5 takeaways from Texas media Monday: Sarkisian ‘fired up’; Coburn reflects on trolling Mayfield

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian is normally coy when asked about the significance of rivalry games. But there’s no downplaying the importance and excitement of the Red River Showdown — not even for a stoic Sarkisian.

“Hey, I’m fired up for the game,” Sarkisian said. “I mean, you guys know me well enough. I love the pomp and pageantry of college football, I love the history, I love the nostalgia. To think this is the 117th time these two schools are meeting, that’s a crazy number.”

Ahead of its meeting with the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday, the Texas players and head coach needed no reminding of the significance of this weekend.

Here are five key takeaways from Texas media Monday.

A benchmark test for Texas

Texas re-entered the AP Top 25 poll at No. 21 on Sunday, following the program’s third-straight win. The Longhorns have had some impressive wins this season — particularly lopsided victories over Louisiana, Rice and Texas Tech — but they’ve yet to really prove themselves against the caliber of opposition that Oklahoma is.

Sarkisian believes that going up against No. 6 Oklahoma, a program that has won six Big 12 titles in a row, will serve as a benchmark for where his football team is at in his early tenure.

“When you’re playing the team that over recent history has won the conference, well, here’s an opportunity to basically see where are we at this point,” Sarkisian said. “And we look forward to the challenge.”

The first-year Texas head coach is aware of the buzz his team has generated around itself, but he feels his Longhorns still need to prove themselves. Sarkisian believes in order to do that, his team must block out certain “distractions.”

“Hey, we’re back in the top 25, we’re on a three game winning streak, Bijan’s the Heisman contender now, it’s the biggest game of the year, there’s all the stuff going on,” Sarkisian said. “And I think it’s gonna be critical for our players, staff included, we got to quiet the noise, and we need to stay focused on the task at hand.

“It’s one thing to talk about it, it’s another thing to be about it.”

Thompson starts against boyhood team

Saturday’s game will be massive for everyone on both sides of the Cotton Bowl, but perhaps for none more than Texas’ starting quarterback Casey Thompson, as well as his family.

Thompson is from Oklahoma City, just 20 minutes away from Norman. His father, Charles Thompson, played quarterback for Oklahoma against Texas in the late 1980′s. His brother, Kendal Thompson, suited up for the Sooners. Despite his countless ties to the University of Oklahoma, Thompson said he never had any hate in his heart for Texas.

“I never really grew up hating Texas,” Thompson said. “I’ve never been like that, and even now at Texas, I don’t hate OU. I just try to focus on doing my job, and at the end of the day, I’m a competitor. I want to win, and I also want to start, and so it comes down to that.”

While Thompson will be on a business trip on Saturday, on behalf of Texas, there are plenty of people he grew up with that will be disgusted by the sight of him in burnt orange.

“Some of my teachers and best friends were like ‘if you go that school, I’ll never root for you, I’ll never cheer for you.’ So, naturally, I imagine there would be people from home, probably from my hometown, even my own high school, that may not root for me and may not cheer for me, but I’m really not worried about people who are hating. I’m trying to focus on this team and the people who care about me and love and support me.”

Sarkisian believes that Thompson picking the school that was best for him, rather than the school he had family ties to, has helped him persevere through all of the adversity he has faced at Texas so far.

“A lot of times with recruiting, there’s a lot of narratives that come in with ties to universities for whatever reason and different things, but ultimately young men need to choose what’s best for them. They’re the ones that got to get up at 5 am in the morning to go workout, run and practice,” Sarkisian said. “You got to look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself ‘I chose to go here, I’m gonna persevere and get through’.

“[Thompson] chose to come to University of Texas. He wanted to be a Longhorn through the adversity, through being the backup, through not being named the starter, through that perseverance. I think he was able to get through that because this was his choice to want to come here.”

Texas’ offense eats on and off the field

Not only has Thompson persevered in his time at Texas, but he has become popular with his teammates as a leader. Thompson not only leads by example, but he enjoys treating his teammates — whether it’s a trip to Miami or a trip to a steakhouse.

Last week, Thompson took his offensive line to Vince Young Steakhouse, as he looks to start a tradition of taking the big guys in front of him out to eat every week.

“Taking the lineman out to eat is something I want to start doing on a regular basis,” he said. “I just think if I spend a lot of time with my running backs and receivers, watching film and hanging out with those guys off the field, just taking the linemen out to eat is something that can be really special for our continuity and our chemistry as well.”

Thompson said he let his o-line order whatever they wanted, but that he won’t be so generous as to pick up such an expensive tab every time they go out to eat.

The Oklahoma City-product hasn’t just spoiled his big men up front, but he also took his starting receivers to Miami to train with two of the NFL’s best wide outs.

“I flew all of the starting wide receivers out to Miami in the offseason to train and get some professional work with some NFL guys, Stefon Diggs and Jarvis Landry,’ Thompson said.

Defense needs to be more consistent

Sarkisian has been singing his offense’s praises for the most part, but he feels that his defense hasn’t put together four consistent quarters recently.

Sarkisian didn’t like what he saw from his defense in the second half against Tech, and then at the beginning of the game against TCU. The Texas head coach almost went as far as calling a timeout eight minutes into the TCU game, just to let his defense re-focus — basketball style.

“I contemplated even taking a timeout, trying to regroup them a little bit, almost like in basketball. I felt like we might have needed that timeout, depending on what happened later. Maybe I should have, but I think we’re getting closer to putting together a four-quarter football game, with the right mental intensity, the right focus,” he said. “That is going to be needed Saturday, you know that we’re playing a team that is not going to stop attacking us, whether it’s on the ground or through the air, regardless of the score, so it’s going to take a four-quarter game from our defense Saturday.”

Coburn reflects on trolling Baker Mayfield

Texas nose tackle, Keondre Coburn, promised the Longhorns would beat OU in a tweet, the day he signed for Texas.

Baker Mayfield then replied in a since-deleted tweet, “This is what we call being naive. Kid has no idea what it’s like stepping into the Cotton Bowl. So here’s how it works… The team north of the Red River doesn’t flinch. But it’s okay, you’ll see for yourself, wish you the best.”

As a freshman in 2018, Coburn hit back at Mayfield after doing just what he promised he would do, beating Oklahoma.

As a senior in 2021, Coburn reflected on his interaction with Mayfield, which he admitted was a bit of an attention-seeking effort.

“I love Baker. It was just me probably trolling as a kid, trying to try to get some attention. I never knew he was going to troll back,” Coburn said. “And what’s funny about it is, when I was at school, when I sent it that morning, my school had no connection so I didn’t get the message [that he had responded] until after class.”

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