Texas beat Arizona State on New Year’s Day in a heartstopping double-overtime thriller, 38-31. After the game, a relived Texas Longhorns Head Coach Steve Sarkisian addressed the Media.
Here is everything Sark said after the double-OT win in Atlanta in the Peach Bowl.
Opening statement:
“First of all, hats off to Arizona State, Coach Dillingham. They showed a ton of fight, ton of resiliency. It is a really good football team. And we went up 16 in the fourth quarter and their ability to come back and take this thing to overtime was very impressive. So congratulations to them on a heck of a season and a game played today. As far as our guys go today, not our cleanest game of the year. And that’s okay to say that. But the one thing that I know about our group is when our backs are against the wall and when our best is needed, our best shows up time and time again, and the resiliency that these guys showed today was something as a coach makes you really proud, you know, that we weren’t at our best and felt like an NCAA March Madness basketball game with the swings of emotions and things. But fourth and 15 in overtime to score to come right back and score again, two-point conversion and then a great play by Andrew Mukuba, just proud of these guys, because not every game is going to be pretty and not every game is just going to go exactly how you want it to go.
And there’s going to be plenty of stuff that we’re going to look at this tape and say we gotta do better and be better, but the one thing I won’t have to say is our toughness and fight doesn’t need to be better. And if there’s one thing that you want as a calling card for your team is just that.
So I think it’s a tribute to these guys up here and their leadership and the culture that we have and their ability to stay calm through the storm and execute when like I said when our best was needed.”
“It’s pretty incredible. These guys do such a good job of just saying, hey, protect the end zone. And if it’s six inches, one yard, four yards, whatever that looks like, they’re going to stand in there.
And I think there were three of six in the red area tonight scoring, and I think that’s a by-product of them trusting one another and trusting the scheme, but I think it’s also a by-product of guys understanding when it’s their time to make the play, they make the play. They tackle ferociously. There’s a lot of white hats getting to the ball, and they make catches tough. They contest balls when they’re thrown in the air, and I think all those things showed up tonight.”
On 4th and 15 Gunnar Helm, Matthew Golden and Quinn Ewers trio:
“I thought there was a couple of things that were impressive. One, I thought it was a great job of preparation by our coaches in relaying that to our players. We actually practiced that play versus that exact defense during the week.
And there was some moving parts to that to where Quinn had to change the protection on the play and he did. He got us to a max protection. But even at that, there was some intricacies to handle the pressure the way it was coming inside. And so the protection, him changing it to them getting the protection and then Matt understanding why that route was going to be there predicated on the coverage, and I thought Quinn’s ability to stand in the pocket and deliver the ball the way that he did was a real strike. So there was layers to the whole thing.
We guessed a little with the call thinking they might come after us, and we guessed right, and he did a great job of getting the protection right and making the play.”
On Matthew Golden stepping up after Isiah Bond injuries:
“I think that’s probably a credit to Matthew and to Quinn. As a quarterback, you’re always trying to find rapport and trust in a receiver. And as a play caller you are, too. And you earn trust, right, with consistency and time. And I think there’s a level of consistency in Matthew’s game that he’s earned a lot of trust in myself and earned a lot of trust in Quinn that in a lot of the critical moments, it’s easy to try to find him, because you know he’s going to be in the right spot and you know he’s going to be competitively tough and make those plays. And I think over time, I’ve learned at least that the moment doesn’t ever get too big for him either. He remains very poised and composed in some of the bigger moments that we’ve had.”
On Quinn Ewers:
“Quinn’s a G, man. He is. Like I know he doesn’t always exude that, like in his body language and his demeanor because I say it about him about this all the time, like he’s a steady sea. He never gets really high. There’s flashes of that emotion. He never gets too low.
Sure, there’s moments of frustration that we all have, but the guy recalibrates so quickly, and he’s so calm that it allows me to lean on him, you know, in the most critical moments, especially tonight, man.
The run game was tough, and we didn’t want to get behind the sticks, and we went into overtime thinking we gotta throw it to win. And as much as I wanted to run to win, these guys will tell you, I was telling them last night I felt like in that moment, we had to throw it to win and we had to get the ball in the end zone. I just didn’t want to settle for another field goal. We had to go score.”