{"id":477531,"date":"2026-10-26T22:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T22:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/477531\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T22:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T22:22:10","slug":"texas-football-finding-motivation-in-kobe-bryant-and-entourage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/477531\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas football: Finding motivation in Kobe Bryant and Entourage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Texas<\/p>\n

Texas quarterback Arch Manning has been watching HBO’s “Entourage” to get a laugh and cope with college football’s pressure.<\/p>\n

Jay Janner\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n

AUSTIN \u2014 Texas<\/a> has gone Hollywood.<\/p>\n

And we\u2019re not just talking about Arch Manning\u2019s national commercials<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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After two losses in the last three games but a scintillating, season-saving win over seventh-ranked Ole Miss last Saturday<\/a>, the now 11th-ranked Longhorns turned to an unusual source for motivation for their final five games, starting with a home game against Mississippi State on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Steve Sarkisian has looked to the late Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers legend and five-time NBA champion. Sarkisian met Bryant several times because their daughters attended the same high school and played on the same volleyball team.<\/p>\n

MAILBAG: What’s up with onsides kicks?<\/a><\/p>\n

He was particularly impressed with the way Bryant coached his daughter Gigi\u2019s basketball team and \u201cwatched him coach 6-year-old girls like it was the NBA Finals.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cNow is not the time for a relief syndrome. Now is the time for a Mamba mentality,\u201d the Texas head coach said, channeling the Black Mamba\u2019s obsession with focus and winning and refusal to quit. \u201cWe definitely buy into that mentality. And nobody did it better than Kobe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manning also looked to an L.A. star, albeit one off the court: television star Jeremy Piven, who played Ari Gold, the volatile, powerful agent for an A-list movie star on the hugely popular HBO series \u201cEntourage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeah, Arch understands A-list. Does he ever.<\/p>\n

The Texas quarterback has watched all eight seasons of the comedy-drama, started rewatching the series and even went to one of Piven\u2019s stand-up comedy shows last offseason with some of his teammates.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe was hilarious,\u201d Manning said. \u201cHe\u2019s cool. He\u2019s probably my favorite character in all of television, Ari Gold. We\u2019ve kept up on the phone. I\u2019ve been able to pick his brain, and just being able to laugh is refreshing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Considering his much-scrutinized, oft-critiqued journey<\/a>, laughter\u2019s a pretty good tonic for him.<\/p>\n

He clarified that he didn\u2019t so much pick the actor\u2019s brain as have good conversations and reflect on his own struggles last season. Manning told Piven he had started watching \u201cEntourage\u201d again, and \u201cthen we kind of got on a hot streak. He loved that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manning was uncharacteristically at ease Monday after engineering the win. He said his roommates, like Bryce Chambers, constantly bust his chops to keep him grounded. He joked about Halloween costumes. He endorsed an East Austin pizza place.<\/p>\n

He spoke for a team that\u2019s definitely looking inward for the mental resolve needed to avoid complacency after four highly emotional football games that all came down to the final play.<\/p>\n

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And he knows life in the SEC is anything but a garden party. It\u2019s more like a rock fight, week in and week out, even against a 4-3 Mississippi State team that won its first four games but is trying to nurse dynamic quarterback Kamario Taylor back to health.<\/p>\n

Texas fans don\u2019t care if Sarkisian is channeling a Basketball\u00a0Hall of Famer and Manning is using comedy to somehow lighten his load.<\/p>\n

Sarkisian has used the analogy before but really brought home the message that his 5-2 team must fall back on the Mamba mentality Bryant made famous.<\/p>\n

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He addressed his team Monday morning and emphasized the mindset Bryant used, a killer instinct that never relents. Sarkisian said he went through all the definitions of the Mamba mindset and relief syndrome with the players.<\/p>\n

Sarkisian defined the Mamba plan as \u201cthat ability to reset, refocus, continuing to build toward another victory next week and not just resting on the laurels of a win Saturday night.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he saw it in action on the practice field, much as he had throughout last week\u2019s preparation for the 34-27 win over the Rebels, when Texas gave a maximum-plus effort and graded out at 125% of its average performance Saturday, according to Catapult Sports technology.<\/p>\n

He saw an engaged team, a club that is hungry to achieve more and quickly flush a game in which the Longhorns blew a double-digit lead for the third straight game \u2014 this time, a 21-point advantage \u2014 but had the resilience to finish as strong as they started, after building a 24-3 lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWinning is not the end all, be all,\u201d safety Jelani McDonald said. \u201cWe want more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarkisian was overjoyed with the way the Longhorns overcame all manner of adversity, including a season-high 14 penalties for 121 yards, a sack that led to a fumble and an Ole Miss recovery for a touchdown, three Manning turnovers and a botched onside kick.<\/p>\n

None of those miscues got \u2019em beat.<\/p>\n

Hey, they\u2019re not all on the Kobe bandwagon.<\/p>\n

Linebacker Justin Cryer<\/a> admitted he leans more toward LeBron James as a role model. So does McDonald, who for the second time this season intercepted a Hail Mary pass at the end of a game to preserve a win, this time against Ole Miss. He also did it against Tennessee.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m more of a LeBron guy myself,\u201d Cryer said. \u201cObviously, my brother (former Houston Cougar and Baylor basketball star L.J. Cryer) is a Kobe guy. But we know what Mamba Mentality is. That\u2019s an ability to not let your past performances dictate how you move. If you want to come in here and you want to take a deep breath like, OK, we snapped the two-game skid, that mindset will get you beat.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that Texas is looking anywhere and everywhere to continue its improved play through this weekend and beyond.<\/p>\n

Heck, Manning also found solace in \u201cNapoleon Dynamite,\u201d the 2004 comedy about a nerdy high school kid wrestling with challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually watched \u2018Napoleon Dynamite\u2019 last week,\u201d he said. \u201cKind of got me in a good mood. I love that movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s Kobe or LeBron, Ari Gold or Napoleon Dynamite, they have kept Manning and the Longhorns in the right frame of mind as they prepare for another big challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut,\u201d Manning said, \u201cI want to keep that edge from last Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas quarterback Arch Manning has been watching HBO’s “Entourage” to get a laugh and cope with college football’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-477531","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\/477531","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=477531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}