The Oklahoma Sooners took questions in Downtown Dallas at the Omni Hotel for SEC Media Day on July 16, 2024.
Historically, they've been the big dogs with the shiniest toys at Big 12 Media Days in AT&T Stadium. This year, though, withMake no mistake: Texas still moved the needle at this week's SEC Media Days at the Omni Hotel in Downtown Dallas -- just like they did in the Big 12 -- withBut the SEC is not the Big 12. The conference's"It just means more" tag is its mantra for a reason.
"This is the deepest team we've had," Sarkisian said when touching on his team's outlook for its inaugural SEC campaign." probably the most talented football team we've had." Ewers is ready for the Longhorns' challenging schedule, which includes marquee matchups against Michigan, Georgia and Oklahoma in the first six weeks.."We're all fired up to go, like you said, up to Ann Arbor. It's actually my second time going up there. I was up there when Ohio State played 'em back in 2021. It's going to be cool to go back up there and see, and now I understand the hatred that Ohio State has for them. I understand the rivalry.
I learned more about Tampa 2 than anybody, so anybody who's playing me, please play Tampa 2 because I can tell you exactly who's supposed to go where, how and why because that's how Monte Kiffin was. He was so detailed. He was a genuine man. He cared for all of those that nobody cared about. Next I want to shift gears to talk a little bit about a couple weeks ago in Austin, Texas, and we had our SEC celebration, and what a celebration it was. You could feel the excitement from Longhorn nation, the fact that we get to be here today, this fall, playing in the Southeastern Conference is tremendous. That was a tremendous event. I was shocked, quite frankly, at the amount of people and the pageantry that was there that day.
I was just joking with him in the back. So we flew in this morning, we landed, and we get off the plane, we get in the Sprinter van and we got a police escort to media days. It just means more? It just means more right there. The fact that we had a Sprinter van with a police escort to come to this was tremendous.
As far as our team goes, I think this team has been really, really focused. It's been a long time coming for Texas to get back to this stage. Last year was a tremendous run. We fell short in the semifinals in the Sugar Bowl coming off of being Big 12 champions.
For us to sit here and say this is the deepest team we've had, probably the most talented team we've had in my four years here, I can unequivocally say that, and we lost some really good players a year ago, but we've got a very deep football team, one that we're excited about, and looking forward to watching them compete this fall.
Kelvin Banks is also with us today, our left tackle who's been a day one starter since he was a true freshman. If there's anybody in our program that I would say, hey, go emulate that guy, the way he handles his business, on the field, off the field, the way he works, first guy there, last guy off the field, that's Kelvin Banks.
From an offensive perspective, if you haven't ever seen us play, we believe in balance, we believe in trying to make it hard on the defense with multiple personnel groupings, formations, motion shifts. We love to run the football. We love to play action pass. We love to RPO. That's not going to change.
Then on special teams, we're an aggressive special teams unit. We try to go block the kick. If we're not going to block the kick, we're going to try to return it for a touchdown. That's just the way we operate.
But at the University of Texas, part of the standard being the standard is competing for championships. I'm up here talking about football, but it's at every sport. It's at every level. Regardless of the conference -- and that's to take nothing away from the SEC -- our goal is to come into this conference and compete for a conference championship. It is what it is. That's why you go to the University of Texas. So that won't change.
I think they trained Arch to try to put himself in the best position to try to play in the best conference in America and then ultimately put himself in the best position to further his career playing in the National Football League. But this isn't a lack of talent. This group is very talented and by far and away our deepest receiver corps that we've had in four years.There's a lot of Heisman hype with Quinn and Carson Beck. How does his demeanor make him ideal to deal with all that external noise?: You know, I think Quinn is probably like the coolest guy in the room. He doesn't get caught up in what a Heisman -- if you asked him, would he even know? He's just not caught up in that stuff.
But as you continue to stay committed to who you are and you stay committed to your course of action, you stay committed to what you believe in, over time you start to reap the benefits of that. Last year we raved about the leadership of about five or six guys, Jordan Whittingtons of the world, Byron Murphys of the world. This year I could probably tell you I've got 25 leaders because these guys have grown up in our program. They don't know any different than our culture.
This is the most unique game for sure that I've ever been a part of. When you pull into the State Fair and you start smelling those corn dogs and turkey legs and there's fans from both teams and then you get in those locker rooms and the locker rooms literally are 20 feet apart and you're staring at each team, and one goes first, the next one goes next, and it can get a little contentious in there, but that's okay.
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