Quinn Ewers called a team meeting after the Alabama win and more from Steve Sarkisian

In the heady moments after the upset of the Alabama Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa on Saturday, Texas Longhorns quarterback Quinn Ewers publicly shared some thoughts about the state of the program.

“This is what we do. This is what we’re on now. We always trust Coach Sark. He’s got it dialed up. If we prepare the way we prepare, we’re hard to stop,” said Ewers.

Hours later, members of the team were celebrating with students at the fountain on the south mall, among other late-night endeavors.

During the team’s Monday morning meeting, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian showed the Longhorns around 20 coachable moments, teachable moments, or things that the team did well before turning the focus to what the team needed to accomplish this week heading into the Wyoming game.

Later that day, Ewers texted Sarkisian requesting a player’s-only meeting on Tuesday morning before practice. In the past, such meetings have typically come after bad losses, signaling a season on the brink of collapse. The Longhorns have certainly had plenty such moments since losing the 2009 national championship game to the Crimson Tide. But Tuesday’s meeting organized by Ewers was a different type of player’s-only meeting — it was about avoiding exactly that type of letdown.

“The fact that Quinn and the leadership committee wanted to have a player’s-only meeting to make sure that they were reiterating the message about getting re-focused on what we need to do this week, I thought it was it was a great sign for us,” said Sarkisian.

Here’s more from the Texas head coach on Thursday.

The trajectory of championship teams — “We’ve talked about early in the week and we’ve been talking to the team all week that championship teams improve and get better as the season goes on. And we didn’t come into the first couple ballgames of the season as a finished product — we’ve got plenty of room for improvement and I think that the veteran leaders on our team have done a nice job this week of getting everybody kind of reset and refocused and getting back to work.”

On the rotation of DJ Campbell and Cole Hutson at right guard — “They both played well Saturday night. I think for both of them it’s not the worst thing that they’re rotating a little bit and DJ this is kind of his first real experience playing. For Cole coming off of some offseason surgeries and getting his getting his body in shape. And in the end, you know, there’s no telling, other things can happen on the offensive line where injuries and different things potentially could occur down the road and both those guys are getting really valuable experience and they’re both maximizing their opportunities when they’re on the field. So I’m okay right now with where we’re at and we’ll just continue to monitor that situation as we go.”

Both players flashed at times against Alabama. Campbell showed tenacity in his finishing ability and an improved understanding of how to handle line games, an issue against Rice. Hutson had a notable moment pulling into space, his best quality as an offensive lineman dating back to his high school days.

On Craig Bohl and his Wyoming team — “I think teams ultimately take on the personality of their head coach and Coach Bohl has been doing it a long time and he’s been doing it at a high level at multiple places. He’s always been really successful. His teams have always been gritty, hard-nosed, and tough. They play a physical brand of football and this team is no different. They love to run the football. They love to do it a variety of ways with the personnel groupings, the shifts, the motions to come downhill at you and then they utilize the play-action pass and utilize the quarterback’s legs to take advantage of that. I think defensively it’s a really veteran group, it’s a very smart defense, as much as they are tough and hard-nosed, they’re very intelligent in the way they go about their business. They’ve got a really good pressure package, especially on third down and in the red area that they execute really well. They do a good job defending the run.”

On the status of the running game — “I think at the end of the day for us from a run-game standpoint, I want to see consistency, and with consistency comes a level of physicality. We have to move people off the line of scrimmage and I just don’t think that we’ve been quite consistent enough in that aspect of our team. Again, I love the fact that we were able to run the ball the way that we did with seven minutes to go and run it when Alabama knew we were gonna run the ball. But I sure would like to have that mentality in the first quarter of the game and to go out and run the football the way that I think we’re capable of. So when you talk about making improvements, that’s definitely one of them for us where I think we can improve as a football team. But that goes hand in hand with our ability to pass the football as well — we need to find that balance on our offense because that’s when we’re at our best.”