Everything Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said after first fall camp practice of 2026

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian spoke to the media for roughly 20 minutes following the first Longhorns fall camp practice of 2026. He got into everything from his expectations for Arch Manning to certain players who impressed him on day one. This is everything Sark said. [Sign up for Inside Texas for 75% off your first year!] Opening statement “Okay, as always, it’s great to be back on the grass with the team. And as much as things have changed and some of the rules and being out with the guys in the summer, there’s nothing like putting helmets on and being on the grass and practicing. And so, I think for us as a team, one thing we talk to the team about is getting back to the intent in which we need to practice and transition out of what we were into the summer to who we need to be in camp. “And so, it’s our first day. I didn’t expect us to be perfect. We got a long way to go. There were some bright spots, there were some rough spots, but in the end, it’s like I said, it’s the first day. It was great being back out there. It was great sweating with everybody and going through it. So that that’s that.” On his concern level for the rough spots in the first practice “I’m more concerned if they’re the continually same rough spots throughout practice, and/or we don’t fix them and they show up again tomorrow and the next day and the next day, right? That’s our job as coaches, and that’s where our players need to be coachable so that we don’t make the same mistakes time and time again in any phase — offense, defense, or special teams.” On the play of Texas transfers and true freshmen on Day 1 “You know, I think they were good. I thought we were in good shape. This is probably one of our least cramp days of first day of practice. I think we had five. I can tell you, our first year, I think we had 38. So that number has gone down every year. And so I just think the intensity of practice, the way they worked, you know, I think them understanding of kind of how our practices go, that helped them being in spring ball and now being back for training camp. So all in all, again, I think we we’ve been really fortunate to have some really good additions, and then we’ll see how much they can grow into being a real part of the team and how they can contribute.” On the leadership of Texas veterans in fall camp “Well, I think it’s it’s hugely important. We talked even about media day, the fact that I had Arch, I had Trevor, I had Colin, guys who have been in the program, and then you think about a lot of these other guys, like Jelani McDonald, who’s been in the program, those those types of guys I think serve as a good model for, ‘Hey this is how you approach it.’ And it’s not just when we’re on the field. It’s how do you approach your recovery right now when you when you get in the locker room. When you’re in the training room. What are you fueling your body with for dinner tonight so you can get a good night’s sleep and be ready to go again tomorrow and the next day and the next day. So I think it’s all that. It goes from your preparation from a football perspective. It goes to how we practice. And then it goes to from a recovery standpoint.” On Kobe Black and Cole Hutson “Yeah, Kobe. Kobe’s been a nice addition for us there because he gives us position flexibility, right? His versatility to obviously play man coverage, being a corner. I think he’s a very smart player. He’s savvy. He’s got good instincts, and so, so far so good, right, With that move there. “I don’t really have much of an update yet. I think we’ll find out more about Cole here probably within the next week or so. I think there’s some positive signs to that thing coming to fruition, but we’ll see what happens.” On how he handles the up-in-the-air possibility of Hutson joining the team “I don’t worry about it. I just can’t. You know, I’ve got 111 other guys that I’m trying to get ready to go play a game here in less than a month. When those things present themselves, I mean, I think that’s where our Brandon Harris and his team and they’re doing all that back work for me. And then when things come to light, then you make decisions on it. But you got to trust the people, and we’ve got great people in our organization, and so I’ve got to trust them to do their job, so I can focus on our team right now.” On which Texas players impressed him today “Oh, you guys always hit me with that one. You know, I thought Arch had a good day. I’ve seen a lot of rough quarterback days, first day of practice. The defenses have seen all these same plays, all you know, feel like all summer long. I thought he looked good. I thought a couple of the runners, Hollywood [Smothers] had some nice runs. I thought Michael Terry showed up running the ball. I thought defensively, you know, Rasheem Biles was flying around. You know, so a lot of positive, positive stuff. It was good to have see Jermaine [Bishop] back on offense too. I thought he did a couple nice things for us there. On reclassified freshman defensive back John Meredith III “He’s [having] real freshman moments right now. Like a lot of our freshmen have been with us since January. I mean, this guy just showed up a week ago. So everything is brand new to him. But I thought he fought through. I thought he worked at it, you know. I think getting in shape and competing at the level of which we’re competing at is is not easy to do, but he’s working hard and there’s some positives. He’s a competitive guy, that’s for sure. So that that showed up today.” On how Texas works on the penalty problem in camp “Yeah, well, I mean, we make it as intense as possible between you know Coach Muschamp, Coach Flood. I mean, everybody’s screaming and doing their stuff. I think, like I touched on at media day, I think it’s group punishment too. I hate saying it like that, but that’s the reality of the situation. Everybody’s got to feel the effect of a penalty because that’s what happens in a game. One guy doesn’t get flagged, and he’s the only foul. It’s all of us. We all we all feel that, and so I think that in innately has helped. “And I think across the ball, a little bit of the banter has helped. They’re digging into each other because both sides of the ball know how important it is for us to reduce our penalties, and and so the little bit of that banter I thought showed up today. I thought it was healthy and was good too.” On how to keep Texas players from being distracted in camp “Well, I think that was that was really my message to the team last night, was the outside noise is just that. Focusing on what we need to do. Prove us right rather than trying to prove other people wrong or right outside the building. Prove us right inside of our building, and I think the older [players], the vets get it, and now it’s trying to teach some of the younger guys to not read your articles, you know, and focus on what what their position coach is saying in their meeting room and how they can get better.” On the body transformation of Nick Townsend “You know, I’ll tell you who I was impressed with the other way was Ian Geffrard. You know, where his weight is at and what his body looks like right now and his ability to move, that’s super encouraging for us. Like this guy’s down almost 25 pounds now, you know, and so I look at it both ways, you know. Guys who have built up, Kohen Brown looks phenomenal. I mean, you talk about a guy who’s bought into a college program, and I always forget guys after the fact. I should have said him or said him. I mean, Derek Cooper for a guy who’s just should you know just getting here looks looks great. So a lot of the guys have bought into it. Like I said, I think Coach Becton and his team do a great job with our guys all summer long, and I thought this team bought into the summer. You know, they were really committed to the summer. I thought it was helpful.” On how many starting spots Texas has up for grabs “I mean, a lot of them. You know, I mean, I think this team is really deep, and we’re going to need a lot of these bodies. You guys know what our schedule looks like. We’re playing playing nine conference games now with Ohio State, Texas State, and UTSA, both probably going to be bowl teams this fall. So we’ve got a we’ve got a really challenging schedule. We’re going to need as many bodies as we can, and the goal is to be a quality two deep at every spot with hopefully you got a third guy that can play if if he needs to, and so hopefully we can develop all of that, you know, at all three phases. You know, because special teams is going to be crucial in that aspect as well.” On Andre Cojoe and Ty Anthony Smith coming back from injury “They’re out there. This first day is tough because I’m trying to watch, we got two spot going on. I’m trying to see everybody there. I noticed them today. I don’t know exactly how well they did. It’s great to have them back. I can tell you that. We need both those guys. But got to look at the tape and see how they did.” On how to coach a team with so many new faces and if anything needs to be different than before “I don’t think so. One thing I was impressed with today, and I know this sounds, you know, it’s day one. Of course, it should be. I thought our coaches were really good today. They coached, and they were getting after it. And that culturally is something that I think is important for the players to understand that our coaches are going to be demanding, and we’re going to push them to try to be the best that they can become. And I felt our coaches today, and I think that is part of our culture that we’ve got to really get into. That the players understand how hard we’re going to coach them to try to get them to become the best players they can.” On if there is a tension he wants the players to feel throughout camp “I mean there should be a real level of intensity. It is football, right? And and we got helmets on and we’ll get pads on here in in a couple days. There’s got to be a level of intensity, but through through the intensity, there should be a relative sense of calm that we can execute through that level of intensity and through those stressful moments because games are going to present stressful moments to us.” On the experience of the Texas offensive line “I mean, experience is great at anything that we do, especially when we can learn from that experience, that we can get better from it. I think that lends itself to that sense of calm, right? Guys who have been in the fire when those stressful moments present themselves, they don’t get overwhelmed with it, and so that experience is huge. Hopefully we can reap the benefit of that when the season does roll around.” On what he’s looking for from true freshmen like Tyler Atkinson and Richard Wesley in initial practices “Do they know what to do? Like this is a very, you know, day one, it’s really pared down, so can they process the information from the meeting room, take it to the practice field, and apply it? I don’t expect them to be perfect, but that is the best indicator because the skill set is the skill set. We know what that is, but that’s the best indicator of what it might look like down the road, that they can take in information, process, and go do. Learn in the meetings tonight. Apply some of the things that they need to be coached on to get better at, and then show me that they can do that again tomorrow. And that’s that’s the key to the drill with those guys as they kind of work their way through training camp.” On what the first day of camp was like for him personally “Fun. Sweating. It was great. It was hot, but I love training camp. You know, we do so much right now in our profession that when you get two hours on the grass with your team, like, I eat that up. And it was fun for me. You know, I tried to really watch our team today and not just be so enamored with just the quarterback and the receivers. I was trying to watch a little bit more. Get a sense and a feel. I said I wanted to see our coaches coach. We got some some new faces, and so I enjoyed it. I had a blast.” On what a successful fall camp would look like for Manning “I think being really efficient. Having having a really good rapport with with the receivers, the offensive line, his ability to continue to take care of the football, I think, is huge for him. And then his ability to find those explosive plays that I think we want to be as an offense, and a lot of that’s going to come from him.” On the expected impact of Jelani McDonald “I hope a big one. I think Jelani’s a great player. I don’t know if he’s getting enough notoriety for how good he really is. I thought he had a great year last year. I probably thought he probably deserves some some all conference honors even at the end of last year. So hopefully he can build off of that season. “I think this defense with Coach Muschamp really fits Jelani. I think having Coach Gideon back is is great for Jelani as well, and I think he’s had a really good offseason. I’ve been very, very impressed with him. Coach Becton gives out certain grades for guys in the summer, and he was a gold, and that a gold star for him is huge from where he’s grown in our program over the last three, four years.” On the depth of this Texas team compared to his previous Texas teams “It feels good. You know, we’ll see. You know, again, I think that the portal, in some ways, helps because you can fill very specific spots from a depth perspective. It hurts too. We lost a lot of guys, you know. And so, how it all ties together, and leaning into who are going to be the young players that are going to step up, and maybe not be front line players on offense, defense, but play on two or three special teams, are covering on kickoffs, doing those types of things, because that’s where your depth can show up as well. When you can have, you know, you’re not just bringing guys on the trip when you go to Knoxville. That they they can contribute to some capacity when we go on the road.” On how big this camp is for sophomores like Nick Townsend, and Justus Terry and Jonah Williams “It’s big for all those guys, you know, because I think we live in a society of like instant gratification. A guy’s a five star, and they’re supposed to show up and be — every guy’s supposed to be a freshman All-American, and it really doesn’t work like that. There’s a developmental aspect to a player in our program, and so when you when you just hit three awesome names, like because I think these guys are poised to take a huge step in our program, Justus, Jonah, Nick Townsend, Emaree Winston, a bunch of these guys. Kade Phillips. This is a big moment for them, right? To to see where they’ve gotten from year one to year two, and we need them, right? As much as we tried to get older as a team, we’re still relatively young. I think we’re like the fourth youngest team in the country. It’s crazy. I go to the portal and I’m still young, you know. So, we’re going to be counting on those guys to contribute for us.” “I have not. That’s Brandon Harris and his team. They they fill me in, and CDC fills me in on that stuff.” “I think so. You know, I think any time — I’ve been saying this all along — I think any time we have structure, it’s good, and we’ve been operating for the last year, year and a half with very minimal structure, and I just don’t think that’s healthy. All right, so I think if if this bill goes through and some of these things get streamlined in a sense where it provides structure for all of us, I think that’s healthy. And and we’re not all just kind of living in the wild, wild west. Coach, when you On getting an immensely talented Texas team to play together “I think that’s the challenge. You know, I think you answered your own question. I think that’s the biggest challenge we have as a coaching staff is to take the talent and get them to play as a team, right? And to be a great team, and to understand that they need each other to be as successful as we want to be. And we say it all the time around here; team success is what then provides individual accolades, awards, and honors. It doesn’t go the other way around. And so, I think us playing as a team is is the that’s the secret sauce, you know, that we got to get right. What is that Shane Wiles On Rasheem Biles and the moment he knew in recruiting him he’d be a fit at Texas “Well, I mean, he’s athletic. He’s fast. He’s versatile. He can rush the passer. He’s really good in pass coverage. He made a great play in pass coverage today about 40 yards downfield. So that versatility is huge. “I was fired up about him when I turned on his tape, you know, and was like, this guy’s picking off balls and running back for touchdowns and sacking the quarterback. I was like, that’s our kind of guy, right? You know, creates turnovers, creates those havoc plays, and so I think it started when I watched the tape, probably even before we got on the phone with him.” On if he’d be surprised if Manning doesn’t hit the ‘layups’ in 2026 “Well, I would be surprised because I think that he’s put in a lot of work, and I’ve seen the progress that’s been made by him. And that’s a credit to him and the time and effort he’s put into this thing. So my goal and hope for him is that he just does what I’ve been watching him do because I think if he can take that next step, we know the big play potentials there. It’s like I say, making your layups is huge.” On continuing to invest in Manning while also developing KJ Lacey and Dia Bell “That’s what we do. I mean, between Coach Milwey, Coach Bemonte, and myself. KJ and Dia have got bright, bright futures, and they’ve made huge strides. And so we pour into all those guys. You know, it’s not just about Arch around here. We’re going to pour into those guys too.” On if intense coaching from him, Will Muschamp and Jeff Banks is infectious “I think so. You know, I mean, I think about all of our guys. I was saying today, I took a moment in team period, and I just watched our coaches coach. I was so I was really impressed, you know. And we’re fortunate; we’ve got a great coaching staff. These guys do a tremendous job in preparation of getting not only the players prepared and ready to go, but themselves too. And I just think that they they coach hard, you know. But but I think they coach out of love, and I think our players understand that.”