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Steve Sarkisian explains red zone play-calling in Cotton Bowl loss to Ohio State
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Steve Sarkisian said Friday night after the Cotton Bowl that if a team can’t find a way into the endzone from first-and-goal from the opponent’s 1, it doesn’t deserve to win.
Texas was in that exact spot against Ohio State in the fourth quarter Friday night. Trailing by 7 points with a little over 2 minutes to play, the Longhorns went from first-and-goal from the 1 to fourth-and-goal from the 8. Quarterback Quinn Ewers turned the ball over on fourth down and Ohio State took the fumble 83 yards for a game-sealing touchdown.
Sarkisian wasn’t on the hook for the fumble, but he was blasted by anyone and everyone for the sequence of play-calls that led up to that moment.
When he met with reporters in the postgame press conference, he explained the sequence of play-calls.
“Yeah really, the first 2 plays, we threw the ball into the endzone, we got back-to-back PIs. When we got down to the 1, we went to a heavy package, which is Jerrick’s package. We ran it, and we obviously didn’t get much movement at all,” Steve Sarkisian said. “And we had a plan to try to get the ball on the edge when we got down there. They went to big people. I can’t quite tell — It was on the far side of where it got leaky. But that’s one of those plays, if you block it all right, you get in the endzone, and we didn’t, and we lose quite a bit of yardage.
“And at that point, you’re kind of stuck behind the 8 ball because we knew we were in 4-down territory because of the score of the game. And I was okay even if we didn’t score, not that I didn’t want to score, but thinking, ‘Alright, they’re going to have to be backed up, and we’ll probably get 1 more possession with good field position.’ The last thing you think is the sack, and it’s going to bounce right to the guy, and he’s going to run for a touchdown.”
On first-and-goal from the 1, tailback Jerrick Gibson was stuffed up the middle for no gain. On second down, Texas tried a toss play to the left for Quintrevion Wisner and lost 7 yards. Ohio State’s Caleb Downs was almost immediately in the backfield and was quickly followed by a swarm of Buckeye defenders.
Ewers was pressured by Jack Sawyer on a third-down incompletion, and Sawyer then got home on fourth down.
“It’s unfortunate that that was the circumstances because it was a really nice drive by the offense to get all the way down there. First-and-goal on the 1 and we don’t score. You, quite frankly, probably don’t deserve to win that way.”
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
