While this wasn’t Steve Sarkisian’s first rodeo, it was the Texas Longhorns’ first time being a part of the SEC media days.
And, as Sark stepped up to the podium, he was representing a team at SEC media days as the head coach of the program for the first time ever.
So, what did the Longhorns’ head coach say while he was up on stage?
Opening statement:
“First thing I’d like to do is welcome the SEC media to Dallas, Texas. This is an awesome opportunity, I think, for the state of Texas, for y’all to be here to join us, and what a stage this has been and what a journey it’s been to get to this point.
I want to hit on a couple things before we get going. When I was a young coach, my first job as a graduate assistant was at USC under Pete Carroll. There was a tight end coach there who was a young coach, as well, by the name of Lane Kiffin. His father Monte took me under his wing every time he came to town, and we talked football.
I learned more about Tampa 2 than anybody, so anybody who’s playing me, please play Tampa 2 because I can tell you exactly who’s supposed to go where, how and why because that’s how Monte Kiffin was. He was so detailed. He was a genuine man. He cared for all of those that nobody cared about.
It’s a dear loss, not only for the sport of football, but it’s a dear loss for me and I know for Lane, and my condolences to the Kiffin family on that.
The next thing is thoughts and prayers for those affected by Hurricane Beryl in Houston and all affected areas. We’re still thinking of you. We’re praying for y’all. I know it’s had a lot of impact on a lot of people, and this time of year with the hurricanes we’re definitely thinking of y’all, and our prayers are with you.
Next I want to talk briefly about Coach Saban. I know everybody has been coming up talking about it, and you know you’ve impacted a lot of people who have been up on this stage. No one have you impacted more than me. I would not be standing here today without you and what you’ve meant to my career, to my life, and I can’t thank you enough, and the impact that you’ve had on our game has been second to none, and I just can’t thank you enough. I want to be able to publicly do that to you, Coach. Thank you very, very much.
Next I want to shift gears to talk a little bit about a couple weeks ago in Austin, Texas, and we had our SEC celebration, and what a celebration it was. You could feel the excitement from Longhorn nation, the fact that we get to be here today, this fall, playing in the Southeastern Conference is tremendous. That was a tremendous event. I was shocked, quite frankly, at the amount of people and the pageantry that was there that day.
It gave me a little sense and feel for what goes on outside of DKR on game day that I normally don’t get to be a part of, and that wouldn’t happen without the leadership of president Jay Hartzell, president of our board Kevin Eltife, and our athletic director Chris Del Conte. Their vision to take the University of Texas into the Southeastern Conference was one that took a lot of foresight.
I wish they maybe would have informed me before I took the job that this was what we were going to do, but I didn’t get informed that until afterwards, but I said, hey, we already had to build a team that was going to beat the best team in the SEC if we wanted to win a National Championship. Not much had to change there for us on that front.
Then lastly I’d like to thank Commissioner Sankey. His guidance, his leadership, to be part of this with him, what he’s been able to do in this conference, to put it on the forefront, on the national stage has been tremendous.
I was just joking with him in the back. So we flew in this morning, we landed, and we get off the plane, we get in the Sprinter van and we got a police escort to media days. It just means more? It just means more right there. The fact that we had a Sprinter van with a police escort to come to this was tremendous.
As far as our transition into the Southeastern Conference, I think the key word is respect. We have a ton of respect for this conference. We have a ton of respect for the teams, the coaches, the players and the fans. This is the elite conference in college football, and we’re fortunate enough to be part of it.
We won’t do anything without having a level of respect of who we play, where we’re playing them, the types of players that they have, the coaching that they have, and I think on the flipside of that, we have to go earn their respect. We’re not going to get anything in this deal. Nothing is going to be free. We’re going to have to go earn the respect of our opponents, the opposing coaches, the opposing fans, and that’s going to be kind of on the forefront of what we do.
But the beauty of this conference is really the pageantry. I’ve been fortunate enough to have spent three years in the Southeastern Conference. The pageantry of the games, the stadiums that you get to play against, the iconic programs, that’s the beauty of the Southeastern Conference. The fact that we get to be part of it, now it’s finally here, is pretty exciting. It’s just a great opportunity.
As far as our team goes, I think this team has been really, really focused. It’s been a long time coming for Texas to get back to this stage. Last year was a tremendous run. We fell short in the semifinals in the Sugar Bowl coming off of being Big 12 champions. We set a school record with 11 players drafted in the NFL Draft, and that’s a real credit, not only to our coaches for trying to recruit good players but I think to the development of our players and our program, not only on the football field but in the weight room and in the classroom and in life, that the NFL sees players in our program that can come in and enhance their teams to help them try to go win a Super Bowl.
There’s an idea of obsession going on in our locker room right now. They got a taste of what it can taste like, of being a Big 12 champion, playing in a College Football Playoff, and we fell short. This idea of obsession, the obsession that our players have is one that really came from them. They couldn’t wait to get back to work. They couldn’t wait to get back in the weight room.
When I took the job, I don’t know if I could have said that. It was almost like kind of prodding cattle to make sure that what they were doing day in and day out to get them to that point. Now we’ve got a team full of hungry players. It’s a competitive, competitive roster, and I love that about them because in this conference you’ve got to have depth.
If you don’t have depth, then everybody wants to talk about the O and D-line. Yes, that’s vitally important, and I think we’ve got great depth there. You’ve got to have depth at quarterback, you’ve got to have depth at running back, you have to have depth at safety, you have to have depth across the board.
For us to sit here and say this is the deepest team we’ve had, probably the most talented team we’ve had in my four years here, I can unequivocally say that, and we lost some really good players a year ago, but we’ve got a very deep football team, one that we’re excited about, and looking forward to watching them compete this fall.
Of the team, we’ve got three players with us today. We’ve got Quinn Ewers going into year three as our quarterback, a guy who has gotten better from year one to year two. He’s really improved from year two to year three. He’s changed his body, he looks great, he understands the system.
But the thing I’m probably most proud of him about is his leadership. This guy is exuding confidence right now, and there’s nothing better for anybody in your organization, for anybody in your building to walk in and to say, there’s our guy, and our guy is exuding confidence. He’s carrying himself the right way. He’s doing things the right way, not only on the field but off the field. He’s our leader, and we can unequivocally say that about Quinn Ewers, and I’m proud to have him with us today.
He’s got a great belt buckle on if you guys haven’t seen it yet and some awesome boots if you were wondering.
Kelvin Banks is also with us today, our left tackle who’s been a day one starter since he was a true freshman. If there’s anybody in our program that I would say, hey, go emulate that guy, the way he handles his business, on the field, off the field, the way he works, first guy there, last guy off the field, that’s Kelvin Banks.
He’s going to be a high draft pick whenever that day comes, but the way he’s carried himself has been super impressive. His play shows on Saturdays, but it’s who he is Sunday through Friday really makes up why he plays that way on Saturday.
Then Jahdae Barron is here with us, as well, a guy who had a tough decision to come back for his senior season, came back. He’s kind of the glue on the defense for us. He’s heady. He’s savvy. He can play multiple positions. He’s tough. I love what he brings to our team. I love the leadership that he brings to the team. So we’re lucky to have him.
As far as our coaching staff goes, one thing that we have going for us is coordinator continuity. I’ve had the same coordinators in four years now here at Texas with Kyle Flood on the offensive line, offensive coordinator, Pete Kwiatkowski is our defensive coordinator, and Jeff Banks is our special teams coordinator.
From an offensive perspective, if you haven’t ever seen us play, we believe in balance, we believe in trying to make it hard on the defense with multiple personnel groupings, formations, motion shifts. We love to run the football. We love to play action pass. We love to RPO. That’s not going to change.
If you’re wondering how is it going to look with the new headset communication thing, we aren’t going to change. We’re going to do what we do. We’re just going to try to do it better than we did a year ago.
Defensively I think one thing that we’ve really tried to evolve into, we’ve really tried to commit ourselves to stopping the run, and I think that showed a year ago. We have to be better in pass defense. There’s two ways of getting better in pass defense.
One, got to cover people better. You’ve got to guard people better. You have to have people that can guard them. You also have to have the schemes to guard those people. But you have to have a better way to affect the quarterback. So we’ve really tried to invoke that into our team of how do we create more of a pass rush to affect the quarterback, which I think we’ve improved upon this year, and we’ll see the benefits of that.
Then on special teams, we’re an aggressive special teams unit. We try to go block the kick. If we’re not going to block the kick, we’re going to try to return it for a touchdown. That’s just the way we operate.
Coach Banks does a great job with that, and looking forward to another great year.
When you have depth on your team like we have right now, that’s when your special teams can really start to rise up because we try to play our best players on special teams, and when you’ve got multiple good players, now that depth can permeate to special teams, so we think we’re going to be even better on teams than we’ve been in the past, and we’ve been pretty good.
In the end, for our team, we have to be mentally and physically tough, and that’s the way we preach. That’s what we teach. That’s the way we work. That’s the way we work in the off-season. That’ll never change.
For any of you who have ever been to Austin, Texas, in July and you start walking in DKR and running in DKR at 4:00 in the afternoon, you’d better be mentally and physically tough, and that’s what our guys are doing right now.
I’ll say a couple things in closing, and then we’ll get to questions. At the University of Texas, the standard is the standard. Part of that standard is our culture. Our culture is what makes us who we are. We take a lot of pride in our culture. We pour into our culture. We are a very connected group. We love one another. We work with one another. That’s not going to change.
But at the University of Texas, part of the standard being the standard is competing for championships. I’m up here talking about football, but it’s at every sport. It’s at every level. Regardless of the conference — and that’s to take nothing away from the SEC — our goal is to come into this conference and compete for a conference championship. It is what it is. That’s why you go to the University of Texas. So that won’t change.
I want to leave you with this: When I took the job at the University of Texas, and I walked into DKR and one of the first signs I saw was a quote that I’ve put up now in my office that I’ll always and forever hold onto. The pride in winning tradition at the University of Texas shall not be entrusted to the weak, nor the timid.
That’s not going to change now that we’ve changed conferences. We’re going to go attack this thing. We’ve got a ton of respect for this conference and the teams in this conference, but we’re going to go attack it and try to win a conference championship because that’s why we’re at the University of Texas.
We’re looking forward to it. We’re looking forward to renewing rivalries with Texas A&M and with Arkansas. We’re one of the few schools with realignment that has benefitted from realignment that we’ve gotten some rivalries back, and so we’re looking forward to those things, as well.
It’s going to be a great year. We’re looking forward to it. Thank you. Hook ’em.”
On Arch Manning:
Well, I think that’s something historically for us, part of your recruiting is your track record. We’ve been fortunate to coach some pretty good quarterbacks. We’ve been fortunate to do it for some decades now. We’ve been fortunate to have some really good quarterback rooms, and I think the Manning family is pretty well aware of that.
