What Steve Sarkisian and Texas Said After the 20-19 Loss to Alabama

Despite having its starting quarterback leave the game with an injury, and numerous mistakes, Texas still took the No. 1 Crimson Tide to the wire.

Author:
Christopher Walsh
Publish date:
Sep 11, 2022 12:22 AM EDT

In this story:

Alabama Crimson Tide

Here's some of what Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, and a few of his players, said after the 20-19 loss to No. 1 Alabama on Saturday:

"That was a hell of a college football game. What an environment for college football. What an environment for us, The University of Texas. I thought our fans were unbelievable; they came out, and our student section was fantastic. I think we had a record crowd today. I don't know the exact number, but over 105,000 people, and I want to thank them for their support and what they brought and how they supported our guys. I thought our team played hard, played tough, overcame a lot of adversity today, and continued to battle and fight. In the end, that's the best team in the country. In a weird way, we can kind of feel pretty good about ourselves of where we're at in the state of our program. None of us come to The University of Texas not to win, right? Not to win those games, and that's why you play in those games. I'm very appreciative of the crowd supporting our guys at the end for our style of play and the way we played because I think we played Texas football today. But in the end, it still stings, right? You get involved in sports to try to win the game, and unfortunately, we didn't do that today. But I'm proud of the way our team played and the way they responded to some tough situations. You lose your starting quarterback, and that's never fun. Then your backup quarterback gets in the game and he’s injured and fights through. We gave up a long touchdown run there, an 80- yard touchdown run. Our defense responded. I think they went six straight punts after that. We drove down at the end of the first half and missed the field goal, then turned right around and came back in the second half and continued to battle and compete. So hey, that was a physical game. Alabama's a very physical team, all the credit in the world, and they found a way to make plays when they needed (Alabama quarterback) Bryce Young's Houdini act, getting out of the sack to scramble down the sideline to put them in field goal range. Great teams find a way, and I thought we found a way to take the lead, and I thought we had found a way to win it. I don't think we're that far off. As I told the team, I don't look at this as we lost. We ran out of time. I felt good about us finding a way to go down and score again there, but the clock hit zero, but we didn't lose today. We just ran out of time. Proud of our kids, proud of our team, proud of our coaches for the preparation. Now the key to the drill is getting back on the horse tomorrow and getting right back to work. We will play again in seven days. I think somebody or one of y'all asked me earlier in the week, "Is this game going to define us and define our season?" And it’s not. We have 10 more regular season games to go play. Our season will be defined by how we play throughout the entirety of the season. That next step comes next Saturday, so we don't have a lot of time for the poor me's and I don't think we will. I think our team's going to hold their heads high with the way they played. And we'll get back to work and hopefully come out on top next Saturday."

On the game plan after Hudson Card came in at quarterback:

The game plan didn't change. What changed the game plan was when Hudson could not move. When your quarterback can't move and you're going against that defensive front, that's when it started to change some and we had to start really tweaking and tweaking on the fly to protect him, quite frankly. So, it wouldn't have changed if he was healthy and feeling good. But ultimately, he got rolled up and so things had to start getting adjusted.

On Hudson Card having to step in:

I thought Hudson handled it great. A couple really good completions there, a couple big scrambles; he's always used his legs well. Big time completion to (redshirt freshman wide receiver) Casey Cain there on the final drive to the second and last drive to get us down there for the field goal as a guy who hadn't gotten in first team reps all week. So when you come in those types of situations, it's never easy, and I thought he performed more than admirably.

On the Texas defense:

I think, first of all, our defense did an unbelievable job and our defensive staff did a tremendous job preparing our players. I give our players a lot of credit for again, having belief and trust in their coaches to execute the plan and to go out and do it at a really high level. I thought we played tough. I thought we played physical. I thought we played hard. For the most part, I think we tackled well. It is unfortunate the one run got out for the long run, and that's a talented group. They have a lot of good players and a good quarterback. I thought we affected the quarterback enough. Bad luck on the potential safety there that could have changed the complexion of the game, but that's football, man, that's the way it goes. I appreciate the guys, the coaches in their preparation, and the players for buying into the plan and then executing it.

On Hudson Card's performance:

On the team as a whole after the one-point loss:

I'm so proud of our team because let's call it like it is, nobody gave us a chance in this game. None of you. None of the national media. Nobody gave us a chance, okay. But we believed in our locker room that we could go win this game. We played like a team that believed they could win this game. We played like a team that thought they were going to win the game. Things happen and bad breaks happen. We ended up not winning, so I'm super proud of our guys that they played our style of football, our brand of football. I thought we played with great energy from start to finish. I thought we had tremendous effort in all three phases. I thought we played a tough brand of football. I thought we were hitting. We were physical. I thought we were mentally tough. We overcame a lot of adversity today. I thought we made plays when we had some opportunities to make them, and I thought we played pretty smart today. I don't think there were any plays you're like what are they doing? So that's our style and I'm proud that we played our style of football, our brand of football, against a quality team. So yeah, there's a lot to be proud of. But I know when I watch this tape, there's going to be a lot of things that I know we can improve upon. And that's the key to the drill for any season, especially early in the season, is that we've got to continue to improve individually across the board so that we can improve collectively, and there's plenty for us to work on to get better at. Clearly, this was a physical game. I think both teams are probably a little bit beat up coming out of this one. So we might have some opportunities for some other guys that are going to have to step up and help contribute to the team.

Running Back Bijan Robinson

On the 20-19 loss:

It's tough. We were right there. But for this game, I think this is a lesson for this team and how we fight and come together. It just shows all the hard work we've been putting in for competition like this to come in here. And I know we lost by a point, but I think that we understand that we came out here, and we never gave up, we fought through the whole thing. It just shows what this team is capable of and will be.

On the team's expectations:

I know the adversity was on us. Nobody thought we could do it. I know we didn't come out with the win, but we showed we're not the team to back down and we’re gonna bring the fight throughout the whole game and throughout this whole season. We're ready to go against anybody, but I think what the country saw was Texas; they have a different culture, a new brotherhood, and I believe that we're in the fight for success throughout the season.

On the Longhorns' growth since the Arkansas loss in 2021:

That’s what we’ve been harping about this whole offseason. We realized that we wanted to be a really great team with each other. And we knew that we had this competition coming in week two, and I felt that we needed it going into the start of the season with confidence. Playing Alabama and seeing where we were at, and understanding that we still have a lot of work to do obviously. The fight and the chemistry that we have together, and the willingness to just go out there and just play football and have fun shows positive results.

Defensive Back Anthony Cook

On the team's effort:

It was just a tough loss, but I’m proud of all the guys’ effort. We definitely learned something about ourselves. We’re going to use this as a springboard, a catapult for the rest of the season.

What did the Longhorns learn about themselves?

Just our toughness. I mean I really just learned stuff that I already knew, if that makes sense like I already knew this. The locker room already knows how hard we play and all the work we put in. We just fell short today.

On the atmosphere:

Man, it was amazing. These are the types of games players live and die for. We live for the big moments. We fell short, but the atmosphere was amazing and we appreciate all the fans that came out to show support.

On how the defense responded:

Coach always emphasizes that good defenses are able to adjust, so that’s what I think we did. We adjusted. We took what they threw at us and got the calls from the defensive coordinator and put ourselves in the right position.

Linebacker Demarvion Overshown

Despite the scoreboard, was it still kind of a win for Texas?

It still feels like a loss. You know, early on in the week I did say that I wanted to see how our team was going to respond to adversity and we dealt with that throughout the game and we responded really well. So, I'm excited for the rest of the season. At the end of the day, it's an L on our side, and we just come back to work tomorrow.

Any positives you can take away from this?

Oh, it is, just training hard since the last year and coming back into this game. People [were] not giving us a shot at all. So, that chemistry and that brotherhood that we've been talking about, that we've been preaching about all the way up until now, it showed out there. Like I said, I'm really proud of our guys. We didn't quit, we gave it all we had to the clock hit zero

What was clicking so well on defense?

[We were] just playing with each other. We knew coming into this game, it was gonna be a hard-fought game and we knew if we've done our job, we’d have a chance at the end of the game. I'm just proud of our guys for going out there. We know the preached effort and physicality and that's what we show today.