Nearly every single time he sits at the press conference table \u2014 postgame or Mondays, rain or shine \u2014 Texas football head coach Steve Sarkisian says two enigmatic words.<\/p>\n
\u201cComplementary football.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think ultimately, what came out of (this game), was we\u2019ve got to be better at playing complementary football,\u201d Sarkisian said the Monday after week one\u2019s loss to Ohio State.<\/p>\n
Then, a week later, after the win against San Jos\u00e9 State:<\/p>\n
\u201cMore importantly was the ability to play complementary football,\u201d Sarkisian said. \u201cWhich I didn\u2019t think we did a great job of.\u201d<\/p>\n
If we are talking about Texas football\u2019s priorities, this must be the first and last. The alpha and omega \u2014 The end-all, be-all.<\/p>\n
And if that\u2019s the case, you, my dear reader, must be curious \u2014 what exactly is complementary football? When we discuss the terms of game play being complementary, what\u2019s the context?<\/p>\n
Complementary football is explosiveness. It\u2019s power. It\u2019s a team that\u2019s worth more as a whole, dynamic in knowing that potential is fulfilled when each member finds worth in the sum of the team\u2019s parts rather than isolated individual successes.<\/p>\n
Right now, Texas isn\u2019t playing complementary football.<\/p>\n
Why is the offense outlagged by the defense? How is Texas winning football games despite having just about 200 passing yards per game? Why are Texas\u2019 explosive plays so inconsistent against cupcake teams, while the defense continues to stifle any fight from opponents (until the very last five minutes of the fourth)?<\/p>\n
Complementary football is played when the offense consistently makes explosive plays and evens out both the vertical and ground game to efficiently maximize yardage and keep possession of the ball for a longer amount of time. On the other side, the defense contains the other team and creates its own plays to force turnovers and give opportunities to the offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we can be situational masters, the one thing that you\u2019ve got to do is capitalize on turnovers \u2026 So that means that you\u2019re playing as a connected team,\u201d senior safety Michael Taaffe said after San Jos\u00e9 State. \u201cYou\u2019re just playing complementary offense and defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
With an offense struggling to find its identity, complementary football has yet to be consistently exemplified in this Texas team.<\/p>\n
With Southeastern Conference play on the horizon, the Longhorns are running out of time to prove \u2014 to themselves and to everyone else watching on the sidelines \u2014 that they are, in fact, capable of playing complementary football.<\/p>\n
With all due respect, this Sam Houston game is the epitome of a cake walk. The defense so far in the Bearkats\u2019 0-3 season has allowed 442.3 yards per game on average, with about 314.7 of those allowed yards in the air.<\/p>\n
If sophomore quarterback Arch Manning isn\u2019t able to find a rhythm with his receivers this game, it may be time to wave goodbye to any prevailing, last-ditch hopes for this season.<\/p>\n
But it isn\u2019t just about Manning. Remember \u2014 this is about complementary football. Manning is not the sum of all the parts of this team. He\u2019s just one working part in a Texas machine that has a long way to go to earn the coveted adjective of well-oiled.<\/p>\n
There are two weeks left for that machine to run the way it needs to before it faces every other well-oiled machine in the SEC. I\u2019d love to see a start this Saturday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly every single time he sits at the press conference table \u2014 postgame or Mondays, rain or shine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-153409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}