Texas may not have answered every question in one Saturday afternoon, but it did offer a pretty clear glimpse of what this staff can look like when Steve Sarkisian is able to stay locked in on the offense.
The Longhorns rolled past Texas State 56-7, and while the opponent was overmatched, the performance still stood out for what it suggested about the structure around Sarkisian. With Will Muschamp handling the defense, Sarkisian said he spent less time worrying about that side of the ball than he has in years.
"I can tell you today, I was less on the defensive headset than I've been in the previous five years," Sarkisian said following his team's trouncing of the Bobcats.
That setup is exactly why Muschamp was brought in after Texas moved away from former defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski. The idea was to give Sarkisian a true "head coach of the defense" so he could be more available to the offense, and against Texas State that arrangement seemed to pay off in a big way.
Texas piled up 516 yards of total offense, converted 11-of-15 third downs and scored six touchdowns in seven trips to the red zone.
"It allowed me to stay on the offensive headset, communicate more with [quarterbacks coach] AJ [Milwee] and [assistant quarterback coach] Michael Biamonte and [offensive line coach] Kyle Flood on offense," Sarkisian said.
That matters because Sarkisian built his reputation as one of the sharpest offensive minds in college football. He did it as a playcaller at Southern California in the mid-2000s, then again at Alabama from 2019-2020, where he ran some of the sport's most productive offenses.
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