The Craig Way Show

Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian on the threat of Colorado State's offense, the ceiling of Kelvin Banks, and more!

Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian visited with the media one last time before Saturday's game against Colorado State. He discusses the week of practice as Texas prepares for the Rams while also answering questions about the offense and wideout Tory Horton, the ceiling of Kelvin Banks, Ryan Niblett's transition to running back, Anthony Hill, and more!

Duration:: 16m
Broadcast on:: 29 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Card has no cash access and expires in six months. Owning a rental property sounds like a dream until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. Determinate competitive rent price, market the property, schedule the showing screen tenants, draft the lease at a rent collection, handling its request, maintenance, and communication. Whew! Sound complicated? Renner's warehouse is here to take the hard work off your rental to-do list. Qualify tenants? Check. Rent collection? Check. Maintenance coordination? You got it. Go to Rennerswearhouse.com for a free rental analysis to find out how much your home can rent for. Or call 303-974-9444 because from now on, the only thing you need on your to-do list is to call Renner's warehouse. It's the Craig Way show with a voice of the Texas Longhorns and Hall of Fame broadcaster. Craig Way. We have nice people who are working this building. I walked in early this afternoon and there was an envelope for me and it was just regular size like card envelopes. You're an up-to-date card in there and it was signed by a variety of folks here and it said, "Dear Craig, you are a superstar. Happy work anniversary. We couldn't do something with a hard time reading some of it." But anyway, it said, "So lucky to have you on the team, your iHeart team." Okay, I totally forgotten yesterday. It was like one year work anniversary of coming back to the iHeart family. But they are family and it's cool to be back one year into it. I was here for 19 years. The first go around and after being across town for six and a half years back here and it's great to be back and have great people. I've never gotten a work anniversary greeting or anything like that before, but there it is. So it's good to be back on that. Okay, it's good to have football back and there will be high school football tonight. Also, Cameron, we were talking about our guests, I think we're going to be checking with Roger Wallace in the four o'clock hour to talk about his game tonight. He has the taco shack bowl as part of their high school football televised cover. I think it's like 12 straight years of doing it. So it's Anderson and McCallum tonight and that's actually on the CW 54 because on KBVO, they have the Westlake game, Westlake's season opener against Prosper, the Prosper Eagles. So it's off and running and then the college football season off and running. There's several games going on, but Dion Sanders in Colorado, taking on North Dakota state tonight. I think North Carolina state has Western Carolina. I think Wake Forest has North Carolina A&T. There's anyway, North Carolina, Minnesota, big man, McBrown and the Tardules up in Minneapolis to take on Minnesota. So anyway, you missed one, big one. Which one did I miss? Kansas first, Lindenwood, Kansas Lindenwood night. How can I forget that? Lindenwood, that transitional FCS program taking on the Jayhawks rock chalk, right? Okay. So anyway, there's, it's a full slate of college football. We'll get to that. Long ones, of course, play on Saturday afternoon against Colorado state. Earlier today, head coach Steve Sarkisian had his Thursday media availability. That's where he gives any updates if there are any updates on things that were not yet finalized or injury status or anything like that between Monday in the weekly news comments there and today Thursday. So here's Sarkis opening comments. I was just commenting. We've had three really good practices in a row. I've commended the team. I think the intent, the intention to detail the speed in which we practiced with and most notably on Tuesday and Wednesday, the physicality that we practiced in was really encouraging going into a first game. You know, sometimes you're still going through some of the growing pains of how we prepare and things of that nature. But like I said, I think all that goes back to the veteran leadership that we have and then a commitment from a lot of our new people to just jump right into this is how we go about our business to prepare for a game. And it definitely showed that I was thoroughly impressed with the way these guys worked here this week. And naturally, we know we've got a really good clean update tomorrow, but proud of the way they've prepared and put ourselves, I think, in a really good position to go out and perform Saturday. All right. And so then to the questions, Colorado state, of course, has an explosive offense, one of those air raid attacks. And you know, one of the things that they do is try to get the ball in the hands of Tory Horton, their grad transfer receiver, well, he's not grad transfer. And he's a grad student now, but he had transferred in originally coming in with Coach Norville from Nevada. And he's coming off a big season, caught 96 passes, 1,136 yards. Armani Winfield is a kid from Louisville. He's one of 19 native Texans on the roster. And he actually began his Cody Jacob Baylor. There's a lot of good targets for Brayden Fowler, Nicollosi, the quarterback from Alito with Richard sophomore. So, Sark was asked about that Colorado state Rams offense and what really has his attention about Colorado state? Well, I think one, they have an elite receiver. And knowing where where he is is critical, first of all, because, you know, a lot of their offense kind of starts with him. And if the quarterback's got a favorable matchup, you can almost guarantee that's where the ball is going to go. But I think they've added some pieces around him as well. You know, we know Armani Winfield well, we recruited him. He was committed to us here a couple years ago. So the addition of Armani, I think, is helpful. You know, they have a runner who only played in three games last year, rushed over 300 yards. We think the running game could cause some issues there as well to try to create some one-on-one matchups on the perimeter. And they know their system really well. And then because when you know your system well, they know the answers to the test when you try to give them a different look. And so I think it's important for us to, you know, be tight in coverage, try to affect the quarterback, and then having the ability to mix things up to try to create a little bit of hesitation. Next up, you get a question about Kelvin Banks. And this was kind of as a follow-up how Sark felt there were a lot of guys ready and poised to have really big seasons and be ready to take the next step to move on to the National Football League. And one of those guys who most folks figure will wind up in the NFL is Kelvin Banks. And he was asked about Banks and is what would the ceiling be for the big left tackle? Well, you know, I think the world at Kelvin Banks, and I'm going to talk about the human being before I talk about the player. And I think you guys know me well enough. I value the people in our organization. And that goes back to my very first year talking about Bijon and Roshon and those guys. Kelvin Banks embodies what I would want every Longhorn to embody, the humility in which he shows up in the building with every day, the work ethic, the drive, the commitment, not only on the football field, in the weight room, in the classroom, in the community. He's got a wonderful relationship with his parents, his family. I just think he represents us at the highest level to go along with. He's a great football player. And he's very calm on the field. Some might say he's reserved, but I see it firsthand. He's not. He plays physical. He plays violent. He's really good in the past game. He's really good in the run game. He can redirect. He's smart. And so what the ceiling is, you know, I don't, I don't know, you know, I mean, hey, I want him to win every award he can win and be an all American and be a first round pick. I mean, I don't know what else, you know, left tackles can do on that front. But again, this is a long season and there's a lot of football to be played. And he's got some great challenges. He's going to have to go against along the way. But we're definitely lucky to have him. There's a lot of playmakers on this Longhorn offense. One of the guys who hasn't drawn much talk until the injuries in the backfield happen is Ryan Niblet, the Richard Freshman wide receiver. But they worked him some in the backfield. And Sark was asked about that asked if this was the thing where they could perhaps see Niblet see some action and how about the expansion of his role as it relates to this offense and getting ready with some transition going into the backfield. Yeah, I think Ryan has been a really versatile player for us. I've been very proud of Ryan. You know, a lot of times I say this a lot and I'm going to mention it here with Jonta here in a second too. So many times, you know, when you're a really good program, like I think that we've evolved ourselves into when you're a four or five star kid and you come into the program, there's not this like automatic anointment that you're just going to be the guy. You know, we have pretty good players on a roster and it's competitive and it's tough. And you know, but we do pride ourselves on developing the players in our program. And I think Ryan year last year was a great year of development for him. I think he's really changed his body. He's playing really fast right now. And not only is he being effective for us offensively, he's really found a role on special teams and he's an impactful player player for us on special teams as well. So, you know, I've been proud of him. It's been a journey. Nobody ever likes coming to a to a school as a freshman and not playing as much as you would really, you know, want and hope to play. But he kept his head down. He kept working and we've carved out a pretty good role for him that I think is one where he's going to be an impactful player for us this fall. The reason why you heard Sark say, I'm going to get to John Taney, he's also asked about John Tae Cook and his fall camp and how that has gone for him as he gets ready for his sophomore campaign. So, Sark was asked about John Tae. John Tae has had a good camp. I would say, you know, definitely light years ahead of where he was a year ago. He's in much better shape. He's understanding the offense. You know, I can really John Tae can play any position on the field. And I think that's where he creates a lot of value for himself. He's a sure-handed guy that understands our offense and has a really good feel for what we're doing. So, like I said, I think he's at a very good camp and I've applauded him throughout camp for the work that he's done because I think he's made a lot of strides as well. Now, listen to this next comment from Sark. I found this pretty interesting this morning. He was asked about Anthony Hill, you know, having the headset communication on defense. And you'll hear Sark address this and he's exactly right on some because I have heard no end of questions about the helmet communication. And it makes sense because this is the first year for it. So, there's going to be more questions about how it works, what they've experienced so far with it. You know, are there obstacles? Does it help them get in a huddle quicker communication? All of those things. So, those are understandable questions for reporters to ask during the fall camp. It's just they've asked a truckload of them about that. And that was not lost on Sark when he was asked about Anthony Hill wearing the helmet communication. Yeah. He'll wear it. And when he's not on the field, other guys are going to have to wear it. You know, I think that's one of the unique things about the way the helmet works here in college football. I'll be honest with you guys. I think you guys are making way too big of a deal over this thing. I get asked about it in every press conference. I get asked about it in everything that I do. It's literally getting the call and then telling the D linemen in the call. Everybody else still has to communicate. When you go against a no huddle team, we don't get to huddle like you do in the NFL and the linebacker call everybody up and call out the defense and then disperse. When you're going against an air raid team that's spread out and they're going fast and they're going tempo, like we still have to be creative with our signals. We still have to do all those things. And so, I know everybody wants to make a big deal out of the communication thing and understandably so because it's new. I don't know if you're going to see a whole lot of a difference in the game. I know we watched the games last week. I mean, if nobody told you, there was helmet communication in the Georgia Tech Florida State game. I don't know if anybody would have known. It's just a little easier way to communicate. And I don't think it's going to be some earth shattering advantage of one side of the ball or the other from a strategic standpoint. Interesting thoughts there on it. Maybe it's also because they've pretty quickly adjusted to it. The offense and even the defense for Texas. But sorry, I think it's not going to be quite the revelation that perhaps some folks think it might be. All right, coming up next, the revelation of inconceivable here on a Thursday afternoon when we continue on sports radio AM13 under the zone in the IR radio app. It is Ryan here. And I have a question for you. What do you do when you win? Like are you a fist pumper? A hand clap or a high fiber? 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