Red River realities: Highlights from Texas coach Steve Sarkisian's Monday press conference

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

OK, who's the quarterback this week?

Another Monday, another press conference without quarterback clarity.

Hudson Card is coming off his best game yet as a Longhorn, setting career highs in completions, passing yards and passing touchdowns in the 38-20 win over West Virginia, and Quinn Ewers' sprained clavicle at least has been good enough to allow the redshirt freshman to have practiced for the past two weeks — "We're healthier than we've ever been since the start of the season, so that's a positive. We'll see how the week goes," Sarkisian said in response to the question about injury updates and Ewers.

Golden: Hey, this race is wide open so why not Texas for the Big 12 title?

But is Ewers ready to be thrown into his first Texas-OU game after having not thrown a pass in a real game for 28 days? If he is healthy enough to start, do you give the ball back to him in one of the most important games of the year, or do you stick with Card, who's 2-1 as a starter this season?

"My philosphy's pretty simple: Play the guy that I think gives us the best chance to be successful whether he's the starter, the backup, hot hand or not," Sarkisian said. "Whoever I think is gonna give us the best chance to be successful and put us in the position to win the ballgame, that's who we'll play."

Bohls: Texas started, finished strong in win over West Virginia

We've been on Ewers watch going back to the UTSA game. For the past two Thursdays — our last chance to speak to Sarkisian during the week — he has declined to name that week's starter. So yeah, we'll see how this week goes.

Who'll start Saturday's game is a question that's also being asked in Norman. Sooners quarterback Dillon Gabriel was knocked out of Saturday's loss in Fort Worth with a second-quarter concussion, so the Central Florida transfer is in concussion protocol this week.

Red River Showdown ... or Lowdown?

How weird is this year's Red River rivalry matchup?

The Sooners are tied with Iowa State and West Virginia for last place in the Big 12 standings at 0-2, and Texas (3-2, 1-1) is just one game ahead of them, also in a three-place tie (Texas Tech and Baylor) for fifth place. TCU just had a 686-yard game against OU.

You have to go back to 1998 — Mack Brown's first year at Texas — to find a Texas-OU matchup where neither team was ranked. The Horns won that one 34-3. And this will be only the 13th time ever that both teams will be unranked. Texas is 10-1-1 so far in those matchups.

Texas is favored by seven points on Saturday.

"This rivalry, this game and what it all stand for and the way these two teams have played in this game for decades, we know more than ever we're going go get the best version of them," Sarkisian said. "We need to make sure they get the best version of us."

Sark's got a point. Since 2013 (Mack's final season), this Texas-OU game has been decided by a touchdown or less eight straight years (not counting the 2018 Big 12 championship game at AT&T Stadium). Yes, the Sooners have come out on top more often than not over those eight games, but consider the final scores: 55-48, 45-43 (overtime), 34-27, 48-45, 29-24, 45-40, 24-17 and 31-26. That's a average winning margin of about 5 points.

More:How the Texas Longhorns graded out in their 38-20 win over West Virginia

Learning from last year's game

This will be Sarkisian's second Texas-OU game and he apparently loves everything about it.

"My first impression of the Red River Showdown (last year) is what an awesome environment for college football," he said. "I've been fortunate to have been in a lot of great games and a lot of great rivalry games. Never have had the neutral site setting. From the moment you start pulling into the State Fair on your buses and you see both sides, that's what it's all about — shoot, I'm getting goosebumps right now thinking about it."

That may have been his first impression, but it's his last impressions from last year's 55-48 loss that we're more interested in. Specifically, what did he learn from 2021's loss that can be translated into this year's game?

"We need to understand the way the stand are split, one end of the game it's a home game, the other end of the field it's a road game," he said. "We need to be aware of that and how we approach it, especially offensively."

He didn't go further, but was later asked what he meant by that. Sarkisian said he felt the Longhorns lost their composure last year while playing on that hostile end in the fourth quarter. He said Texas will focus this week on snap counts and play calls when the Horns are in OU' end of things on offense. "The crowd noise got to us a bit and we didn't handle it very well," he said.

But if he's looking to carry over more wisdom from the 2021 game:

Script those first 15-20 plays well. So far, so good this season with mixes of runs and passes and creativity.

Start fast. Last year the Horns punched the Sooners with four touchdowns in their first five drives.

Finish strong. Umm, again, last year. Texas held leads of 38-20 in the second quarter and 41-23 in the third, then gave up 18 unanswered points in the fourth and lost by a touchdown in the final seconds.

Texcetera

The Texas Fight Rally & Parade will be Thursday, with the parade starting at 7:30 p.m. on Guadalupe between 25th and 21st and the rally starting at 8 at the UT Tower. ... Bijan Robinson leads the Big 12 in all-purpose yards (141.6 ypg), total touchdowns (9), total points scored (54) and scoring (10.8 ppg) and is second in rushing yards (515), rushing yards per game (103.0) and rushing touchdowns (8). ... The good and bad side of the turnovers story this season: Texas has committed only three turnovers in five games, but also has forced only two. And both have been pick-sixes. ... Next Saturday's Iowa State game at DKR will kick off at 11 a.m., it was announced this morning. It'll be shown either on ABC or ESPN2.

Saturday's game kicks off at 11 a.m. at the Cotton Bowl and will be shown on ABC. Texas is favored by a touchdown and leads the overall series 62-50-5. Oklahoma has won the last three meetings, though, including last year's 55-48 game.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Sarkisian: Texas knows it'll get OU's best, needs to give its best too