How Steve Sarkisian Addressed the Loss

 The now unranked Longhorn struggled to get momentum going on either side of the ball on Saturday, and it resulted in an ugly 29-21 loss to the Florida Gators in Gainesville.

After the game, head coach Steve Sarkisian first addressed the loss by acknowledging how poorly Texas played.

“Obviously, a disappointing loss in the fact that we just didn’t play great,” Sarkisian said. “We didn’t play very good, especially early on in the ball game. We struggled to get stops defensively.”

The defense didn’t just struggle early, though; it struggled the entire game. It struggled to get pressure on Florida quarterback DJ Lagway, stop the run game, or even provide good pass coverage, which hadn’t been an issue at all this season.

Still, Sarkisian took accountability for the loss and all of the missed opportunities for the team.

“Had some opportunities, missed some opportunities, but we battled and competed, and competed until the very end,” Sarkisian said. “I love the fight of the guys, but we’ve got to play better. We just didn’t play good enough, and that’s on me.”

Something will have to change, because there have been questions surrounding the team before this game, but all this performance did was reinforce and create more questions around the uncertainty of the capabilities of the team.

Sarkisian says there is one solution to the issue, though.

“We’ve got to get tighter than we’ve ever been. We’re going to have to quiet the noise because there will be plenty of noise coming out of this game,” Sarkisian said. “We need to get back to work, and we need to play our brand and our style of football that we’re capable of playing. We just didn’t do it tonight.”

The Longhorns will now head back to Texas to face No. 6 Oklahoma in Dallas on Saturday.