Everything Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said the Monday after beating Ohio State

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian spoke to the media for over half an hour two days after his Longhorns beat the then-No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes, 24-23, in Austin. This is everything he said. Opening statement “Okay, just a little recap from Saturday night. Got a chance to watch the tape and see the game and evaluate some things. First of all, I want to start with this again, just thanking our fans. I thought the atmosphere in DKR, from where we were in 2021 to where we are today, is pretty electric. A ton of that starts with our students and their commitment to this program and to their experience at the University of Texas. I mean, them sleeping overnight for spots at GameDay, all the way until you’re seeing the Eyes of Texas and there’s still 105,000 people in the stands. That stuff’s pretty special. And so I don’t want that to go unnoticed. I appreciate their support and hanging in with us when we were struggling the other night, being there with us and kind of willing us back into the game. “Again, the home-field advantage thing is real right now. I think we’re 22-1 in our last 23 games at DKR. I think we’ve got an 11-game winning streak. So there is that advantage. I think just from a crowd atmosphere, but I think there’s a level of confidence for our players too, which is really good. The first half, we just didn’t play very good football. Quite frankly, obviously, the ball, the turnover on the first play of the game. What a tremendous job by our defense on sudden change, forcing a field goal there on the first drive. It’s ironic. On Wednesday practices all year long, that’s what we do. We come out of stretch, and the first thing we do is a sudden-change drill, and we spot the ball at the 18-yard line. So I don’t think it was foreign for our players on defense to go out and play the way they played that first drive. “But when you look at that first half, the fifth play of the game, we think we’re hitting a touchdown pass to Cam Coleman, and an unfortunate play, just a freaky play. I think he kind of trips on the SEC logo, loses his balance, the ball bounces off his arm, and it’s an interception, which then leads to a touchdown. Then we kind of stub our toe and they drive, I think, about a 70-yard drive, and they go for it on fourth down. Just the will of the defense to hang in there and get the stop on fourth down. Then we drive again, and we dial one up for Ryan [Wingo], and it’s just unfortunate we don’t make that play. “There was a lot of plays in the first half that maybe could have swung some momentum back in our favor. It just didn’t. Inevitably, you head into the fourth quarter and you’re down 23-3. You talk about everybody buckling down, making a few adjustments on the defensive side of the ball, and I think Ohio State’s three drives were three plays, one yard, punt. Then we go 15 plays, 91 yards, touchdown. They come back, they go three plays, six yards, punt. We go 13 plays, 72 yards, touchdown. Then they have the seven-play drive where they miss the field goal. Really, on that drive is the broken play where the quarterback kind of rolls to his right and then throws it all the way back across the field to the tight end. It was kind of a broken play. But what an amazing rush on the field-goal block. Lance Jackson, Alex January, those guys were in there, got their hands up. We get the missed field goal, then we go 12 plays, 73 yards, touchdown. “So you look at 15-, 13-, 12-play drives when we had to have it. I just thought it was indicative of the psyche of this team, their willingness to dig deep, to execute. Obviously, a couple critical fourth-down conversions in there. Great play by Emaree Winston to get a first down on fourth-and-9. Heck of a catch by Emmett Mosley on fourth-and-6 over the middle. But I thought, in all of that, in those drives, our ability to maintain balance on offense, we ran the football effectively and we were getting some good boxes to do it against. But you have to call it and you have to execute it. I thought Hollywood and Raleek [Brown] were both really good in those instances. “Then, as we touched on, our red-zone execution, and obviously our goal-to-go execution, being able to get into goal line, run the football into the end zone, I thought was big for us. So all in all, it’s a heck of a win. We were not perfect, okay? We got plenty of things to work on. Our ball security is awful right now, if you want to know the truth, and that’s not something that we take pride in at all. We take pride in our ability to take care of the ball. So we’ve got to improve our ball security because it wasn’t just about the turnovers. It was the other fumbles. Emmett has the fumble, and Cam Coleman makes an incredible recovery. [Ryan] Niblett muffs the punt, Kade Phillips makes an incredible recovery. Arch [Manning] gets loose with the ball in the red area. They call it incomplete, but Dylan Sikorski, amazing effort to get on that ball if it was a fumble. So we have got to value the football more in the organization than we have through two games. “Then defensively, our third-down defense has to improve. We’re too good up front with our pass rushes. We’re too good with our coverages to be last in the Southeastern Conference in third-down defense right now. So I can just spotlight two things right now that I can tell you we have got to improve upon as a team as we continue to move forward. “As far as this week goes, UTSA continues to do it again. They’re 2-0. They’re playing really good football. We talk about the ball. These guys have created five turnovers through two games. They haven’t turned the ball over once yet. They’ve got a veteran quarterback in Owen McCown. He’s a three-year starter. He knows what he’s doing. He executes their stuff. And they’ve got a veteran defense. I know there’s new starters, but there’s a lot of old players on that defense, and they play like it. So they’re going to come in here ready to go. We’ve got to make sure that we continue to improve. And I think it starts with the individuals: coaches, players, individually improving so that collectively we can improve. We’ve got to continue to get better as the season goes on, and it starts this week. It started today, Monday, in practice.” On Texas’ slow start vs Ohio State “I really felt like we were just kind of getting in our own way. First play of the game, it was like the ideal defense. We were kind of banking on maybe we’d get a field pressure, which we got. We got two-for-two blockers out there with Emmett and Ryan, who are really good blockers for us, and getting the ball in Raleek Brown’s hand in the open field. I would take that. “But fundamentally, we were incorrect. We got the ball on our inside arm. He doesn’t have a weapon to help make the safety miss. The ball comes out. I touched on the fifth play to Cam. I touched on the play to Ryan in the red area. So I felt like we were kind of getting in our own way. Even on some third downs, I thought we could have converted even earlier in the game. Obviously, we finished 9-for-16, but I felt like we could have been better in the first half. I felt like in the second half we just executed better. “Through it all, I thought we played really good at the line of scrimmage. I thought our offensive line had a very good football game. I thought Dylan Sikorski, the plan initially was to rotate he and Laurence [Seymore]. The way the first half went, I just wasn’t comfortable, ready to switch them out, and then Dylan was playing so good. We just kind of let it go. Melvin [Siani] had a good game. Trevor [Goosby] had a good game. The tight end, Spencer Shannon, all those guys. “So all in all, I just think it came back to just executing. We still weren’t perfect. We dropped some balls that I know we’re more than capable of making some plays on. But it was great to see some new faces. Emaree Winston, as I touched on, stepping into a little bit of a new role. Jermaine Bishop didn’t play a lot, but man, he was rolling on the post, and we ended up getting a pass interference on that thing. “So we’ve got to have more guys step up. They’re going to show us that we can trust them in practice so that we can play them more in games. But I really just think it was settling down and executing when we had our chances.” On Texas’s defending Jeremiah Smith in the second half “Well, I think the biggest thing we did was we just said, hey, we’re going to have to play more man coverage on the guy. We were trying to double. We were trying to reroute. We weren’t getting very good reroutes. He was getting free runs at safeties, and it just was not a great avenue for success. And through it all, we had a light box. So the run game was getting leaky because we didn’t have an extra safety down, and the pass rush wasn’t where we needed it to be. So we shifted gears, and credit [Will Muschamp] for doing that. We got a little more aggressive at the line of scrimmage, which in turn forced us to be a little more aggressive on the perimeter. “Now, they hit the one. It was a heck of a throw by Julian with a free runner in his face, hitting him on the double move down our sideline, but we didn’t panic. The next two third downs, [Bo] Mascoe’s in man coverage against him, and he knocks a slant route down and then plays him extremely well, squeezes him to the sideline on the fade. So we challenged ’em to go play, and that allowed us, I think, to be a little better against the run, and that allowed us to put a little more pressure on the quarterback.” On the Texas offensive line “Well, I do think that these guys played well together. And in part, that’s when you’ve got a veteran center, which we’ve had that before. Jake Majors in year four and year five, and now with Connor [Robertson] in year five, I just think the communication is at a really high level up there. You’ve got an experienced player now in Brandon Baker. You’ve got Trevor, who’s got a whole year under his belt at left tackle. Dylan’s played a lot of football at Oregon State before he got here, and Melvin’s played a lot of football at West Virginia. So I think there’s a lot of experience, and I think they’re just working cohesively well together. “But what I liked was the physicality that they played the game with. They moved the line of scrimmage and they created running lanes, and I thought the runners did a really nice job. We didn’t go down on contact. We made guys miss. We ran through safeties. They were physical. “And so all of those things come together. It made up for, man, Arch had some really good pockets. He had really good time. I think there was one on that fourth down where I thought we could have been a little better in the pocket and our rush to flush was right. But we had really good pockets. We had really good protection. And I think that starts because you’re running the football well, and now defensive linemen can’t just pin their ears back and rush. “So as far as Trevor goes, yeah, I mean, there’s premium positions in football for a reason, and left tackle’s one of those. That was one for us that, one, two, three years ago, we found out what this guy was made of when he had to play in some high-level games, talking Georgia, Clemson, Arizona State, Texas A&M. Then he came back last year and had a really good year. “And I think him coming back, playing in the style in which he played the other night, we all know he’s a very good pass protector. But his ability to block the run game and do it with confidence and his leadership, I think all adds up to that. That kind of permeates throughout that offensive line. And so we’re very lucky to have them.” On getting Texas back in the right mental space for UTSA “Yeah, you guys have heard me say a couple of these things before, but it’s probably a good reminder. Who you are some of the time is who you are all the time. We don’t pick and choose how we prepare. We don’t pick and choose how we want to play based on the opponent. And I think the other thing is that the opinions of others don’t dictate how we prepare or how we play. A week ago, the narrative was, ‘We can’t win the big game. How are we going to beat Ohio State? What are we going to do?’ Now the opinions are, ‘Oh, now we’re the best team in the country, allegedly. And so everybody’s patting you on the back.’ Two polar opposites of where we are. “We need to stay right here, right? We need to stay enamored with what we need to do and focus on us and continue to try to improve, regardless of who the opponent is or isn’t. It’s about what we do to perform, to put ourselves in the best position to be successful.” On Texas tight end Emaree Winston “Well, Emaree’s an elite route runner. He’s got great hands. Nick [Townsend] got a little banged up, and Nick was playing a lot, and we wanted to get Amari involved. He was running kind of a motion out. He was running kind of an out with a return. He was the check down on the play. But as I touched on, Arch got pressure right up the middle and got flushed to his right, and Emaree just happened to be there. But he had about five and a half, six yards to go after he made that catch. So his ability to put his foot in the ground and get vertical and not dance, for a younger player, I thought was great situational awareness, knowing it was fourth down. He had to go get the first down, and man, he barely got that thing. It was a huge play.” On leaning on leadership in the Texas locker room after such a big win “Yeah, I mean, I think that’s part of life, right? And that’s the challenge that you go through. Do you fall prey to what other people say about you—good, bad and different, whatever that is—or are we strong enough internally to know that this is who I am, or this is who we are, and this is how we go about our business? I’m not saying that’s easy to do. That’s difficult. And I think that’s our job as coaches, is to get them into that frame of mind and understand that. “But for a lot of these guys, this is a third straight year we’ve been ranked No. 1 in the country at some point of the season. So this isn’t necessarily foreign territory for us, but I don’t know how well we handled it the previous two years, and I don’t know how worthy we always were of those rankings, of the opinions of others. “What we do is what matters. And I think that is something that when you talk about the Arch’s, the Trevor’s, the Colin’s, the Jelani’s, those guys who have been in this thing now with us through this journey, understand the ranking doesn’t matter. If anything, all the ranking does is put a bigger bull’s-eye on you, right? How we perform is what matters the most. And how do you want to perform? It’s how you prepare—mentally, physically, emotionally—to get ready to play.” On grading Texas in a game that was so hot and cold one half to the other “You know, I think with our guys, and you can ask them when they come, I think that’s a great question for them. I’m always really honest with our team, whether it’s an individual player or collectively as a group, whether it’s offense, defense or the entire team. “So when I come in Monday morning and I talk about how we played in the game, and I show the good, bad and ugly tape, and then I talk about areas where I know we need to improve moving forward, I’m very honest. And so I got on the offense’s butt this morning about the ball. Our ball security is not good enough to be a championship team. Our third-down defense right now is not good enough to be a championship team. And that’s not to diminish the win. That’s to show them how we can continue to improve and where there’s area for improvement. We’re not a finished product yet. We’re two games in. “I mean, I showed them the Kobe clip this morning’ job’s not finished.’ We’re two games into a season. We got a lot more football left to go play. So we can’t just sit back and have a sigh of relief. We’ve got to stay to the grind. We’ve got to continue to push forward. And so, if we would have played an A-plus game, I would have told them they played an A-plus game. But we didn’t. And there were areas for us to improve upon coming into that ball game Saturday night.” On the way Texas QB Arch Manning played in the comeback win “I think one thing for a quarterback, I thought Arch came into the game ready to go. This guy was dialed into the game plan. I was trying to watch him in pregame a little bit. I mean, he was throwing darts. This guy was ready to go, and he did. That’s the hard part for a quarterback. What can happen to you from a psyche standpoint? Guys don’t catch a couple balls. You can start chasing ghosts a little bit. They can, ‘Man, I got to throw this even more perfect.’ He didn’t. “But I felt like he was starting to go there. Again, I credit Coach Bimonte, Coach Milwee, for getting him back. And I thought the way he competed in the second half served as a great motivator for the rest of the guys. I mean, he was willing to put his body on the line, a couple of those scrambles on the sidelines. I probably would have liked him to step out of bounds, but he took a couple hits. His arm’s bleeding. “But at the end of the day, that’s what was required in that moment. And our guys needed that leadership. If he was just kind of in a little bit of a shell, that might not have been good for us. But I think that snaps Cam Coleman or Ryan Wingo out of maybe a little bit of their funk because they didn’t make the plays they wanted to make. I think that inspires an offensive line. That inspires Hollywood Smothers. That fourth and six, Hollywood Smothers steps into the A-gap and takes on a blitzer to give Arch a clean pocket to throw that ball to Emmett Mosley. “So there’s a lot of moving parts that take place, but I think his demeanor, his approach, his ability to make plays at critical moments of that game were huge for us. I mean, the touchdown pass to Wingo, he can’t make a better throw. That was about as good as it gets. And that started kind of the comeback. “So all in all, I was really proud of him. It could have been a whole different day from a number standpoint if we make a couple plays for him. We didn’t. He didn’t panic. He stayed the course. And he leads those three drives at the end of the game to go win a game against that quality of opponent. I think that serves us well for our future.” On what he’s learned about his defense, what he likes, what he doesn’t like, who’s standing out, injury updates on Nick Townsend and Laurence Seymore “Jesus Christ. Sorry, pardon me. But damn, Chip. Is this your press conference or mine? Wow. Okay, defensively. Ian Geffrard is a guy who we’re really excited about. I think that he has really stepped into becoming the dominant player that we were hopeful he could be. I thought Alex January had a really good game the other night and is stepping up into the player that we felt like he could be. And so those things were very encouraging. I think Graceson Littleton is obviously living up to the billing of playing the way that we thought he could play. I thought the second half Bo Mascoe we got the guy that we were expecting to get. I don’t think he had a great first half. I thought he had a much better second half. “I thought Ohio State, to their credit, did a lot. They taxed us mentally with some formations, motion, shifts, alignments that caused a lot of communication, and I didn’t think our communication was as good as it could have been. I thought we got better in the second half. But I think we’re better defensively right now when we’re in your face, when we’re aggressive. We tried to play the other way a little bit in the first half, and that wasn’t kind of, I think, where our identity is. I thought when we just kind of got in your face and played a little bit more aggressive, we played better football. That’s probably where our bread and butter is right now, but we need to be more versatile, so we’ve got to continue to work on those other things. “Nick Townsend, I would say right now, is evaluated for—he’s got a knee injury. We’re going to continue to evaluate him to see when we can get him back, how long that will be. I don’t know. And Laurence Seymore, he’s fine. He’ll be good to go, and you’ll see more Laurence. “Did I get it all, Chip? How’d I do?” On Ian Geffrard’s adjustment to Texas and how it’s paid off “I think one thing for Ian, in Arkansas, for whatever reason, maybe lack of depth, this guy was playing 65, 75 snaps a game. And that’s a lot for a really big human being like him. I think one thing he learned here, and it took time, is to understand we’ve got a rotation. You don’t have to play 65 snaps as an interior defensive lineman for us. But man, if you give us really good 20 to 25, and that’s maximum effort, great technique, then the quality of film that you’re putting out there is a better product. And I think that’s what he’s understood. He doesn’t have to preserve himself. He doesn’t have to think about, ‘Man, I hope I’m there in the fourth quarter because I know I’m going to have to keep playing.’ We’ve got a good rotation. We’ve got plenty of bodies in there, and I think he’s understanding that. And he’s becoming a dominant player for us that way on the inside.” On Texas defensive tackle Justus Terry and how much Sarkisian allowed himself to relish in the win over Ohio State “Justus kind of hurt his foot in pregame warmups and just didn’t feel like he could push off the way that he is capable of. And that hurt because we had a plan for him in this game. We were counting on him, and in football sometimes that happens. You just deal with it. Hopefully we get him back sooner rather than later because he is performing at a high level. We definitely need to get him back going. “I took, honestly, a couple moments Saturday night. I took one after we sang the Eyes of Texas, just looking at the crowd. Normally you sing the Eyes and then people start hitting the stairways and start hitting the tunnels, and they’re trying to get out of here. Nobody left. I don’t think anyone wanted to leave. I don’t think people wanted it to be over. It was like, what a special moment. “And then for me, afterwards, you take your time getting off the field, and you’re seeing your family and you’re seeing friends, and you’re hugging players and coaches, families and wives and the whole thing. And you get in the locker room, and you’re in there with your team, and that’s a very intimate moment for us as a team, commending them for their resilience and their grit in this game. “Then you go upstairs and I talk to you guys, and then I go into the recruiting lounge, and I’m talking to—I mean, shoot, we got every top player in the country. It felt like here. So you talk to all them. Then I go get on the radio show, right? And I’m on with Craig and I’m doing all that. “And then I finally got into my office with my wife, and it was like, I kind of want to take this in too. It’s been about an hour now since the game ended. So literally, we just walked outside, and DKR is a special place. I know it’s a special place for a lot of people, but clearly for me and for us, it’s a special place. And I think that we’ve created an atmosphere here that is special. Like I said, I don’t think the environment that we had Saturday night was the environment that we had our first season here. It has grown into a really special place that way. “And when we first got here, on the west side of the stadium, everyone used to sit in their seats. Now, when we play, nobody’s sitting in their seats. There’s a definite vibe and energy that this place has become. And you have games that don’t always go the way you script them, that they’re supposed to go. And you beat the No. 1 team in the country at home, 24-23. You outscored them 21-0 in the fourth quarter. Like, I’m gonna take that in for a minute. I’m gonna give myself maybe five to eight minutes before I go and shower and eat some cold chicken or something, whatever the heck I did after the game. “But I just think I don’t want to let this go by like, ho hum, it was just another one, because that was special. And I wanted to take it in too. We’ve come a long way as a program, and we’re not done. We’ve got more work to do. But it’s okay to take five or 10 minutes to appreciate it and then turn on the UTSA tape and against Texas State and start on that one. You know, you’re on to the next.” On Texas’ ability to run the ball at will and seeing former Longhorns do so well in the NFL on Sunday “Yeah, I say it a lot in here too. You guys have heard me. Like, I always say, as a coach, you get what you emphasize, right? We’ve been emphasizing being a more physical football team, being a more physical offensive team, running the football when they know you’re going to run the football, and having the ability to do that and have the ability to have confidence to call it that way. And so, at the end of that game, we were down there first-and-goal, it was like, we’re running it, man. And they knew we were running it. There wasn’t a secret. We weren’t going to call a bootleg or a tight end corner-out or something. And so the ability to get that ball in the end zone is gratifying as a coach that your players have bought into what you’re asking of them to get accomplished. “But there was more than that. You talk about, get what you emphasize, we had two penalties for 12 yards Saturday night. And we’ve been in these games before when it’s eight penalties for 98 yards, right? And the impact that those penalties can have. And so I was proud of our team for that too, that we’re playing a more disciplined brand of football right now. And so that was encouraging as well. “And as far as our guys go, I mean, shoot, Manny Muhammad gets a pick. Michael Taaffe gets a pick. Ant Hill has 16 tackles. I mean, that’s just to name a few right off the top. And so that part’s gratifying as well, that we’re developing our players to fulfill their dreams of playing in the NFL, not just making it, but playing and playing at a high level. And so that obviously was very encouraging, and excited for those guys that they were able to accomplish all that. On the balance of Texas being in big games while them also being harmful for CFP purposes if you lose them “I think that’s a really good question because the brand is the brand, and surely there’s a lot of teams that would want to play us in the event, right? In those games. Obviously, television loves to have the brand on television and the viewership and all the things. And we’ve got a locker room full of players that come here to be part of those types of games, and we’ve got a fan base that loves to watch us compete at the highest level in those games. “I’ve said this all along: We want to play in those games. There’s so much about those games that matter for a lot of reasons to be part of those games. Competitively, the balance is when you take in humans, and they’re the ones that dictate who makes the playoffs. We’re not the NFL, where it’s all based on what’s your record, who did you beat? Those are the teams that make it. You make the playoffs based off of opinions of others, essentially, right? Unless you win your conference. “And so there’s a fine line in that. What is the impact of that? And what are the metrics that they’re using to determine who makes the playoffs? And so that’s the risk-reward. “I hope Ohio State does not get punished for that game Saturday night. They played a heck of a game. I mean, it’s 24-23. They lose a score with 25 seconds to go in the game. I hope, if they end up being a 9-3 team, the committee can appreciate the fact that they came to Austin, Texas, in September when it was 100 degrees and played us in that environment, and played a heck of a game. And so they should not be punished. Quite frankly, Ohio State should be rewarded for playing in this game against us. “And so that’s my goal. Time will tell. And this isn’t crying over spilled milk. I don’t think we got rewarded for going to Columbus last year in Week 1. Hopefully this year they reward Ohio State for coming and playing in this game with us this year. I don’t know how their season goes. They may go 11-1, a moot point. But if they are 9-3, and depending on what happens in those other two, surely I hope they get rewarded for playing this game. Because if they don’t reward them for playing in the game, then all of us start playing FCS, Power 6, and then I don’t think that’s the product that we want in college football. “You guys love it. We love it. Our fans love it. The players love it. Everybody loves those matchups. Well, if we want to continue with those matchups, we’ve got to reward the teams for playing in those games.” On what he saw, heard and felt when Texas was coming back in the fourth quarter “I think there was a real sense of poise and composure. I felt like the demeanor of our guys was, ‘We’re gonna come back. We just need to continue to do the things the right way.’ And a lot of things had to line up. If we don’t get two three-and-outs, that’s another three minutes off the clock. That impacts how the end of that game goes. “So it was us playing complementary football. You could feel each side working with each other, wanting to get off the field. The offense knew the value of a third-down stop. Here we go. We’ve got now it’s nine minutes to go. We’re getting the ball. We still need two scores. And so the defense realizing, hey, we just scored to cut it to a six-point game. Holding them, not being able to get points, is critical. “And so when they got into field-goal range, you could feel the aggressiveness of Coach Muschamp calling it, Bo Mascoe making the play on the fade, and then you could feel the rush on field-goal block to try to affect that kick. Knowing then, if they make that kick, it’s a nine-point game. Now we need two scores again. And so you could just look at the excitement by our players on defense when he misses the kick. I mean, Juice Cryer is so excited. He knows now it’s a one-score game. Our offense can go down and win the game. “So I think through it all, I thought there was great clarity by our team. Poise and composure, but yet the execution that it took in working and playing complementary football—offense, defense and special teams all working together.” On when he felt Texas was going to win the Ohio State game “When Graceson was laying on the ground with the ball, you know? I mean, shoot, they threw it up and the ball’s bouncing around. I’m thinking, man, they got an alien on the other side. If he catches it, we lose. I mean, it can happen. I don’t ever feel like that. I just feel like, man, if we can just execute, we will get back in the game. And if we get back in the game, we have a chance. “These games have been very similar. It’s just three times in a row against these guys, and they’re really good. I mean, two years ago in the national semifinal, we have the ball inside the 10-yard line to tie the game. Last year, we get stopped twice inside the 10. We still have the ball with two minutes to go to go drive again, down 14-7. We didn’t quite execute the way we needed to in those moments to make it happen. “I felt like this year, we were executing up until that point to be like, if we can just get one more shot, we’re going to go down and score and we’re going to win this game. And I felt like the guys did do that. There was great execution. “I mean, a couple of the passes to Emmett on that last drive, the curl route he catches over the middle, the slant route he catches in the low red to get down to the one, the execution was at a high level in those moments. And so I just felt like if we could just have enough time, that we would have a chance to go do it. “But, hey, I didn’t feel good until the game was—like, the clock was at zero. I mean, I was watching it tick down, and I’m like, please hit zero, because I just know they’re really good. Ohio State’s a really good team. They weren’t No. 1 in the country by accident. They’re a very good team.” On the Texas running backs “They’re both really tough. Hollywood Smothers and Raleek Brown are really tough, and they love football. That is what I’ve learned about these guys. They are in the moment. They’re engaged. They’re picking other guys up. They’re talking to the offensive line. They run the football with passion. They blocked. They were competing at a really high level Saturday night. And that’s something you don’t know until you actually get into the fire with them. And I’ve learned that about both of them for sure. Those guys are great competitors.”