The Craig Way Show

Steve Sarkisian on his "OMG" moment in College Football

Steve Sarkisian spoke about how important it is to have an experienced quarterback like Quinn Ewers for Saturday's game against Michigan. Sark also speaks on Jerrick Gibson's performance against Colorado State and if he'll see more snaps against Michigan. Plus, what what was his "OMG" moment as a player or coach.

Duration:: 10m
Broadcast on:: 05 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Well, I think it's probably a byproduct of I'd say probably about three things. You know, one is recruitability, right? We try to recruit to speed. And so as players come into our program, I'd like to think they are either fast or we think they have the ability to get faster. That's the first part, right? What are we identifying as a staff that is in that are attributes that are important to us about you as I've heard me talk at length about big humans up front? But speed on the perimeter is important to us. And so we try to identify that to I think the way we train. Yeah, I think coach back then with his with his background in the track world. The way that the way that we train our players to run to run for speed to be explosive to have the ability to change directions is something that we train. To in the summer and then the third I think is our nutrition piece, you know, I think that that our guys really do a good job of eating right. I think they've got they've got a great deal of trust and confidence in our in our nutritionists and our dietitians of getting their bodies into optimal performance shape so that they can utilize the God given talents that they have to go along with the work that they've put in to play fast. When you were student at Texas was the I think it's what it's called what Texas Athletics Nutrition Center the tank was that was that finish? Was that underway when you were a student? I'm not sure actually, okay, which answers my second question. Have you ever eaten? No, yeah, I hear it's pretty good for them. All right, I was thinking about that. Sorry for talking about the nutrition value of that deal. All right, when you get in a game like this, it never hurts to have an experienced quarterback in any game last week in its Colorado State when they play U. L. Monroe in a couple of weeks. Obviously when they play Oklahoma or Georgia, but he was asked about in a game like this beginner section on matchup on the road. How important is it to have an experienced quarterback like when you were taking the snaps? Yeah, I mean, I think it's critical. This is a difficult environment to play in. I mean, these guys have it one 23 in a row at home on accident. It's tough. It's a big building. It can get loud. They've got a defensive system in place that their players play a lot of confidence with. They play with a lot of swagger. You can see that on tape. But having that calming effect at quarterback, I think is helpful for the other guys on the field. And for me, just knowing that he's going to operate the calls accordingly is comforting, knowing that, hey, when I'm calling something, he's understanding the intent of the play call. That doesn't mean it's always going to go that way. But as long as Quinn understands the intent of the play call, generally pretty good things come out of it. I usually asked about the running backs, where I'm sorry, is and was again, you know, James Blue and Trey Weisner are, you know, RB1 and RB2, if you will, and they both get carries. But he was asked about the freshman, Jared Gibson actually wound up being the leading rusher for Texas in the contest. It's got a lot of carries in the second half after the issue was long decided was asked, did he show enough? Do enough to show that maybe might get some first half snaps against Michigan? Yeah, I mean, Jared's going to play for us again, you know, when you're when you're kind of the third on the depth chart and we've got two really good players in front of him. It's always trying to find, you know, that right rhythm for everybody involved and every game takes on a life of its own of the way that it's going and the rhythm of the game and the score and time of possession and, you know, amount of plays ran so on and so forth. But we have the most confidence in Jerick. I thought him getting, I think it was 10 carries last week or so was big for him and just his own confidence. So it's, you know, when when it happens, I don't exactly know when he's going to get into the game, but I know he'll play this Saturday. I think sort of mentioned it was 13 freshmen who saw action in the game and a lot of other younger fresh faces might have been registered freshman or sophomores who hadn't played much, but got a chance to go. And he was asked, does he know how many freshmen they'll actually take on the trip, because contrary to popular belief, you can't take every single player on your roster on the road. You can't. So the question was, you know, does he know how many freshmen he would take with him to Michigan. And the other side of this was, what do you, what are the coaches say to the players who are not going to make the trip? How do you handle that off the top of my head? I don't, I don't know exactly, you know, it would take me too long and I'd waste everybody's time. There's a fair amount of them. There's a lot of them going on the trip. And if they're going, they'd probably have a role to our success. You know, the guys that don't go, you know, I think, I think in the end, in this, in this day and age, it's like, hey, we're here to develop you to become the best player that you can be so that you can be the best teammate you can be so that we can be the best team that we can be. And we really preach team because if you, if you pour into the team and you'll get what you deserve in the back end of it. And everybody's, you know, and freshmen come in, they're always at different stages. And I love to use the Kelvin Banks example because in that recruiting class, we had signed those seven offensive linemen. Six of them came mid-year and Kelvin didn't come until the summer. He was number seven that didn't come until the summer, but he was the one guy that started, you know, as a, as a true freshman, you know, at left tackle and so it's the rest is history. So it's not always about, you know, when did I get here or how many opportunities and reps did I get. It's what did you do with the opportunity when it presented it to you and how do you go about your business on a, on a daily basis. And so that's what we try to instill in those guys. And like I said, some guys maybe are a little further along than others, but that doesn't mean that just because a guy doesn't go on the trip, you know, he's not going to play here. No, he's just at a different stage of his development. And I've seen plenty of guys not travel early on in their career and end up playing at the end of the season or becoming, you know, frontline players for us in year two or in year three. And so now their journey is just, just getting underway. All right. And then one other questions are good friends that are golden from the Austin American States been asked this. And it was about the quote unquote OMG moment, the OMG moment. Did he have an OMG moment as a coach? And the reason why you talk about the Oh my gosh moment is going into a place like Michigan has he had an OMG moment that he recalls. As a coach and Sart would take you down the road to being a player. Actually, my OMG moment came as a player. I was the player at BYU and we were pretty good. I think we might have been two and oh, and we had beaten A&M in week one. We had, I think, beaten like Arkansas State or somebody in week two and we went to Washington. And we went into Husky Stadium and it was so loud that I just hadn't been in an environment that was loud like that. I ended up getting sacked. I think seven or eight times we got beat. And that was our only loss that year went 14 and one. But but in that moment, you know, it's, it's, there's another level in your mind you go to. Well, there's another level of what what opposing stadiums can feel like and be like, especially when there's some hatred towards the opponent when you walk in for whatever reason. People can generate hate in a lot of different ways. And so for me, now I've learned to relish those opportunities. There's something that I, that I kind of relish be in the villain. I kind of like going in there thinking, man, there's, there's a hundred versus a hundred and twenty thousand and we're the villain and it's okay being the villain, you know, and, and, and how do, how do we create that, you know, that deafening silence and how do we go about that. And that, that comes about by our style of play, that comes about by our execution. That comes about by sticking together, playing as one. But I love those opportunities as much as I love playing at home. I like that too, because I think you find out a lot about yourself and a lot about your team. All right. So there it is. Some more sound from long, Warren's head coach, Steve Sarkisian, his OMG moment happened as a player and he was right. They'd beaten Texas A&M in the season opener 41, 37 in 1996, then blew out Arkansas State 58 to nine before losing to Washington 29 to 17. And that was their only loss all the way through. And of course, it'd be Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl of 1915 and he's in the Cotton Bowl, all the fame, as a matter of fact. We'll be back to wrap up our number two on sports radio AM13 under the zone. Breaking news from this one is almost unbelievable. 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