Texas’ Sarkisian, Like Saban, Wary of ‘Rat Poison’ From Pundits

The former Alabama assistant echoed his old boss after earning some recognition for his team’s efforts this past weekend.

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian has been showered with praise from around the college football landscape after his Longhorns put up a heroic effort against No. 1 Alabama this weekend. 

However, the former Crimson Tide assistant took a piece of advice from his old boss Nick Saban and is making sure that his team isn’t getting an inflated sense of importance after one good performance.

“First of all, to quote my old boss, we’ve got to be careful of the rat poison of people telling us how good we are, which is important,” Sarkisian said, per ESPN. “A week ago, everyone told us how bad we were. Now this week, everyone wants to tell us how good we are. We’ve got to be careful to quiet the noise outside of our building and focus on us.”

Texas nearly stole a win from Saban’s Alabama squad in front of a raucous home crowd of 105,213 fans on Saturday. Reigning Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young played spoiler, leading the Crimson Tide to a game-winning field goal with 10 seconds left.

Though the result didn’t fall in their favor, the Longhorns and Sarkisian earned well-deserved recognition for their efforts in Week 2.

“I definitely wanted to address it because, you know, I’m getting the text messages too,” Sarkisian said. “I’m getting the phone calls. ‘Hey, you guys are great, man. You look great,’ this and that. Thanks, but you know, we got more work to do.”

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The Longhorns will now turn their focus to a UTSA team that went 12–2 last season and opened up the 2022 campaign with a triple-overtime loss to No. 24 Houston and an OT win at Army this past weekend. Though the Roadrunners may not be the same caliber of a program as the Crimson Tide, Sarkisian is ensuring that his team is well-prepared for their Conference USA opponent.

“They have our attention,” he said. “That didn’t take long this morning when we turned the tape on for them. They get your attention. We need to be ready to go.”

Kickoff between Texas and UTSA is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET on Saturday.

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