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    Jeff Howe
    Steve Sarkisian’s truest words between last Saturday’s 14-7 road loss to Ohio State and the 2025 home opener against San Jose State on Saturday (11 a.m., ABC) came during his weekly press conference on Monday.
    Sarkisian was addressing the Spartans, specifically his respect for Ken Niumatalolo as a coach. Aside from the kind words, Sarkisian wrapped up his opening statement by pointing out where the Longhorns' attention should be while building toward the SEC opener, on the road against No. 13 Florida on Oct. 4.
    “Good challenge, good opportunity for us, but this week is really about us and what we do, and everybody in the organization being coachable and striving to get better this week,” Sarkisian said. “It's a lot of internal focus for us.”
    How Texas gets the job done is more important than running San Jose State (0-1), which dropped a 16-14 decision at home to Central Michigan last Friday, out of Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium like a five-touchdown favorite should do. The team’s three remaining non-conference games are an opportunity to establish an identity, something that’s desperately needed on offense after a largely forgettable afternoon in Columbus.
    It's imperative to fix the red zone issues. The Longhorns have scored just three touchdowns in 10 red-zone trips over their last four losses.
    Still, execution inside the 20 isn’t the only area where the offense has to find itself before attempting to navigate an SEC schedule.
    Texas was 5-for-14 on third down and 1-for-5 on fourth down against the Buckeyes. The Longhorns had a three-and-out in a two-minute situation before the end of the first half and ended a potential game-tying drive (with possession of the ball at their 15-yard line with 2:26 left in regulation) by turning the ball over on downs.
    Sarkisian’s club will be left wanting against the more formidable opponents on the schedule if situational football continues to be executed with such ineptitude.
    The more snaps Arch Manning logs running Sarkisian’s offense, the better the Longhorns can be. That’s if the two are on the same page, which means Manning has to execute and trust what Sarkisian dials up when playmaking opportunities arise. It's also on Sarkisian to have a better working knowledge of which portions of his call sheet will help Manning succeed situationally, especially how to most effectively start drives (the offense averaged 5.2 yards per play on first down in the loss to Ohio State, but the running game averaged 5.9 yards per attempt, while Manning was 6-for-13 through the air for 58 yards).
    The Spartans averaged the third-most pass attempts per game in FBS last season (42.5). Their run-and-shoot style of offense should be conducive to Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense negatively impacting Walker Eget (24-for-43, 308 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions in San Jose State’s opener) far more than how often Texas got to Julian Sayin, with the game plan put together by Ryan Day and Brian Hartline minimizing the risks taken by the redshirt freshman.
    Even though Pro Football Focus only charged the Longhorns with two missed tackles in the opener, Sarkisian wants to see a more conservative effort from Texas defenders to force turnovers (the 2023 team’s loss to Oklahoma was the last game in which the Longhorn defense failed to record a takeaway before last week’s loss to the Buckeyes).
    “I thought we played with really good effort, which didn't put us in a lot of one-on-one tackle situations. We had multiple white hats around the ball to get people on the ground,” Sarkisian said during his pregame Zoom call on Thursday. “That's going to be important in this game because the run-and-shoot creates space, and half of that offense is — get the completion, make the first guy miss in the open field. Owning our leverage, wrapping when we tackle — not just trying to knock people to the ground, but wrapping up — and then the second man coming in, attacking the football, I think, is going to be big as we continue to move forward.”
    Although there’s no silver lining to the Ohio State loss, Texas knows exactly where it must improve with four weeks to go until the Longhorns head to the Swamp to tangle with the Gators. While Sarkisian’s club should travel to Gainesville with a 3-1 record in tow, how Texas approaches the next three games will go a long way toward determining how many notches the Longhorns will put in the win column when the level of competition picks back up.
    “What do we do on Monday morning to get ourselves prepared for a ball game? What do we do to try to minimize players looking too far down the road and focus on the task at hand, of what's right in front of them?” Sarkisian said Thursday. “It's not so much about what anybody outside the building thinks or doesn't think, it's truly what I believe. I've been doing this long enough to know that human nature is human nature, and we can get caught in that trap, so sometimes you coach them harder. Sometimes you point out the slightest of details that could be off to make sure that the screws are tightened up really tight and that we're ready to play.”
    Jeff Howe
    AUSTIN, Texas — Steve Sarkisian opened his press conference on Monday, more than 48 hours after Texas kicked off the 2025 season with a 14-7 road loss to Ohio State, with his thoughts after reviewing the game.
    Sarkisian’s film study confirmed that the Longhorns left too many yards, opportunities and points on the field at the Horseshoe to avenge their College Football Playoff semifinal loss to the Buckeyes in January.
    A streak of 24 consecutive games forcing at least one turnover was snapped (a 34-30 loss to Oklahoma in 2023 was the last game in which the Texas defense failed to record a takeaway).
    Three penalties charged to the defense (illegal hands to the face calls against Colin Simmons and Liona Lefau and a defensive holding call against Malik Muhammad) aided a touchdown drive and wiped out a safety, which put the Longhorns on the losing end of a nine-point swing.
    Even with Jack Bouwmeester averaging 46.2 yards per punt, with three of his four punts pinning Ohio State inside its 10-yard line, Sarkisian said Texas must be better at playing complementary football, beginning with Saturday’s home opener against San Jose State (11 a.m., ABC).
    “I thought in the first half we had some really good field position that we didn't capitalize on offensively, that the defense and special teams got us,” Sarkisian said. “Conversely, we had some good field position on defense.
    “I just didn't think we did a good enough job of pinning them deep and flipping the field back in our favor.”
    Obviously, the offense going 1-for-5 on fourth down, with two turnovers on downs occurring in the red zone, isn't conducive to winning games against elite-level competition. 
    “We were aggressive initially, obviously, with the first fourth-down sneak, and then the fourth-and-2, which we didn't convert,” Sarkisian said. “A couple of the fourth downs late were, kind of, because of the situation, we, kind of, had to go for them. They were what they were.”
    On the other side of the coin, Sarkisian liked his team’s fight.
    The offense “played much better in the second half,” he said. Arch Manning and the Longhorns tallied 257 total yards on 41 plays from scrimmage (6.3 yards per play) and recorded six of their seven explosive plays (four pass completions of 15 yards or more and two rushing attempts of 10 yards or more).
    He came away pleased with what Texas generated on the ground (166 yards on 37 official rushing attempts). With Quintrevion Wisner (16 carries for 80 yards) and C.J. Baxter (10 carries for 40 yards) leading the way, the Longhorns averaged 4.5 yards per rushing attempt as a team (the Buckeyes allowed 4.5 or more yards per carry in just three of their previous 29 games, a stretch in which the Ohio State defense held opponents to under 100 yards rushing).
    “I think our ability to run the football was evident in the game,” Sarkisian said. “To go into that environment against that defense, to rush for just about 170 yards, I thought, was good for us.”
    Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense held the Buckeyes to 3.8 yards per play, 2.3 yards per rushing attempt, a 3-for-12 effort on third down and just two explosive plays (a 16-yard reception by Jeremiah Smith and Julian Sayin’s 40-yard touchdown pass to Carnell Tate) on 54 snaps.
    “I thought, defensively, we played a very good football game,” Sarkisian said.
    Individually, Sarkisian singled out a few Longhorns for their performances in all three phases.
    “I was proud and happy for Cedric Baxter. I think he had 15 touches in the game, his first game back not playing for a year — 10 rushes, five receptions,” Sarkisian said. “I thought Manny Muhammad competed his tail off Saturday against a great player in Jeremiah Smith. I thought Jack Bouwmeester was fantastic. He's a weapon for us in the punt game. I thought to have four [new] full-time starters on the offensive line [Trevor Goosby, Connor Stroh, Cole Hutson and Brandon Baker], and the way that they performed was definitely encouraging. I think Arch, in the second half, I thought we started to see the glimpses of what he's capable of.
    Sarkisian wrapped up his thoughts on the loss to the Buckeyes before fielding questions on Monday with a message befitting a coach and a team looking to turn the page after learning a lot about themselves.
    “A lot to look forward to this season, I think, of where this team can go,” he added. “We've got a ton of potential. Now, we've got to make that come to life.”
    Jeff Howe
    If you would’ve told me ahead of Saturday’s game that Texas would win the rushing yardage battle over Ohio State by 89 yards (166-77), limit the Buckeyes to a 4-for-14 effort on money downs (3-for-12 on third down and 1-for-2 on fourth down), hold the Ohio State offense to 3.8 yards per play and dominate field position (the averaging starting field position for the Longhorns was their own 32-yard line, while the Buckeyes’ averaging starting field position was their own 20), I would’ve expected the outcome to be Steve Sarkisian’s team winning the game in relatively comfortable fashion.
    Instead, the Longhorns suffered a 14-7 loss because some of the same critical issues that had plagued them last season resurfaced in a big way in Columbus on Saturday.
    — It starts with penalties.
    The totality of six accepted penalties for 50 yards was less than what Texas averaged in its three losses last season (eight accepted penalties for an average of 63 yards per game). Still, they accounted for some of the most critical plays in the game.
    It’s hard to put any level of blame for the loss on the defense. Pete Kwiatkowski’s unit did everything it could to keep the Longhorns in the game.
    Regardless, a hands-to-the-face penalty against Colin Simmons wiped out a third-down stop on an eventual Ohio State touchdown drive. The same penalty levied against Liona Lefau negated what would’ve been a safety (the call offset a holding call against Ohio State in the end zone).
    Pre-snap penalties stunted the offense’s progress in the first half.
    — The Longhorns pressured Julian Sayin (13-for-20, 126 yards and a touchdown), getting him off the spot and speeding him up on critical downs. The pass rush never got home, though, which was a credit to Ryan Day and Brian Hartline for dialing up easy throws for Sayin and positioning him so that he could throw the ball away without putting it in harm’s way.
    The Texas defense was tremendous, even if it couldn’t force the negative play it needed to create to flip the game.
    — Arch Manning’s legs limited the few negative plays the Buckeyes created, but, overall, the offensive line did a solid job in pass protection (Ohio State finished the game with one sack and one tackle for loss). Including the lone negative play (and a no-gainer, when Manning got back to the line of scrimmage on a scramble), the Longhorns ran the ball for 166 yards and averaged 4.5 yards per attempt.
    I felt going into the game that if Manning (10 carries for 38 yards) had more than eight official rushing attempts, it wouldn’t be good for the offense. It wasn’t good because…
    — Texas still doesn’t have an identity in the red zone. It’s easy to be disappointed when the play-caller doesn’t dial up the touchdown play, but I didn't like Sarkisian’s sequencing near the goal line, especially his decisions on second down.
    On the first failed goal-to-go situation, he called a between-the-tackles run for Manning that was stuffed for a 1-yard gain after CJ Baxter (10 carries for 40 yards) ran for five yards on first-and-goal from the 9-yard line.
    — I’m accusing Sarkisian of something I used to fault Tom Herman for, which is putting an arrogant game plan into motion. The game Sarkisian called in the first half lacked creativity, with Sarkisian seeming willing to let his squad play the Buckeyes straight-up to see where they stood.
    Things got better in the second half (257 total yards and 6.3 yards per play after halftime). Ohio State also deserves credit for causing some of the issues (Arvell Reese, who finished the game with nine tackles, a sack and a tackle for loss, might’ve been the best player on the field for the Buckeyes).
    With that said, it was the most unimaginative, uninspiring game plan I can remember seeing from Sarkisian.
    — Even when Sarkisian’s call was the right one, the offense (more often than not) suffered from Manning (17-for-30, 170 yards, a touchdown and an interception) missing throws or wide receivers failing to catch the ball. I don’t know if Manning had happy feet, felt panicked/rushed or couldn’t anticipate where to go with the ball, but the passing game never clicked.
    — I’m handing out defensive game balls for this one to Lefau (nine tackles and a tackle for loss), Graceson Littleton (credited with one tackle and a pass breakup, but his presence was tremendous in his debut), Malik Muhammad (six tackles and a nice pass breakup in coverage against Jeremiah Smith, who had six catches for 43 yards, but never took over the game), Ty’Anthony Smith (a nice open-field tackle against Smith to force a Buckeye punt late in the first half) and the interior defensive line (Alex January, Maraad Watson and Cole Brevard had their moments). On offense, here’s to noteworthy performances by Baxter (a tremendous blitz pickup on a first-down throw from Manning to Parker Livingstone), Livingstone (a nice contested catch for the offense’s only touchdown), Jack Endries (who turned six targets into four receptions for 50 yards) and Quintrevion Wisner (a game-high 80 yards on 16 carries).
    — Texas won’t play a team with a pulse until Florida in Gainesville on Oct. 4. Still, I want to see how Manning, Sarkisian and the Longhorns respond and grow in the remaining three non-conference games before the Sept. 27 open date.
    The reaction from national pundits and opposing fans is and will continue to be visceral. The No. 1 team in the country face-planted on a massive stage to open the season, and, given Manning’s performance and Sarkisian’s 2-12 record as a head coach against top-five opponents (1-6 record at Texas), the Longhorns won’t feel the love until they put a better product on the field against a quality foe.
    What Sarkisian said about Manning in his postgame press conference applies to the 2025 squad and where it goes from here: “The expectations were out of control on the outside, but I’d say let’s finish the book before we judge it. This is one chapter, and we have a long season to play."
    Jeff Howe
    For all of the talk regarding strategy, keys to victory and other games within the game that will determine a winner in Saturday’s blockbuster season opener between No. 1 Texas and No. 3 Ohio State (11 a.m., Fox), Ryan Day’s response to a question during his Tuesday press conference reinforced what makes the difference when push comes to shove in a high-stakes battle.
    “If we don’t stop the run and run the ball,” the Buckeyes’ coach said when asked about the importance of success in the trenches, “we’re not going to win the game.”
    Under Steve Sarkisian, the Longhorns are 33-4 when winning the rushing yardage battle. Since the start of the 2021 season, Texas has held an opponent under 100 net rushing yards in 19 games, winning 18 of them (last season’s College Football Playoff semifinal loss to Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl is the only loss).
    While using a variety of formations and pre-snap movements to create mismatches in the passing game separates Sarkisian’s offense from other attacks, it’s much more potent when the Longhorns can run the football.
    If the defense remains stout against the run, the offense doesn’t need to pile up rushing yards to be successful (only four of the team’s 13 wins last season saw Texas rush for 200 or more yards). Still, the ground attack can’t falter the way it did in the Longhorns’ losses last season, three games in which Texas averaged a paltry 39.3 yards per game and a forgettable 1.4 yards per attempt.
    When adjusting the yardage totals to exclude sacks, Texas still only rushed for 231 yards on 61 attempts in its losses. Averaging 77 yards per game and 3.4 yards per attempt didn’t cut the mustard for an offense that netted 186.3 rushing yards per game and ran the football at a 4.8-yard-per-game clip in 13 victories (even with a 30-carry, 53-yard outing in the Peach Bowl win over Arizona State counting toward the production).
    The Longhorns failed to reach 30 official rushing attempts in last season’s losses, including the loss to the Buckeyes (58 yards on 29 carries). Still, a sack-adjusted 85-yard effort on 25 carries (3.4 yards per attempt) positioned Texas to reach the national championship game.
    Such production (as long as the re-tooled offensive line can create enough room for C.J. Baxter, Quintrevion Wisner and the other running backs to operate, Sarkisian stays patient, content to let his offense work over the Ohio State defense with a series of body blows throughout the bout) can get it off on the right foot in the first step of the 2025 squad’s quest to ascend to the top of the mountain.
    Jeff Howe
    Steve Sarkisian participated in today’s SEC Football Coaches Weekly Media Teleconference.
    The teleconference is a much tighter window than Sarkisian’s Monday press conference or his Thursday Zoom call (his portion of the call lasted less than six minutes). Still, Sarkisian’s comments on Wednesday addressed a few key topics ahead of No. 1 Texas opening the 2025 season on Saturday against No. 3 Ohio State (11 a.m., Fox).
    — When asked if Emmett Mosley V will be available for Saturday’s game, Sarkisian said the Stanford wide receiver transfer is “limited this week.” He didn’t elaborate further.
    Presumably, the first three wideouts to see the field against the Buckeyes will be DeAndre Moore Jr., Ryan Wingo and Parker Livingstone. If Mosley doesn’t play, the wide receiver rotation will be filled out by players the staff trusts.
    “At the end of the day, it's not about ability; it's what you're able to do,” Sarkisian said. “What you're able to do is what ultimately you show us, and then if you can do it consistently, that earns our trust. When you have our trust, we're going to play you."
    — What is Sarkisian hoping to learn about his team inside the Horseshoe against the Buckeyes?
    “Everything,” he said. “It's a new team. New people doing new things. New roles, new responsibilities. Everybody's had to elevate their game from last year to the next, whether it's a third-year player to a senior player, a second-year player to a third-year player, from a special teams guy playing more on offense or defense, from kids who were in high school now playing for us in college. I'm curious about it all. It's going to be fun to get answers to a lot of things that we have questions about, which, quite frankly, is just about everything.”
    — This isn’t the first time in Sarkisian’s career as a head coach when he’s had to open a season against the opponent his team played to end the previous season. Washington’s 2012 season ended with a 28-26 loss to No. 20 Boise State in the Las Vegas Bowl, but Sarkisian’s fifth campaign in 2013 started with the Huskies welcoming the Broncos to Seattle, a game Washington won convincingly, 38-6.
    Sarkisian’s Huskies also avenged a 56-21 loss to No. 8 Nebraska in the third game of the 2010 season with a 19-7 win over 17th-ranked Huskers in the Holiday Bowl, which wrapped up his second season at Washington with the program’s first winning record (7-6) in eight years.
    For Sarkisian, going 232 days between meetings with a non-conference opponent, even one as talented as the reigning national champions, isn’t foreign.
    “Part of it is, schematically, how much are people really going to change? Names and faces, some of them can remain the same. Some of them are new. How do people evolve and grow in their roles — some of the returning faces? There's challenges to it all,” Sarkisian said. “I think, at the end of the day, there's some commonalities, I'm sure, that they'll be, that they do. There'll be some new things. Maybe they move some pieces around, some people in different spots. What do they do with Jeremiah [Smith]? Do they use them the same way? Do they use him differently? Do they use them on punt returns? Do they use him on kick returns? How much did they do with Caleb Downs? Sonny Styles? A lot of similar names from last year, it's just, how much do they evolve? Then, how much have we evolved with some of the people in our organization and some of the schemes? That's part of the process of [a season opener]. That's always one of the challenges of Game 1 is the unknowns, and then trying to put your players in the best position to have some success.”
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