Another Big 12 war: Highlights from Texas coach Steve Sarkisian's Monday press conference

Steve Sarkisian's Monday post-practice press conference has come and gone. Highlights:

Why this is absolutely Texas' most important game of the season — this week

No. 8 TCU and No. 17 Kansas State are currently on top of the Big 12 standings with 3-0 starts, but the Horned Frogs (6-0) and Wildcats (5-1) play each other this week (7 p.m. Saturday, ABC), so the winner of this Texas-Oklahoma State matchup will make an important move in the standings and the loser, well, neither the Longhorns nor the Cowboys can afford a second conference loss with several matchups still to go.

"Another great challenge for us this week," Sarkisian said.

Golden: Texas' well-fed offensive line helped Longhorns avoid the Iowa State upset

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"It's a great conference," he said later. "There's a bunch of really good coaches and there's a bunch of really good coaches and a bunch of really good players that compete at a really high level. You never turn on a tape and feel like this team laid down. Everybody battles and competes, everybody's fighting for it, everybody's got really good homefield advantages. So yeah, there is a lot of parity and there is a lot of football to be played in our conference. I think the key to the drill is one game at a time. I know that's an old coaching adage, but that's how we're looking at it."

Good news: Ryan Watts is back

The Texas cornerback left the Iowa State game in the second quarter after injuring what looked like his shoulder after making his sixth and final tackle. He left and didn't return. Sarkisian said after the game that Watts hadn't suffered anything structural, making it sound more like a stinger, and deemed him "day-to-day."

On Monday, Watts was back on the field at practice — that's how Sarkisian phrased it; note the difference between Watts being "back on the field" at practice, at least grammatically, is different than Watts practicing again. But regardless, it sounds like the physical corner should be OK for Stillwater.

More: How Texas graded out in the win over Iowa State on our weekly report card

That's a good thing; Texas worked several backups into the game, including Jahdae Barron, Jaylan Gilbeau, Terrance Brooks and Austin Jordan, and the Cyclones finished with 329 passing yards, including a 10-catch, 154-yard receiving day from Xavier Hutchinson and a 54-yard romp through the secondary on Jaylin Noel's 54-yard touchdown. But that may not have been the worst thing, Sarkisian said, especially since the Horns still got the win.

"And it's like anything, when young players have to go out there, sometimes we have to live with their growing pains whether that's offense, defense or special teams," Sarkisian said. "And the guys that went in there are going to grow from the opportunities they got, and we're going to need them at some point in the year, so hopefully they got some really valuable experience of getting in there and can learn from the impact they can have on a game — good and bad."

Texcetera

The win over Iowa State was Sarkisian's 100th game as a college head coach. It also improved him to 10-9 with the Longhorns. ... Jaylan Ford's first-half interception in the end zone and his late-game fumble recovery on Iowa State's final drive was the first time a Texas player had done that since DeMarvion Overshown's defensive MVP performance in the 2020 Alamo Bowl win over Colorado. Ford leads the Big 12 in total tackles; he's averaging 9.4 a game. … Xavier Worthy's six touchdown catches also lead the conference. … Over his last five games, Bijan Robinson has produced 769 total yards and 8 TDs. He's coming off season highs in carries and receptions against Iowa State. He also had 32 touches, also a season high.

Saturday's game kicks off at 2:30 p.m. in Stillwater (Texas' third straight ABC game). The Horns opened the week as 4½-point favorites, and that line jumped to six points today. Oklahoma State suffered its first season loss in last Saturday's 43-40 double-overtime loss at TCU.

Texas leads the overall series 26-10, including a 9-3 advantage in Stillwater. Mike Gundy is 8-9 all-time vs. Texas. The Cowboys have won eight of the last 12 overall meetings, though, including last year's game 32-24 in Austin, when OSU was ranked No. 12 and Texas was No. 25. Bijan Robinson scored three TDs in the loss.

The last couple of games in Stillwater have been close ones: a 41-34 overtime win in 2020 and a 38-35 loss in 2018.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Sarkisian: Parity among teams making this Big 12 race especially tough