Texas HC Steve Sarkisian emphasizes "mental intensity" as Longhorns gear up for SEC fight 

The Texas Longhorns will be playing their first season in the Southern Eastern Conference in the 2024 college football season along with their rivals, the Oklahoma Sooners.

The expansion, announced back in 2021, means both teams will officially play in the SEC in 2025, but due to an early exit agreement with the Big 12 conference in 2023, both teams will now be competing against other SEC powerhouses from this year.

During a conversation on "The Dan Patrick Show" on Monday, coach Steve Sarkisian talked about the team's thought process heading into the new season:

“Everybody's aware of the physical challenge that it takes, you know, the physicality of the SEC and things that nature,” Sarkisian said. “To me, it's the mental intensity that you have to have week in and week out to get prepared. And I think that's going to be probably one of our challenges that I have to help navigate our team through and manage through.

"That's my job to do that, because week in and week out, when you go on the road, the environments are the environments. Even our home games, the SEC fans, travel really well. They're going to want to travel to Austin. It's going to be a new, new place for them to come play.

"And so we've got to do a great job, from a mental intensity standpoint, of making sure that we're dialed in, not just on Saturday, on game day, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday,” he added.

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Steve Sarkisian gives insight into Arch Manning's playing time in 2024

Amid all the chatter around Arch Manning's potential decision to enter the transfer portal, Steve Sarkisian reaffirmed the Manning prodigy's plan to stick with the Longhorns by coming back for year two.

Due to Quinn Ewers' decision to not declare for the 2024 NFL draft, Manning will have to wait for at least another year to secure the starting quarterback position at Texas.

However, in the same podcast episode, Sarkisian shared that Manning will be taking the stage during the 2024 season at some point:

"I think behind the scenes, the development Arch has had from Year 1 to Year 2 has been tremendous as well," Sarkisian said. "For us, hopefully Arch is going to get plenty of playing time, that means we're probably playing pretty good, and he's going to get plenty of opportunities to get out there. We need to play him, we need to get him in games. The limited action he got last year, he did a nice job."

It will be interesting to see how Steve Sarkisian uses Arch Manning during the 2024 college football season as Quinn Ewers' backup.

How do you think Steve Sarkisian and the Texas Longhorns will fare in the SEC next season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.