Steve Sarkisian explains how he’ll integrate championship culture at Texas
By Keith Farner
Published:
Steve Sarkisian has coached in four national championship games and that, combined with his overall experience at Alabama as offensive coordinator, offers him a blueprint to try and build Texas into a national title contender.
He explained at Big 12 Media Days how he plans to integrate that championship culture. It’s a turnaround challenge for the Longhorns, who were 7-3 last year, and have won 10 games in a season just once since last winning the Big 12 title in 2009.
“The reality of it is the best teams I’ve been part of were really competitive, played for one another and were ‘teams,'” he said, per AL.com. “It wasn’t a group of really good individuals. They played as a team. And I think ultimately that’s what we’re trying to instill in our players, is we’ve got a lot of talented individuals and ultimately we’re building a team.”
Sarkisian has already turned over the roster with 32 new faces, including six transfers to go with 26 incoming freshmen.
“The best teams that win at a high level, that win big games, understand the consistency needed on a daily basis to push one another as like-minded individuals to drive for more and more, but ultimately execute at the critical moments and that the moment doesn’t ever become too big,” he said. “So whether it’s playing OU or in a national championship or a Big 12 Championship, whatever that may be, the bigger the game really shouldn’t matter to us because that’s just who we are on a daily basis. That’s what we’re trying to instill in our team.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
