What Steve Sarkisian said about Georgia following loss to Bulldogs
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Steve Sarkisian says his Texas team faced the standard of college football in its third SEC game.
Sarkisian’s Texas squad entered Saturday’s top-5 showdown with an undefeated record and No. 1 rankings. The Longhorns were slight home favorites against a Georgia squad that had lost a 1-score game at Alabama. Texas fell 30-15 for its first loss of the season.
“They’ve been the standard in college football now for about 5, 6, 7 years,” Sarkisian said in his postgame press conference. “And I thought we played them really well in the second half.
“But we just, when you get behind the 8-ball with the way we played the first half, it’s a lot to overcome against good football teams.”
The Bulldogs stunned the Longhorns, scoring 16 in the 2nd quarter to lead 23-0 at the half. Texas would manage 15 points, all in the 3rd quarter. UGA sealed the victory by winning the 4th quarter 7-0.
The Georgia defense tallied 7 sacks, 10 tackles for loss and forced 4 turnovers. Texas quarterbacks completed only 57% of their passes for 230 yards. Thanks to the sack yards, the Longhorns finished with only 29 net rushing yards.
“They did a nice job of disguising, I’ll say that,” Sarkisian said of the Georgia defense.
“They held a lot of their 2 safety shells and then when they got out of that, there were some pressure packages and they were holding that shell even though they were going to poke one high defense,” he said.
Sarkisian directly acknowledged standout performances from Mykel Williams (3 tackles, 2 TFL, 2 sacks) and Jalon Walker (8 tackles, 3 TFL, 3 sacks).
“I think No. 13 (Willams) being healthy helped them; he hadn’t played there for a while,” Sarkisian said. “I think he played 9 snaps last week and then came back tonight ready to go, and he’s a problem.
“(Number) Eleven (Walker) is a physical player off the edge as well at linebacker.”
Sarkisian and the Longhorns will look to get back on track in Week 9 at Vanderbilt. The Commodores have been one of the SEC’s biggest surprises, winning 3 straight to improve to 5-2 overall.
[H/T DawgNation]
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
