Good news for Texas Longhorns:he is back

admin | December 18, 2023 | Texas Longhorns | No Comments

It’s official: the Texas Longhorns are returning.

Austin’s winning culture has been established by head coach Steve Sarkisian, who led the team to a Big 12 title and a College Football Playoff berth.

The Texas Longhorns were behind the Alabama Crimson Tide by three points in the Tuscaloosa fourth quarter back in the second week of the 2023 college football season, when at least a dozen schools thought this would be their year of destiny. This was long before we could have known that Steve Sarkisian had built one of the best teams in the nation.

Now that a single football quarter has passed, we can look back and see how everything for Texas football changed at that point. Or at any rate, that’s when the shift was noticeable.

Later, Sarkisian would explain that his two miserable seasons as Texas’ head coach had been a part of a program that had fallen out of contention for the championship that was being rebuilt. Texas has gone through four head coaches since the Longhorns’ 2009 trip to the national championship game and has received very little in return. The Longhorns have only once finished a season ranked higher than nineteenth in the Associated Press Top 25.

For a university that prides itself on being one of college football’s blue-blood programs—an organization that flaunts its largest bankroll, most luxurious facilities, and best recruits—this had been a startling decline. After Mack Brown was fired in 2013, Sarkisian became the next coach in charge of reigniting the Longhorn flame, arriving in 2021. Prior to being fired in 2015 for drinking at work, Sarkisian spent five seasons as the head coach of Washington and two at Southern California, taking an unusual route to one of the most prestigious coaching positions in the nation. When Nick Saban of Alabama brought him into the Crimson Tide coaching staff and offered Sarkisian an opportunity to rebuild his career, it was in ruins.

Sarkisian was hired by UT athletic director Chris Del Conte in 2021, a widely questioned choice that may prove to be the most significant of his career. Sarkisian recently told reporters, “I took this job with the mindset we’re going to go here and win championships.” “During the first press conference, I stated that. I mentioned it to these [players] during our initial meeting. I’ve expressed it to them more politely. I’ve expressed it to them in different ways.

However, with the Longhorns trailing three games and the lackluster results of Sarkisian’s first two seasons, there was still a lot of reason to doubt the coach’s ability to turn around the program this autumn in Tuscaloosa. After winning a disorganized 37–10 against Rice to start his third season, Texas had a combined record of 13–12 in his first two years of employment. Here they were in the Deep South, trailing 16–13, and nearly every one of the 100,077 yelling supporters was expecting the home team to win.

Video: Steve Sarkisian press conference - University of Texas Athletics

Since Saban became coach in 2007, Alabama has virtually never lost these kinds of games. The writing appeared to be on the wall for Texas. But things turned out differently this time. In the fourth quarter, Texas dominated Alabama, scoring 21 points on two touchdown drives of 75 yards each and one shorter drive following a forced turnover. Television cameras captured the stunned Alabama fans as the Longhorns danced happily off their field after Texas won 34–24.

For all the talk of creating a new culture and assembling a team based on toughness, talent, and responsibility, Sarkisian’s Longhorns had never performed like this before. That evening, Sarkisian remarked, “A lot of people walk into the stadium, and the mystique of Alabama—they’re beat before the ball gets kicked off.” “It was my responsibility to ensure that our players knew we were capable of winning here.

However, he added, “the instant doubt sets in, that’s when you can start making the mistakes that can cost you the victory.” I wanted our players to understand that they shouldn’t be afraid of them. We do hold them in high regard.But we were competent enough to come and prevail here.

With a 12-1 record and a first-ever spot in the four-team College Football Playoff, Texas overcame nearly every other obstacle. The Longhorns will play Washington in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day in the hopes of facing the winner of Alabama vs Michigan in Houston on January 8 for the national championship.

As the playoffs approach, the Longhorns appear ready to defeat any team. Quinn Ewers, the quarterback, is every bit as good as he was billed to be when he transferred from Ohio State to Southlake Carroll High in the Dallas suburbs in 2021, ahead of his senior year, in exchange for a pile of NIL money. The most significant addition to the resurgent Longhorns for the 2022 season is his decision to transfer back to his home state.

Ewers recommitted himself to his craft and conditioning following a mixed first season in Austin. This season, he has averaged 36 points and 476 yards per game, and he has completed 70.5 percent of passes for touchdowns. With four- and five-star players scattered throughout the roster, Texas brought back all five of its starting offensive linemen from 2022, and at times, the Longhorns appeared unbeatable.

With 73 receptions for 969 yards and five touchdowns, wide receiver and return specialist Xavier Worthy may be the fastest player in college football. Adonai Mitchell, a transfer from Georgia, is one of four other Longhorns with at least 25 receptions. Mitchell caught ten touchdown passes. Freshman CJ Baxter and others filled in admirably when standout running back Jonathan Brooks (1,139 yards and ten touchdowns) sustained a season-ending knee injury against TCU. On defense, the tale remains unchanged. Although Texas has playmakers all over the field, two of the best linebackers in Longhorns history are Jaylan Ford and T’Vondre Sweat at defensive tackle.

Texas AD Chris Del Conte with recruiting data, not to 'make excuses'

The lone misstep for Texas came late in the fourth quarter of the Longhorns’ only loss of the season, a 34–30 Sooner triumph, when they allowed Oklahoma to drive 75 yards. If not, UT handled matters in the final phase. Texas defeated Houston 31–24 after the teams were tied in the fourth quarter. After leading by twenty, they held on to defeat TCU 29–26 after overcoming Kansas State 33–30 in overtime.

Texas defeated Texas Tech 57–7 to end the regular season, and on Saturday in Arlington, UT defeated Oklahoma State 49–21 to win its first Big 12 Championship in fourteen years. As the College Football Playoff committee selected its final four teams, style points were important because Michigan, Washington, and Florida State were all undefeated. Ultimately, it defeated 13–0 Florida State, which saw quarterback Jordan Travis—a Heisman candidate—suffer a season-ending injury in November. Texas and Alabama were awarded the final two semifinal berths.

Ewers stated on Saturday, “I told these guys to come out here and play like no one has seen us play before.” “Teach them the true meaning of Texas football.” To be honest, there’s no better feeling, especially for the guys who were only dreaming of coming to their state and playing here. Reaching this level of success has been nothing more than a blessing.

During the first quarter of the Big 12 championship game, he completed with a career-high 452 yards passing touchdowns. His two-yard touchdown pass to 362 pound defensive tackle Sweat may have been the highlight of the game for six different Longhorns who caught at least three passes.

During the first part of the week, Sarkisian warned his players that Oklahoma State would put them to the test in a variety of ways and that they would expect the same in return. Running back Keilan Robinson stated, “He didn’t want us coming out throwing jabs.” We must emerge brandishing uppercuts and haymakers. We intended to end it right away. That’s precisely what we did.

As Texas neared its best season since 2009 last month, Sarkisian provided reporters with a thorough, five-minute explanation of the ways in which the Longhorns have reconstructed the program’s culture since 2021. He declared, “Culture is organic.” “In your building, it is not a sign up.” You don’t wear a T-shirt with it. It isn’t dismantling the group and telling them, “Hey, culture on three.”

He went through a list of traits that teams with strong cultures have, including commitment, discipline, accountability, mental and physical toughness, love, vulnerability, and transparency. He said that it “manifests itself with the relationships that you build.” He remarked, “I can’t just say those things.” “We need to live those values, and then we need to have teachable moments along the way to: A) recognize and honor the guys who are living those values, and B) identify any times when we might not be.”

“Who you are sometimes is who you are all the time,” he went on. Therefore, you must practice discipline off the field if you want your football team to be disciplined when they take the field each weekend. How are things going at school? How is our community service project going?That develops into your culture. since you are who you are. That is the way we live our daily lives.

According to Sarkisian, culture can be observed in even the tiniest details, such as the habit of former UT running backs Roschon Johnson and Bijan Robinson to tidy conference rooms after sessions. The running backs “were the ones that cleaned up the team room when those guys were gone,” he remarked. “Everyone looks around [to tidy up] when we end a team meeting these days.

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“I realize those seem insignificant. However, those are ultimately very significant to me since they indicate that’s how we think constantly,” he remarked. “Those kinds of plays and behaviors, in my opinion, are what lead to big wins. They put you in position for first-and-goal on the five, where your defense needs to make four stops; they put you in position for third-and-twelve on the road, where you convert a first down. Because those guys are consistently acting morally, I believe it eventually leads to them depending on one another. Furthermore, neither we nor I expect our players to be flawless, but if they can be guided both on and off the field, then

But it requires vulnerability, according to Sarkisian. It requires being open and honest with one another. To be able to empathize with one another and understand what a guy is going through, both on and off the field, requires getting to know one another.

Near the end of the monologue, he said, “We invest a lot in that.” And it’s clearly paying off, in my opinion. Because, in my opinion, if a culture is strong enough, it transcends talent. When combined, talent and culture have considerable power. And we’ve made an effort to establish that here.

Congratulations to Sarkisian for his investment in culture! Texas will have the opportunity to contend for its first national championship since the 2005 campaign.