After 222 days of offseason, the Texas Longhorns will play their first football game of the season this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While head coach Steve Sarkisian and his staff can do their best to manufacture real game scenarios, atmosphere and pressure during practice and scrimmages, there\u2019s nothing like walking out under the beating Texas sun while over 100,000 fans cheer in excitement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the season opener, Sarkisian will learn a lot about his team that he couldn\u2019t necessarily learn during fall camp.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One thing he is certain about, however, is his team\u2019s toughness and intensity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t question our effort, our intent or our physicality,\u201d Sarkisian said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to play hard.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Much of that intensity stems from a revamped defense, which earned glowing reviews from Sarkisian throughout camp. With a combination of key transfers, veteran leaders and a fresh system under new defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, the unit has all of the pieces to be one of the most elite, aggressive defenses in the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While last season\u2019s defense was the deciding factor in a lot of games, the group battled with inconsistency, ranking sixth in the Southeastern Conference in scoring. Sarkisian wanted more aggressiveness and havoc for opposing offensives to navigate.<\/p>\n
That is why he hired Muschamp from Georgia. Muschamp, who held the defensive coordinator position at Texas between 2008-10, shares a similar philosophy and approach to defense. Sarkisian wants his defense to have an \u201cin your face,\u201d tough and hard-nosed identity. The two also both believe in coaching hard but building rapport with the players.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
That new, aggressive identity Muschamp has brought with him from Athens has not gone unnoticed by Sarkisian and the players, especially junior edge Colin Simmons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Muschamp was hired in July, Simmons visited his office to ask what he could do to improve himself and help the team. Muschamp\u2019s response was simple \u2014 be himself and have fun.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to Simmons, Muschamp is a player\u2019s coach in every sense of the word, and has praised the change of mentality Muschamp has established. Simmons said he does a great job coming each day and setting the tone to one that is different from last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my first year seeing this type of tone,\u201d Simmons said. \u201cAggressive. You\u2019re going to be on your feet. You\u2019re going to be 10 toes down, on your feet. Muschamp is going to make sure you know what you got before you leave that meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the biggest storylines of fall camp was how well the defense has performed against the offense during scrimmages. While Sarkisian said the group has room to grow, its level of consistency has improved. The group has bought into Muschamp\u2019s scheme and style, especially because it\u2019s full of what he calls \u201calphas.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Regardless of the praise and expectations surrounding the unit, it is time for the group to become what Sarkisian and Muschamp believe it is capable of being when it matters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited for these guys,\u201d Sarkisian said. \u201cI don\u2019t know. We\u2019ll find out if we\u2019re going to be better or not. Right? We have to put it on tape. It\u2019s one thing to talk about it. It\u2019s another to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 222 days of offseason, the Texas Longhorns will play their first football game of the season this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-422549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}