-age invention, but Sarkisian’s point on the levels of usage is important. Texas hasn’t had to begin a season on the road in the Sarkisian era. Most of these players have never started a game in an environment like the one they’ll experience in Columbus.

[Order THE LONGHORN ALPHABET: Get your little Longhorns ready for Texas Football this Fall!]

Over the next two weeks, Texas’ offense will be put into one of the hardest environments possible: Texas heat, triple-digit decibel noise, and the best defense in the nation on the opposite side of them. There are no guarantees the group will be ready, but there’s not going to be a better place to prepare themselves than the Frank Denius Fields in Austin.

You may also like