Steve Sarkisian delivered a stern message to the Texas Longhorns offense following the start of week two of fall camp
It’s only natural in fall camp for the offense to be a little behind the defense. Especially when you’re breaking in a new quarterback and four new starters on the offensive line. This isn’t lost on Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian. Still, he delivered a message Tuesday to his new signal caller, Arch Manning, […]
It’s only natural in fall camp for the offense to be a little behind the defense. Especially when you’re breaking in a new quarterback and four new starters on the offensive line. This isn’t lost on Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian. Still, he delivered a message Tuesday to his new signal caller, Arch Manning, and the rest of his offensive teammates.
“I would say this – historically for me, your defense better be ahead of your offense, and we are,” Sarkisian said. “I think our defense is playing really good right now. The best teams I’ve ever been on, the defense usually is kind of ahead from that perspective. Not that the offense isn’t doing some really good things. I mean, I think the second play of team run today, Tre Wisner snapped off about a 50- or 60-yard run, which was great to see. I don’t love that, because I want our defense to be so dominant that it makes it hard on our offense to do what they want to do, but we’re doing good enough stuff.
“I think offensively, we can play better. The key in offensive football is it takes all 11. You have one guy have a breakdown at left guard — that’s a sack, and we may have guys running wide open down the field. On defense, the three-technique might go the wrong way, but the End can make the tackle, and nobody notices the three-technique making that mistake. So we’re fighting for consistency on both sides of the ball, but I think the consistency is paramount on the offensive side of the ball. That’s what we’ve got to keep pushing these guys toward. And like I touched on earlier, we can’t harbor the negative plays. It’s not the end of the world. It’s okay. We’re going to have 70–75 snaps a game — let’s get on to the next play and keep playing. There’s some mental toughness we’ve got to keep working on in that aspect, but we’ll get there.
“I would say our defense is ahead of our offense, and I’m okay with that. Now we’ve got to start going on offense – pick it up and play with a little better consistency than we have.”
Steve Sarkisian alluded to patience Tuesday with the media. He thinks his players need to take a deep breath.
“You know, I think one thing for us — getting on a sidebar, but that’s okay, you guys probably want to know this — one thing for us that I think, with players that are trying really hard, we have to learn how to deal with disappointment a little bit better,” Sarkisian said. “And what I mean by disappointment is, not every play is going to go perfect. You might miss a block, you might not catch that ball, you might not get the yardage you thought you were going to get on the run, but you’ve got to get on to the next play, and you’ve got to give the next play the credit it deserves, because that next play has a life of its own.
“And I think right now, a little bit on offense, we’re trying so hard that there’s this level of disappointment that we’re carrying to the next play, and some of those mistakes are compounding on top of one another for certain players. So we’ve got to improve upon that. And as a coach, once you can identify that, we can talk to that, we can coach to that. But I think that’s something we can improve upon.”
One area of concern is up front on the offensive line.
This unit is now down a man after Andre Cojoe suffered a season-ending knee injury over the weekend. He was in a battle with Brandon Baker for the vacant right tackle spot.
Sarkisian told the media Tuesday despite this setback, the team will continue to go hard in fall camp as preparation for Ohio State continues.
“The team needs full-speed tackling to evaluate players and prepare for real games,” Sarkisian said. “Practices and scrimmages will mix live tackling with ‘thud’ periods, giving coaches and players essential information. As the season approaches, the staff will scale back contact and shift into in-season mode, a plan he felt worked well last year.”
