With just over a week until first kickoff, the fourth-ranked University of Texas football team is practicing scrimmages every week in preparation, and coach Steve Sarkisian is using the scrimmages to evaluate his team on all aspects of the game.
With the team making its first-ever College Football Playoff appearance last year and now on the brink of joining the Southeastern Conference, the start of this season is highly anticipated by many. Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban predicted the Longhorns would face the No. 1 ranked Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship Game.
After spending the summer obsessing over the finer details and focusing on the finer technical aspects of getting his team ready to play at the highest level, Sarkisian has decided to take a step back.
“I try to look at our team from a 10,000-foot view, not just looking at it through a straw, but what we can do as a team, not just what our offensive line can do,” Sarkisian said. “I’m impressed with where we are right now.”
Despite the strong finish to the 2023 season, Coach Sarkisian spent the rest of the day integrating several new players into the lineup afterward. Some came through the transfer portal, others from high school, and one of the priorities for Texas’ returning players was to ensure everyone was instilled with the culture Coach Sarkisian preached during the 2023 season.
One of the main aspects of Sarkisian’s culture is the standards on the field, with all players holding themselves accountable to holding one another to a standard that includes several elements of excellence.
“(The standards) are always discipline, toughness and dedication,” sophomore defensive back Malik Muhammad said.
Muhammad, the defense and defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski have been working all summer to improve every aspect of the defense, focusing on weaknesses from last season such as pass defense and tackling.
Texas boasts one of the best run defenses in the country but struggles with the passing game, and while Sarkisian monitored his team closely, Kwiatkowski did the exact opposite.
“We’ve been focusing on the finer details,” Muhammad said. “We’ve got our defensive line in order. We feel like we’ve played great defense this year, but we’ve mostly been focusing on the finer details.”
The defensive line lost Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year Tyvondre Sweat and Byron Murphy to the 2024 NFL Draft, but senior defensive lineman Vernon Broughton has worked with the rest of the group to try to return as much talent as possible. The defensive line will have the advantage of going up against an offensive line that returns all but one starter.
With former NFL assistant defensive line coach Kenny Baker as the new defensive line coach, the team is more skilled and ready to continue wreaking havoc on opposing offensive lines, even without their two star players.
“I’m not worried about (Sweat and Murphy being out),” Broughton said. “We know what we have and we’re going to do what we have to do.”
Texas’ first chance to prove itself will be when it opens the season at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium against Colorado State on Aug. 31. Until then, Texas will have a full mock game week schedule to ensure everyone is in the game.
