Bye week R&R (rest and refocus): Highlights from Steve Sarkisian's Monday press conference

Steve Sarkisian's regular Monday press conference has come and gone. Highlights:

First things first: an apology

Sark made a point to start off today's presser to apologize for not staying on the field at Boone Pickens Stadium for the playing of "The Eyes of Texas" — along with a lot of his players. Our own Cedric Golden pointed it out in his column from Stillwater: "Following the latest second-half collapse, a couple of dozen Longhorns remained on the field at Boone Pickens Stadium for "The Eyes of Texas," but many others, including the head coach, didn't bother to stick around."

Somebody must have gotten to Sark on Sunday, letting him know that wasn't a good look.

"I made a mistake at the end of the game by not singing 'The Eyes of Texas,' a repentant Sarkisian began. "That was not anything intentional. That was not anything to do with our players; I think our players just followed me up the ramp into the locker room. (I) obviously upset about the way the game ended and literally walked off the field. So I apologize to everybody for that, it'll never happen again."

The fallout from Stillwater

Or, the other fallout. Nothing like a little Eyes of Texas drama.

The 41-34 loss hurt Texas on lots of fronts. In terms of the Big 12 race, it dropped the Longhorns to 3-2 in conference play, alone in fourth place behind No. 7 TCU (4-0), No. 9 Oklahoma State (3-1) and No. 22 Kansas State (3-1). (The Cowboys and Wildcats play this week.) Texas still plays TCU and Kansas State as well as Baylor, which is right there next to Texas with a 2-2 mark.

More: Longhorns see bye week as a chance to regroup for Big 12 home stretch

But also, this bye week comes at a great time for some things, but an awful one for others because of the way things went down in Stillwater. Quarterback Quinn Ewers (19-49-319, 2/3) completed only 39% of his passes and he had nearly as many overthrows (15) as he had completions (19). Sarkisian, who was asked Saturday if he'd considered benching Ewers for Hudson Card (he said he didn't), fielded a couple of questions today, including that same question about Card as well as what replacing a young quarterback like that could to to a player's psyche, have there been any issues in recent practices, etc. And now Anthony Cook is out with a broken arm. The Longhorns' three-game winning streak was snapped, and they imploded offensively in the second half.

Lots to mull.

"We've got a great opportunity," Sarkisian said. "There's a lot of football left to be played in the Big 12. We've got a great opportunity with some quality opponents coming down the barrel and we need to play well in these games to still give us an opportunity to get us to Dallas. But we've got to control what we can control; as I say to the players, we've got to mow our own lawn."

Even more fallout from Stillwater

One interesting moment came midway through the presser when our own Kirk Bohls, who wasn't there Saturday in Stillwater to ask Sark then, went big-picture: "Your record (at Texas) is 10-10. How much further along did you think your program would be, and what are some of those reasons?"

Sark defended himself and the program, saying it's "easy to look at the record" and that he's not concerned.

"We've come a long way as a program," he said. "I feel very good about where we've come. I love our style of play — I think we play hard, we play tough. Like a lot of programs, I think we're a work in progress. A couple of balls bounce a certain way and our record is different. I wouldn't change how I feel about our program and the direction that we're going in.

"Naturally for me, we have to continue to stay the course with what we're doing and a belief in what we're doing. I don't think we waivered a year ago when things got hard in October and November, we won't waiver this year. We'll stick to the plan, stick to the course."

A bad break for Cook — and Texas

You've heard of injured players being day-to-day. Cook, with the broken arm, is week-to-week. Which means yes, maybe he'll be on the field in Manhattan in two weeks.

"The key for us obviously with the bye, having two weeks between games, we've just got to monitor this thing closely," Sarkisian said. "We've seen people play with broken bones before. He's week to week for us right now, we'll see how quickly he can get back."

Cook's injury has muddied things not only in the defensive backfield, but on special teams, too. Sark said there were 46 special teams snaps on Saturday (kickoffs, punts, field goals) and defensive backs like Cook, Ryan Watts, Jahdae Barron, Jaylon Guilbeau and Michael Taafe all are heavy to moderate special teams contributors. But because of injuries to Cook and Watts the last two weeks, those younger backups and reserves have gotten a lot more snaps against Iowa State and Oklahoma State.

"We've got to find some secondary players that can contribute, maybe not as a front-line starter on defense, but can contribute 10-12 snaps on special teams."

What does this week look like?

Some much-needed R&R — rest and refocus. With some recruiting this coming weekend, so make that R&R&R.

The team didn't practice today, thought there was a team meeting to put a bow on the Oklahoma State loss. Sarkisian said he and players were scheduled for community service work today. There'll be a light practice on Tuesday, then a more regular practice on Wednesday and Thursday, and then players will get Friday, Saturday and Sunday off before returning to the field for practice on Monday morning. The coaches will spend this weekend hitting Friday night games and doing recruiting.

Game-planning for Kansas State, Sarkisian said, began this morning after the team meeting.

Texcetera

On two separate occasions, Sarkisian mentioned that he fell a bit short on the play-calling front in Stillwater. ... He said he had no qualms with the officiating or the discrepancy in the penalties that were called/not called, as the Horns were called for 14 penalties for 119 yards while the Cowboys had no penalties at all. ... Saturday's Oklahoma State-Kansas State game in Manhattan kicks off at 2:30 p.m. on ABC; the Wildcats opened the week as 1-point favorites.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Steve Sarkisian: Texas has lots to fix, work on in this open week