Texas Longhorns College Football Pregame Quote, 12/03/2023

JOHN SUDSBURY: We are now joined by Steve Sarkisian, the head coach of the Texas Longhorns.

COACH SARKISIAN: First and foremost, what an honor it is to be selected to play in the College Football Playoff and in the Allstate Sugar Bowl. It’s a game I’ve always, as a kid growing up admired, to think, wow, I would love to be part of that. And now at this stage in my career, finally get to. So I know our team is extremely excited. It’s been a heck of a journey to get to this point. I know our fan base is excited. And looking forward to playing just a really quality opponent in Washington. Got a ton of respect for the job that they’ve done over the past couple years. Coach [Kalen] DeBoer and his staff, what a tremendous season they’ve had up to this point being undefeated. Great quarterback play. Really good defense, receiving corps. So should be a heck of a game. Looking forward to the opportunity and getting to New Orleans.

Q. Yesterday was certainly an eventful day in college football. You were able to finish early. What was your reaction? And were you trying to keep up with where you might wind up and so forth as the day went along and how confident were you that y’all were going to wind up in the top four?

COACH SARKISIAN: We played early. And then we bussed back to Austin from Arlington, or Dallas. So on the bus, we were watching the Alabama-Georgia game. Got home last night and had a chance then to watch Florida State-Louisville and Michigan-Iowa. Clearly, the night before when we got a chance ‚Äì getting out of meetings, got a chance to catch the Oregon-Washington game. So I think we’re all fans of college football, so you watch it all. And then all you try to do when it’s your turn, play as good as you can and try to win a championship. That was the goal for us, was to be Big 12 champions. And whatever happened outside of that would be a bonus. And quite frankly, all the way up until our name popping up on the screen this morning, we didn’t know. We didn’t know. We didn’t know. You get into a room of 13 people. And they try to get to the best four teams that they think to represent the country in a playoff. And they chose us, and we’re extremely fortunate. So I was ‚Äì I don’t know if I was confident, nervous, I don’t know what I was feeling; but we’re definitely excited now.

Q. Coach [Steve] Sarkisian, congratulations. So you have talked about – and I think you said this on social media – the reward is the opportunity to do more. How would you say the team internalizes that? What does that mean to your players for the opportunity to do more?

COACH SARKISIAN: Well, I think the idea is, when you get a job done, when you perform a job, that reward is you get to do more. And that simple ‚Äì in an aspect of when you look at it from an individual player’s perspective, right, maybe he’s got a reduced role on the team. But if you do that job well, we’ll provide you more work to do. We’ll try to expand your role, whether it’s special teams or offense or on defense.

And I think the same can be said as a team. As you go into a season, if you perform well enough in your conference play, the reward is that you get to compete for a conference championship. If you perform well enough in that conference championship, the reward is either, A, a bowl game or, B, a College Football Playoff berth, which we’ve earned that.

But now it’s back to work, right? We can’t just settle to where we are. There’s more work to be done.

And so I think our players receive it really well. It’s a pretty clear message. So we just try to earn more. We try to earn more opportunity and this is a heck of an opportunity we got.

Q.Hey, Coach. You’ve been a part of championship teams as an assistant and on staffs. Butwhat is it like to be in this position as a head coach and to have led your program to this point?

COACH SARKISIAN: It’s fantastic. I would never try to downplay this at all. We put in a lot of time and effort. We work extremely hard as a coaching staff, as an administrative staff, as a recruiting staff, and then ultimately as a team and our strength and conditioning staff.

So the idea to see the joy and excitement on everybody’s faces today, being the head coach, I mean, that’s why we do what we do. We try to earn these opportunities and then make the most of them.

And so the idea that we’ve been good enough throughout the year, that we’ve improved throughout the year, that we’re building a roster and we’ve got a culture in place of one that is representative of a championship-caliber team, as a head coach, it’s awesome.

So I’m really happy for all parties involved that we’ve gotten to this point. I’m proud of a lot of people for the work that they’ve done.

But for me, like I said ‚Äì I was telling somebody earlier, I’m going to take today and enjoy our team. We’ve got our banquet tonight. I’m going to be celebrate being Big 12 champions, and we deserve to celebrate that. I’m going to celebrate the fact that we’ve earned an opportunity in the top four, and we’re going to enjoy that. And then I’m going do a home visit after that.

But for the next couple hours, I want to enjoy this, because these moments in this journey are ones that you don’t want to miss and you don’t want them to go by too quickly without taking a moment to let it sink in.

Q.I’m betting you’re the only team that’s thrown two touchdown passes to 300-pound defensivetackles. I’m just curious about your portfolio of trick plays. Do you have a hundred of them inyour portfolio? How many do you bring in to each game?

COACH SARKISIAN: We try to practice gimmicks or trick plays throughout training camp, throughout the season. And they’re all kind of always up.

But I do think there’s something about the morale on a team that when you can break up a little bit of the monotony that every play is so detailed and we got block this and block that front and read this coverage this way, sometimes it’s having a little bit of fun and going back to the park and just how we used to play football as kids and letting the guys enjoy that aspect of it.

So we carry those things. We practice them. We allow the guys to have fun with them. And sometimes we’ll practice those plays for months. And they just don’t come up at the right time in-game to call them. But the players know when they’re ready and then you try to, just like I said, hope that moment comes up when it fits right to call it.

And you can kind of sense the confidence in the players because they know, if you want me to keep calling those types of plays, you got to execute them. And they’ve done a pretty good job of that this year.

Q. Last year you played Washington in the Alamo Bowl. How much of that will you be able to use that in preparation for this year’s game, if anything at all?

COACH SARKISIAN: I think there’s some things personnel-wise, having an idea of different players at different positions when you start getting into the scouting report.

I haven’t had a chance, quite frankly, to watch their film from this year and things they’re doing the same or things they’re doing differently or who they’re featuring or whatnot. But we’ll have a decent idea of the players and the personnel.

And they’ve got a heck of a team. We know that. And they were a really good football team last year. They’ve continued to build off of what they were able to do a year ago and continue to find ways to win. And they’ve been paying their best football when it’s needed in the biggest games, and most notably Friday night. Thought they played a heck of a ballgame.

I think we’ll be able to take, like I said, kind of some of the personnel and some of that aspect of it, but I won’t know much more than that until we start looking at the tape.

Q. Coach, looking at the fact that Washington on one side is having one final ride in their conference, and then you as well representing the Big 12 and moving on to the SEC, just what you can say about the background of that nationally. And at the same time, knowing that a win over Alabama, obviously, had a lot to do with the committee seeing your worth and putting you into this College Football Playoff.

COACH SARKISIAN: Yeah, it is kind of ironic in this day and age of just all that’s happening in college football right now. Two of the teams of the four that are in the playoff, ourselves and Washington, are in our final years and won our conference championship in our final years in our representative conferences. So that is kind of the unique side to the whole thing of it all.

What was the second question? I apologize.

Q. Looking at the fact that when the committee was discussing going through all of this, that win over Alabama holding a lot of weight for you both.

COACH SARKISIAN: Yeah, no, I’m glad that the committee recognized that win. Because I think the early-season, out-of-conference games like that, those marquee games are great for college football. And we all want to play them, believe me.

We got games scheduled in the next four years with Michigan and Ohio State. And I think that those games, A, our players love those games. I think they’re good for your team and finding out about your team and the character of your team and the growth of your team. I think the fans love them. I know TV loves those games.

And the fact that you can get kind of, if you want to call it, rewarded for winning those games is great. And on the flip side for Alabama, that they don’t get punished for that game.

If that game wouldn’t have gotten recognized in this selection, then that would, I think, give people some hesitation or some pause to play those nonconference marquee games like we were able to play this year against Alabama and we’ll be able to do now moving forward in the future.

Q. Well, you sort of alluded to this already, but is there anything to be gained or gleaned from the fact that you guys played each other in the Alamo Bowl last year?

COACH SARKISIAN: Well, for me personally, probably a little gained. Obviously, having spent five years being a head coach there, clearly, there was some emotion involved a year ago and seeing a lot of familiar faces and people and part of their organization. So to kind of remove some of that and now just go play a really good football team and prepare for them, I think that’s helpful.

I think for both sides, again, the familiarity of the personnel. I’m sure schematically, there’s going to be some carry-over from a year ago. And there’s going to be things that are new. And that’s our job to figure that out and, ultimately, get our teams, respectively, both teams, prepared to play.

Should be a great game. I think both teams have improved. And we’ll know more of that as we start digging into the tape, as I said.

Should be a great game. And like I said, the Sugar Bowl has always been one of those games that I’ve always admired from afar. So now to be part of it is, obviously, very exciting and looking forward to the opportunity.

JOHN SUDSBURY: Coach Sarkisian, thank you very much for joining us today.

Thank you to the media for joining us as well. All media information for the Sugar Bowl can be found at www.allstatesugarbowl.org. We look forward to seeing everybody in a few weeks. Thank you.