Latest / The Craig Way Show / Steve Sarkisian on Oklahoma QB Michael Hawkins, upset-ridden Saturday

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Steve Sarkisian on Oklahoma QB Michael Hawkins, upset-ridden Saturday · The Craig Way Show

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  Speaker 1: We're back.
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  Speaker 2: It's the Craig Way Show with Hall of Fame broadcaster
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  and voice of the Texas Longhearts Craig Way.
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  Speaker 3: Earlier, we had told you that the announcement was made
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  today that the Texas Georgia gain would kick off at
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  six thirty pm on Saturday the nineteenth. And so what
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  I had done was just repost the tweet that came
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  off of x from Texas Football. So Texas versus Georgia
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  on October nineteenth, we'll kick off at six thirty pm,
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  just you know, letting people naturally, somebody has to chime in.
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  Let's take care of business at two thirty on Saturday. First,
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  no joke, just letting people know the time has been announced.
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  Speaker 1: That's all. That's all.
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  Speaker 3: Nobody's getting ahead of anything. Nobody's putting cards before horses
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  and all that other kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 1: So there.
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  Speaker 3: So baseball is underway Game two of the Division series
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  the Tigers and the Guardians. Cleveland won Game one on
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  Saturday seven and nothing. It is scoreless bottom of the first.
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  Derek Scuball pitched so well for Detroit against the Astros
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  in Game one of that Wildcard series is on the mount. Yeah,
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  I'm having the same problem you were having earlier cam
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  about the signal getting through it.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's just on TVs. So for those
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  trying to watch Tigers Guardians, try a True TV, Craig, Yeah,
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  the channel used for the NCAA tournament that people forget
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  we have. And then okay, I gotta watch, you know,
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  I gotta watch Saint Mary's against Tennessee. Yeah, it's on
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  True TV.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, all right, so keep people post on
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  that and again next hour, Geene Watson joins us to
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  talk about the Division Series in Major League Baseball. Let's
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  hear some more from Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian Sark
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  from the news conference here on our Longhorns Monday presentation
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  Broady Alive here on sports Radio AM thirteen hundred The Zone,
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  and Sark was asked about an update on his running backs,
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  in specific Jayden Blue and Trey Wisner. And I think
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  it was our friend Danny Davis from the Austin American
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  Statesman who asked this question.
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  Speaker 1: Saying that.
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  Speaker 3: I wanted to see more from Jaden during the week
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  coming off the game against Misissippi State with the two
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  fumbles at the time Sark said he had no confidence
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  issue in Jane Blue. He thought he would be fine.
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  He bounced back to work fine, and Weisner also would
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  continue to run well. So this was hal Sark addressed
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  the question about jayden blues work and Trey Wisner's during
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  the open date.
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  Speaker 5: I thought they had a good week. I thought Jayden
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  practiced really well. I thought he never mind the ball.
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  I thought, just you know, guys coming off of an
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  angle injury and sometimes you're limited in practice leading up
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  to a game. But he looks really healthy, He's practicing fast.
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  Feel very comfortable with him. Both those guys are going
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  to play in the game, and I feel comfortable with
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  either one of them in the game that we can
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  execute and do things that are really high level.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, all right, So there was that, and then other
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  questions that he addressed from the news conference included the
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  somebody asked him we had at last hour about were
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  there things to be taken, lessons to be gleaned for
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  his football team watching from AFAR over the weekend as
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  five of the top eleven ranked teams in the country
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  all took defeats, and he addressed that, and then someone
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  asked the question what about facing Oklahoma, and remember last year,
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  the Long Words lost to the Center thirty four thirty.
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  They beaten them forty nine nothing the year before that.
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  So Sark was asked, were there lessons to be taken
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  from last year's defeat.
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  Speaker 5: Well, I think it reinforced the value of the football.
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  The turnovers really hurt us in that game. I think
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  it reinforced why it's important to score touchdowns in the
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  red zone. We were in the red area three times
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  and scored a total of three points. And I think
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  it reinforced the value of you know, really playing good
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  situational football, you know where where we didn't execute very
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  well on that last drive on defense and we gave
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  up a couple blown coverages that led to ultimately a
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  touchdown to beat us. And so there's some valuable lessons
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  in that game that I think we value in our organization.
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  But again, when when they're highlighted in real time and
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  what it looks like and then you can go back
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  and touch on them, hopefully that that reinforces why we
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  prepare the way that we do so that we can
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  negate maybe some of those things that occurred in last
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  year's game.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, so last year was last year announced this year,
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  and they're facing a completely different young man at quarterback
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  for Oklahoma. It's not Dylan Gabriel this time, who's now
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  playing his trade and skills for the Oregon Ducks. By
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  the way, they have a pretty big game of their
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  own this Saturday and Eugene against Ohio State, and I
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  think that's where ESPN College Game Day is headed. As
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  I predicted last week that might be the case, because
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  I said, if they go out there, they've got Oregon
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  in Ohio State, and if Texas is able to defeat
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  Oklahoma and Georgia wins its game, then he got Texas
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  Georgia and they can be in Austin the next week.
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  I think that probably will be the plan, especially with
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  the six thirty now six thirty primetime kickoff. The Tennessee
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  Alabama game will be the afternoon game, and in those
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  games that were announced, so now they prepare for a
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  true freshman in Michael Hawkins, and Sark was had for
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  his thoughts on Hawkin's skill set and at Oklahoma quarterback run.
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  Speaker 5: Well, I think we, you know, we have to spend
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  time on their scheme, you know, in the quarterback running
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  the football in their scheme as a reality, whether it
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  was Jackson earlier in the season or now with Michael Hawkins.
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  So the quarterback's going to run and run at some point,
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  whether it's designed runs or they both have the ability
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  to tuck it and run. So it's not that we
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  have to adjust necessarily for two different styles within the
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  scheme of the player. I think what Michael Hawkins does
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  is he does provide that element of yeah, they can
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  throw it, they can run it with design runs. But
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  his first touchdown there against Auburn was a pass that
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  he tucked it and took off and ran.
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  Speaker 1: And so that's.
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  Speaker 5: Where we've got to be, you know, really cognizant of
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  him in the pocket that, yeah, we want to try
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  to get to the quarterback, but our rush lanes are
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  really critical in this game because when he pulls it,
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  it's not to get four or five or six yards.
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  I mean, he went fifty for a touchdown against Auburn,
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  So we got to be really mindful of his ability
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  to stendon plays and then create explosives with his legs.
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  Speaker 3: All right, So was that Then Sark was asked a
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  question about energy, juice, excitement, the drive and how he
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  wants to see it happened on the practice field before
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  they ever get to a ball game, that if they
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  have it in practice, it can translate into the game.
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  So he was asked, how does that happen in practice?
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  How does he see his guys bring that kind of energy.
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  Speaker 1: I look for energy. I look for intent, you know.
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  Speaker 5: I think our energy at practice, especially from some of
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  our leaders, is really important. You know, I was talking
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  to somebody earlier. I was thinking about our secondary with
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  John A. Baron, Jalen Gilbot, Manny Mohammad, Michael Taff. These
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  guys provide a lot of juice in practice, Like that
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  group has got a lot of personality about them that
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  I think kind of permeates throughout our team. And so
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  sometimes you never know where it's going to start and
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  who kind of are those guys. But our secondaries kind
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  of the energizer bunny to me, you know, they're the
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  ones that kind of spark a lot of what we
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  do and bring that energy that way, and I think
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  is a good thing.
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  Speaker 1: So that's the first part I look for.
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  Speaker 5: The second part is intent, if they're really understanding what
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  we're trying to accomplish in certain periods in practice, and
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  then executing them in a way, communicating in a way,
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  talking about things in a way that that feels like
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  they're engaged. And those two things I think are kind
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  of really important to us, especially for me, you know,
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  because it's easy. You can go to practice and go
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  through the motions and it can kind of look okay,
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  And we never want to go through the motions. We
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  want to make sure that we're really intentional with the
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  work that we're doing, but yet doing it in a
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  facet in a style that is ours and that's definitely upbeat, energized,
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  and kind of a lot of positive energy, if that
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  makes sense.
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  Speaker 1: All right.
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  Speaker 3: Next came a question about how his depth at linebacker
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  is really showed itself out during the first five weeks
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  of the season and on the team, the depth overall
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  being a big factor.
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  Speaker 5: I think overall totality of the team. We've played a
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  lot of players this season, and it's shown to be
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  beneficial to us that we have played a lot of
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  people and played a lot of players. And you know,
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  I think one of the challenges for us as coaches is, yes,
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  we want to put our players, our best players in
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  position to be successful throughout the ball game, but the
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  mindset needs to be to do that. Maybe you need
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  to spell them earlier in the game so that they
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  are can be at their best late in the game
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  in the fourth quarter. And so hey at linebacker, we're
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  fortunate we've been playing five guys. There really a good
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  four man rotation, but we've been playing five with Anthony
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  and Leonga, David Bendemo Blackwell and to Anthony Smith. We've
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  also implemented more defensive personnel groupings and so we've been
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  going to dime a lot more where we've even taken
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  one of those guys off the field and played with
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  anx extra dB on the field. So all that being said,
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  hopefully we can be more fresh late in the game.
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  And because fresh doesn't mean always physically, I'm in the
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  best position, but I think mentally it can take its
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  toll when you're when you're worn down, So we want
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  to stay fresh. We're at our best when we're a
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  fresh football team. Football team, and you know that'll be
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  the goal against Saturday.
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  Speaker 1: All right.
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  Speaker 3: We also know this is a very emotional game. It
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  carries its own emotional baggage, and Sarka has always said
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  he wants his team to play with emotion but not
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  play emotionally. There is a difference. And he talks a
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  little bit about the mood swings and the way the
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  game can go and how it can affect you both
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  positively and negatively due to your emotions.
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  Speaker 1: It's fascinating.
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  Speaker 5: I think nine of the last ten years this game
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  has been decided by one score, and so to think like,
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  whatever happens in this game early on is just gonna
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  that's the way it's going to go is probably not
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  a reality.
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  Speaker 1: And we've been on it multiple ways.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 5: Our first year, we jumped out to a really big
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  lead and they came back and got us. The next
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  year we kind of ran away with that game. Last
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  year we fell behind, we came all the way back
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  to take the lead, and then ultimately they went down
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  to score at the end to beat us. And so
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  I think that the key to this drill to me
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  is emotions run high in games like this, and most
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  notably in this game. And I'm not here to deny
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  that our players won't have some emotions in this game,
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  and I think they deserve that they should have it.
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  The key is not to cross over that threshold where
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  we get emotional. And I felt like in last year's game,
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  we got a little emotional at times. You know, we
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  had an unsportsmanlike conduct after the block punt for the touchdown,
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  one of our players took his helmet off. That's uncharacteristic
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  for us. And so I want to make sure that
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  we stay true to who we are. That we do
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  have emotion, and there's nothing wrong with that, but we
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  fight the urge to get emotional. So I think when
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  we get emotional, that's when some of those those types
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  of things happened that that can cause caused put us
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  in a position that maybe might not be unsuccessful with.
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  So that's what I'm looking for, and that's what kind
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  of I'm preaching to throughout the week to get ourselves
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  in the right frame of mind for Saturday at two
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  forty nine or whenever we kicked off.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll mean whenever that is. It will be right
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  around that time. And then another thing he was asked
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  about was the fact that and I mentioned this last segment,
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  all of their remaining opponents on their schedule, the ones
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  who played Oklahoma didn't play, but the other ones who
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  played all lost during the during the I mean all one,
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  excuse me, they went perfect during the weekend, the one
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  the one Oklahoma did not play, but all the ones
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  who did play won their games. And Sark was asked
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  about the difficulty of the second half of this season
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  coming up in conference play, and.
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  Speaker 5: This is to take nothing away from anybody we're playing,
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  but I really focus on us. You know, so much
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  of what we do with our team. The opponents just
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  give us what need to prepare for. But the way
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  we prepare is really about us. And I use the
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  adage know be ingamored with us. You guys have heard
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  me talk that way, and I think this team really
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  understands that. And again that's to take nothing away from
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  the people we're playing, but we're going to dictate how
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  we play Saturday, not not the opponent. And so we
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  really try to focus on what we need to do.
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  Like I said, we're fortunate that we get to play
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  a heck of a schedule and we've got really good games,
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  not only this weekend, but as the season the season
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  goes on, there's going to be adversity that strikes for
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  multiple teams, including ourselves, and how we respond to that
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  is going to be critical. So that's that's kind of
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  where our mindset is it's really not so much about
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  what other people do. It's about what we do and
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  how we prepare, and so that's really not changing for us.
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  Speaker 3: All right, So there's sarchs thoughtson that. We're going to
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  hear more from head coach Steve Sarkisian coming up next hour.
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  We'll have some other college and pro football notes coming
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  up here on sports Radio AM thirteen under the zone
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  of the iHeartRadio app.