What Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said after the game

ARLINGTON, Texas – Ohio State topped Texas 28-14 in an epic Cotton Bowl national semifinal on Friday night to advance to the national title game.

For the Longhorns, their season is already over after finishing runners-up in the SEC and losing in the College Football Playoff semifinal for the second straight year.

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian met with the media for a postgame press conference to discuss what went wrong for his team in the loss to Ohio State. This is what he said:

Opening statement…

Yes, one hell of a football game. Two really good teams fighting. They made two great plays, you know? They got to the screen late in the first half and got the fumble at the fourth for a touchdown. Two really good teams. Ton of credit to the state of Ohio. They are a very good football team, well trained and very fighting. I’m so proud of our players for the resilience they showed tonight to fight and get into the game, to have the opportunity to go first and they weren’t able to do that. So, like I told you, today’s game is the life of a competitor. You put yourself in this field. You compete until you’re tired. But we have nothing to worry about, the way they competed, not just tonight but all season.

In Ohio State’s fourth quarter goal line position…

Yes, really, on the first two plays, we threw the ball into the end zone and got back-to-back IPs. When we get to one, we head to a heavy package, which is Jerrick’s package. We ran it and obviously didn’t get much movement. And we had a plan to try to get the ball to the rim when we got there. They went to big people. I can’t quite tell: I was on the other side of where the leak occurred. But that’s one of those plays, if you block it right, you get to the end zone, and we didn’t, and we lose quite a few yards. And at that point, you’re kind of stuck behind the eight ball because we knew we were in four-down territory because of the outcome of the game. And it was fine even if we didn’t score, not that I didn’t want to score, but I thought, okay, they’re going to have to be backed up and we’ll probably get one more possession on a good field. position. The last thing you think about is the catch, and it’s going to bounce right back to the guy, and he’s going to run for the score. So it’s unfortunate that those were the circumstances, because it was a very good development for the offense to get there. First and goal to one and we didn’t score, frankly, you probably don’t deserve to win that way.

On Quinn Ewers’ career in Texas…

I’m super proud of Quinn. He’s taught me a lot, probably without knowing it, because what he went through every year dealing with injuries, what he goes through where I don’t know if he would ever live up to the standards of what everyone thinks he’s supposed to be. . But at the end of the day, all he did was show up every day and work and be a great leader and a great teammate. And that’s a real credit to him because human nature, nowadays, is to look at Twitter, look at Instagram, look at social media and written articles and fan forums and whatever else. And you can go on that emotional roller coaster of whatever you think public opinion might be, and that could be the opinion of one or a hundred or whatever. But this guy never did that. All he did was come to work every day. All he did was be a great teammate. All he did was work on his craft, get back as healthy as possible when he was injured, and then show up when the time came to do it. Maybe outside of the first two games, I don’t think I’ve played any game this year 100% healthy. And he fought against everything. I never complained about it even once. And I think that’s why he has so much respect from his teammates.

On Ohio State running back TreVeyon Henderson’s screen for a touchdown late in the first half…

It really was simulated pressure. It wasn’t like we were trying to bomb and bomb them. There were still seven guys in coverage. They called the screen, blocked it well, and put it in the hands of a really good playmaker. (TreVeyon) Henderson has a lot of speed and they blocked it well. We were always worried about him when he went out into the open field. So it wasn’t like we had five or six. It was a four-man race. Good decision on their part, good execution. It’s a shame they make it to the screen. I think there was maybe 24 seconds or something left in the half. I don’t think anyone anticipated that. (Ohio State) Definitely stole some momentum. But that’s why I was so proud of our guys rallied like they did in the third quarter.