The Craig Way Show

Steve Sarkisian: Lot of "unknowns" facing Michigan

Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian visited with the media on Thursday to offer one last look at the Michigan Wolverines. Sark discusses his thoughts on the progress of the WR room, the "unknowns" in facing Michigan, and what he saw from the younger guys that played against Colorado State.

Duration:: 13m
Broadcast on:: 05 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Um, is it safe to say you'll just kind of park yourself in front of your television on Sunday? No, tonight. Yes. Yeah, tonight for sure. I'm also going to watch, we got Roger Wallace coming on next hour. I'm going to watch Mr. Ridge and Bowie. Should be a good Thursday night of high school football match up and it's about more than just the fact that all my kids graduated from Mr. Ridge and my daughter is currently employed there as the associate director of the star steppers and teaches I think six dance classes a day. This should be a good football game. And what Jeff Hables, who's really almost pretty much become legend in these parts with what he's been able to do at Bowie, he's just been really, really, um, impressive to see. So we'll, uh, we'll keep an eye on that one as well. And there's college football tonight too. So there's a lot to keep, uh, in, uh, keep track of, um, to the Longhorns match up as Texas prepares to take on Michigan. And as we pointed out during the course of the week, uh, Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkeesian has a variety of, uh, media availabilities and opportunities. Uh, there is the Monday press conference, which we bring to you live as part of our Longhorns Monday presentation, uh, every Monday our coverage begins at 11 a.m. on Mondays and the, uh, press conference itself begins at 11 30 on Monday mornings. Uh, here are on sports radio AM 1300 the zone Tuesday, our Longhorn, uh, our Texas Tuesday and Texan Tuesday presentation. We hear from Longhorn players, Texas players on Tuesday. On Wednesday, there's the SEC teleconference where SART participates. We hear some of that also, of course, on Wednesday as we did last night, we record our weekly presentation of Longhorn weekly with coach SART from Pluckers, the west campus location, uh, in Austin at 2222 Rio Grande that program airs on Thursday nights. And so tonight it will air at seven o'clock. And if you want to hear SART talk about this week's match up with Michigan, tune in tonight at seven. Also our special guest, Will Matthews, our sideline reporter on our Longhorn radio network broadcast. And the reason we ask Will to be on this particular week is because Texas is playing Michigan. Will Matthews final game as a collegiate was that Rose Bowl game January 1st, 2005. And he had some real interesting insights as to what that experience was like playing in that Rose Bowl. He started in that Rose Bowl at full back and, uh, it will have some really good insights into that. So that's, that's tonight. So on Thursday is when SART does his final local media available and I say local is not just local is anybody that's on that media zoom. And he addresses questions, updates, things like that. So, um, we have that some sound to bring to you from that starting and off with SART with some opening thoughts and remarks on this trip coming up to Michigan. First of all, again, kind of two weeks in a row, really proud of the way our guys worked. And I thought, uh, this week of preparation is always challenging when it's your first time coming off a game and having to review a game and then get into the next game and finding that routine. And, you know, as always, like I've been praising the veterans on our team, the leaders on our team for showing the way to our younger players and how to do that. And I think one good sign for us as we progressively have gotten better throughout the week of being intentional in practice, what we're trying to accomplish, understanding the wise, we're doing what we're doing. And inevitably it's capped off with a really good week of work. I feel good about the state of mind that our guys are in. I think they're excited, but yet focused and obviously we're looking forward to the opportunity. All right. And then to the questions, one game in the books. And so the media we're going to ask for the review of the one game in the book starting with his wide receiver room and getting a lot of guys out there and getting them some reps and getting them some catches and targets and all that kind of stuff. So how do you feel about his wide receiver room after one game of the book? I still think we're a little bit of a work in progress in that, um, you know, we have, you know, one game sample size and even at that was a little bit limited, uh, just because of how the game went. But I will say it was comforting to know that I didn't have to leave guys on the field. As they were getting fatigued as you could notice, noticeably, noticeably see them getting fatigued that we had enough confidence in the, in the next wave or the guy behind that guy to put him on the field. And all they did was give me even more confidence, you know, whether it was Ryan Wingo, John T. Cook, Silas Bolden, I mean, when those guys went on the field, they made their plays. And so I think it's very comforting for us as a staff to know that, man, we have six really quality receivers that can play and play at a high level, the moment never felt too big for any of them. I love kind of having cross train Ryan Niblet because of the fact that he can do things out of the backfield and at receiver. And so it gives us a lot of versatility that way to still pour into our 21 package stuff, but also, you know, have the ability to play an 11 and to do both those things. So, um, again, as we continue to grow throughout the season, you know, I think time will tell but, but going into week two, I think the biggest thing I got out of it was just confidence in all of those guys that when I'm, when they're on the field, they're going to, they're going to play well. Yeah. Okay. So it's easy to go to a place that never been before. No longer in football team has ever played a game at Michigan. This is only after all the second meeting all time between Texas and Michigan. So Sark was asked, is he dealing or is the program dealing with a bunch of unknowns as they head up to Ann Arbor this week? Yeah, it's pretty safe to say, um, you know, I'm sure like us, they have probably spent a little bit more time on us in preparation, maybe during the off season and have studied some different things and would like to try to attack us in all three phases, maybe differently. And generally speaking, you know, they, you know, you go play that first game and you have a game plan for that first game. And then they kind of had that second game plan waiting for us. And so it's going to be critical for us to, um, to identify kind of what they're trying to do. Um, I think this, this game more than ever is when we could probably really get some of the, the usage out of the tablets on the sidelines and some of the video that we get to see. Uh, so maybe we can make those adjustments a little quicker than when you're, when you're trying to just talk it through, um, but they've got great coaches, you know, it's a really good staff. Um, you know, Cheryl Moore's done it. You know, he's been, he's been there and he knows that the Michigan way I've no winked like I said, I've known wink for, for 20 years now and he's a excellent defensive coordinator so they're going to have a good plan that they're very good on special teams. Um, and so, you know, and they got good players. And so the point is when two good teams meet up, you know, it's, it's how do you, how do you attack one another in a way that, um, whatever you're trying to do, doesn't have holes in it, right? And that you don't get exposed anywhere until you can try to really start to, you know, attack what's going on on the field. And so, hey, we know we're going to get some new stuff and that's why we use the added tier trust or training and if we can trust our training and execute early on, then we can make the proper adjustments. Now, this next thing is going to sound like it's from the files of Captain Obvious. Um, you know, Sark said, I think they played 77 guys in the game last Saturday against Colorado State. 13 freshmen, I guess it was, they had a lot of real young guys who got on the field against Colorado State. Here's the Captain Obvious part. He was asked if he'd like to play that large amounts of guys and young guys again this Saturday. I'd love to. You know, um, you know, I think that a couple of things that I, that I saw out of our younger players, I think we played 13 true freshmen this past week. Um, and they all kind of showed their physical attributes of what we thought about them that the size, the speed, the athleticism, the, the willingness to be physical. Um, those were, those were all definitely evident and then we saw playmaking ability. You know, obviously it's easy to point to a Ryan Wingo or a Jared Gibson to some of the things that, that they did offensively, but I even go all the way to Wardell Mack with the interception at the end. You know, we're continually trying to recruit, you know, playmakers to go along with the skill set and a character piece that, that adds into it all. So I don't think any of them did anything to say, we can't put them in the game. Um, we just got to continue to try to develop them and to grow them and to keep building their confidence and to keep building our trust in them. All right. There's some comments from Sark. We're going to hear more from a long one's head coach Steve Sarkeesian throughout the course of the afternoon. 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