The Longhorns left the Michigan Wolverines, last season’s national champions, stunned on Saturday as they dominated inside The Big House.
Both sides of the ball showed off their physicality and silenced a crowd of over 100,000 Michigan fans wearing maize and blue, with the Texas offense accumulating 389 total yards and the defense forcing three turnovers and a sack.
Yet Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said there’s still plenty of potential to be unleashed from everyone on his team.
During Monday’s media availability, Sarkisian said that he wants to see greater stamina displayed up until the clock runs out instead of giving up points late in the game, something that he said his players must prioritize throughout the season.
“We need to go to another level with our killer instinct,” Sarkisian said. “We need to be more relentless in the fourth quarter.”
Against Michigan, Texas was able to hold the Wolverine offense to just two field goals, 204 passing yards and 80 rushing yards before allowing the team to touchdown with two minutes left in the fourth quarter.
Sarkisian mentioned that he didn’t feel the same standard of toughness was being communicated in that final quarter, which can be disappointing when he knows his team is more than capable of playing a full game of football.
“The game just kind of felt like we played three quarters,” Sarkisian said. “I want to make it 60 minutes of hell for our opponents. And we have a roster that can do that.”
When asked what being physical looks like on Monday, junior safety Michael Taaffe named multiple instances where his teammates made statement plays versus Michigan, including senior linebacker David Gbenda having a tackle for loss and defensive lineman Vernon Broughton pressuring Wolverines quarterback Davis Warren. Taaffe himself contributed four total tackles and a quarterback hurry.
Taaffe also described what using those killer instincts feels like, taking Sarkisian’s idea of being the villain and putting it into practice.
“When you talk about imposing your will, I think you got to take the breath out of another opponent,” Taaffe said. “You have to impose your will on a team to where they don’t think they have life anymore.”
Entering his fourth year with the program, Taaffe is all too familiar with the experience of a productive first half getting squashed by a second-half, even fourth-quarter, comeback. Just last season, Texas ended three games with one touchdown sitting in between a loss and a victory.
This year, Taaffe hopes to instill a sense of leadership and confidence into the Texas secondary so that it can channel and maintain its competitive instincts through all four quarters against every opponent.
“Too many times in the past four years that I’ve been here, we have let teams crawl back in the second half,” Taaffe said. “But it’s just a matter of pride that you have to have in yourself to where it’s like you want to take their soul. You want them to really understand thatwhen they go to bed at night, they remember the Texas Longhorn defense.”
The success that’s come against Colorado State and Michigan so far is due to the team practices being physical, according to junior quarterback Quinn Ewers, ever since they began training during the offseason.
“The way we practice allows us to bring out that physicality,” Ewers said during the media availability. “And, usually, the most physical team in the game wins.”
Texas now looks to bring the best version of itself back home to Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium to face UTSA this weekend.
