How Steve Sarkisian Believes He Upgraded at This Key Position

The Texas Longhorns lost and subsequently replaced 40 scholarship players this offseason. Some were surprises, others seemed to be somewhat planned.

The Longhorns made several calculated gambles: allowing wide receivers Parker Livingstone and Deandre Moore to leave paved the way for top portal-target Cam Coleman, letting linebacker Liona Lefau walk opened the pocketbook for two-time All-ACC selection Rasheem Biles.

The position which best represents this philosophy is running back, as head coach Steve Sarkisian and his staff allowed their four highest rushers not named Arch Manning to leave the program before signing two top-five runners. Sarkisian, for one, believes that they made the correct decision.

Steve Sarkisian Says Turnover at Running Back Was Opportunistic, Fits Explosive Offense

Texas Longhorns running back Raleek Brown runs the football against the Iowa State Cyclones as a member of the Arizona State Sun Devils. | Reese Strickland-Imagn Images

Sarkisian had his first media availability since the Cheez-It Cintrus Bowl today. Among a bevy of topics, he was asked about what his plan was for rebuilding the running back room.

"I just felt like we had an opportunity to get back to the style of players that fit what we were trying to do at a cost point," Sarkisian said. "There's value on everything."

Texas is 'playing the game' when it comes to the transfer portal, bringing in the third-best class in the country and acquiring the most new players of any team not changing head coaches.

This was largely because, in the current state of college football, teams have to renegotiate with their players every season. When a team like Texas feels like a player is asking for too much, or that they can get a better value on another player, they are going to go out and acquire someone else.

Sakisian and his staff felt like they could effectively trade in all four of their top backs from last year for Hollywood Smothers and Raleek Brown, who are more explosive and fit the Sarkisian offense better.

"[Smothers and Brown] are explosive players, can run the style of runs that we like to run, are versatile catching the ball out of the backfield [and] have home-run-hitting ability," Sarkisian said. "We have to get back to being the explosive offense that we're accustomed to being, [and] those two guys fit."

Explosion, while typical of a Sarksian offense, was seriously lacking last year, Brown and Smothers should change that.

Texas' running backs combined for 32 runs of 10 or more yards last season, Smothers had 24 and Brown had 31. Smothers had a breakaway percentage, the percent of runs that turn into gains of 15 or more, of 52.3%, Brown was at 45.8% and Texas' most dynamic runner last season was at 27.1%.

While competition plays a factor here, Brown and Smothers were still power-four backs, and there lines performed just about as well as Texas' did.

Still, it can be hard to integrate transfers into a team's culture, especially at a competitive position like running back.

Thankfully, Sarkisian assuaged those fears as well.

"They're probably two of the closest transfers, they've almost become best friends on our team already," said Sarkisian. "They understand that they need each other and they understand that historically, for our program, we've always done well when we've had two."

The best recent example of such a pairing is probably the duo of Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson, who rushed for a combined 2,134 yards and 23 touchdowns while both averaging six yards per carry.

If the Longhorns get that kind of output from their run game's shiniest new toys, the offense will certainly be more explosive, and Sarkisian's gamble will have paid off.