The waiting game: Highlights from Texas coach Steve Sarkisian's Monday press conference

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian's regular-season wrap-up press conference has come and gone. The highlights:

What's next?

So now, the Longhorns wait. They're not in this week's Big 12 championship game, so next up is finding out where they'll be headed for a bowl game. Bowl bids come out on Sunday. It's commonly believed that it comes down to two bowls for Texas: either the Alamo Bowl, which has featured the Longhorns in two of the last three years, or the Cheez-It-Bowl in Orlando.

Much like Texas' Big 12 title game fate came down to Saturday night's Kansas-Kansas State game, the Horns' bowl game pretty much comes down to this week's conference championship game in Arlington.

If undefeated TCU beats Kansas State and punches a ticket to the College Football Playoff, or if Kansas State wins and the Horned Frogs are sent to the Cotton Bowl, then the Alamo looks like Texas' most likeliest destination.

If Kansas State wins and the Horned Frogs don't end up in the Cotton, then Cheez-It makes the most sense.

Both the Alamo Bowl (8 p.m., ESPN) and Cheez-It Bowl (4:30 p.m., ESPN) are on Thursday, Dec. 29. The Alamo is a Big 12 vs. Pac-12 pairing; the Cheez-It is a Big 12 vs. ACC/Notre Dame matchup.

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Woulda, coulda, shoulda

Sarkisian didn't weigh in on this possible bowl or that possible bowl, but did remark about how often, as he watched the Kansas-Kansas State game, that he kept going back to how the Longhorns lost control of their own conference destiny by not taking care of their business in September and October. He was later asked if there were any plays in the losses to Texas Tech, Oklahoma State or TCU that still keep him up at night.

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He didn't go into specific plays, but did ID things about all three losses that he wished he could have back.

Against TCU, Sarkisian said he wished the team played better in terms of offensive execution. The defense was great that day, the offense not so much.

Against Texas Tech and Oklahoma State, Sarkisian said he wished he'd put more emphasis on running the ball better, particularly in the second half of both games, "to where our defense wasn't playing so many snaps." He said playing so many snaps in those two games led to key missed tackles late in the losses.

Looking back at the season

Sarkisian was asked what he thought Texas did particularly well this season, what the Longhorns need to do better, and if he had any surprises on the team.

The highs: How well the Longhorns ran the ball on offense and stopped the run on defense.

The lows: Three things. "Obviously the passing game," he said. He added that's it not just about the quarterback, and that fixing Texas' passing attack means addressing pass protection breakdowns and wide receiver issues (routes and drops). Also, Sarkisian said Texas has to get better on third-down conversions — "To extend drives, to stay on the field, we need to do better on third down," he said — and also, Sarkisian said the defensive backs had do improve their communication back there and cut down on broken coverages/big plays.

The surprises: Sark said he was really happy with the kicking game, which had to replace Cameron Dicker's one-man special teams unit of kicking field goals, extra points and kickoffs as well as punting duties with three different players. Bert Auburn handled field goals and extra points (19-of-24 on field goals), Will Stone handled kickoffs (26 touchbacks) and Daniel Trejo took over punting duties in the second half of the season opener and kept on kicking (41.5 yards per punt, eight kicks of 50-plus yards, 12 downed inside the 20). "We had unknowns on kickoffs, we had unknowns on field goals, we had unknowns with our punt team with who was going to do what," he said. "I could not have asked more of them than we got."

Also, Sarkisian said he was surprised at how well the young offensive line played. Texas started two true freshmen and a sophomore up front, and the first lineman in from the bench was another true freshman.

Waiting on Bijan Robinson. And Xavier Worthy. And ...

We're about to start getting peppered with reports of players entering the transfer portal, heading to the NFL early and opting out of the bowl game.

At Texas, that means waiting on Bijan Robinson's decision to jump into the NFL draft, where he's expected to be a first-round pick, or return for his senior season, which perhaps isn't so much of a no-brainer as it used to be because of his NIL-earning opportunities that he's already getting/would get even more. And it also means another offseason wondering who might try to pluck Xavier Worthy, last year's Big 12 freshman of the year who has caught 21 touchdown passes in his first two seasons.

So far this season, Worthy has 53 catches for 676 yards and nine touchdowns. He's averaging 12.7 yards per catch and 56.3 yards per game. But all those numbers are down from his freshman year, when he had 62 catches for 981 yards and 12 TDs, averaged 15.8 yards per catch and 81.7 yards per game.

That's nine fewer catches, 305 fewer yards, three fewer touchdowns, three fewer yards per catch and 25 fewer yards per game. And don't get us started on all those failed deep shots from Ewers to Worthy downfield this fall.

Sark was asked a pretty simple question: is Worthy happy at Texas?

"I think one thing about Xavier is this: he's a highly competitive young man, and from the moment he arrived on our campus, he came to work," Sarkisian said. "He came to work to earn an opportunity to play, he came to work to become a starter, he came to work to be the best receiver he could be whether that was in our conference or in the country.

"The guy's got a high sense of competitiveness and drive to be the best, and he works that way every day. Sometimes when you don't get the actual result of it, that can become a sense of frustration. I would much rather have a receiver that's frustrated that he didn't contribute more to a win than a guy who's content of going on the field and playing and the ball not coming his way, because he values his ability to get open. I do too. I get it."

Sark then referenced his earlier comment about fixing the passing game. And he added that it would be hard to find another wide receiver from a Power Five team who has caught 21 touchdowns in his first two years.

Texas came thiiiis close to 100,000

Texas averaged just under 100,000 fans a game this season at Royal-Memorial Stadium. The Horns averaged 99,582, with four 100,000-plus crowds sandwiched between a pair of 94,000-ers to open and close the regular season.

"I thought DKR was rocking from our first home game all the way through," Sarkisian said. "The energy and the support they provided definitely showed."

How this year's crowds ranked:

105,213: Alabama (Texas' largest crowd ever)

102,520: UTSA (the third-largest crowd ever)

100,740: West Virginia

100,072: Iowa State

94,873: Louisiana-Monroe

94,076: Baylor

Texcetera

Right guard Cole Hutson suffered a sprained ankle late in the first half against Baylor; Sarkisian said the freshman is expected back for the bowl game. And he added that wide receiver Isaiah Neyor, who was expected to start opposite Worthy but was lost for the season with a mid-August knee injury, is rehabbing well and should be good to go for next season. ... Saturday's Big 12 championship game kicks off at 11 a.m. on ABC. No. 4 TCU is a 2½-point favorite over No. 12 Kansas State.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Sarkisian: The highs, lows and surprises of Texas' season in his eyes