Video: Kalen DeBoer, Steve Sarkisian discuss national semifinal matchup in Allstate Sugar Bowl

JOHN SUDSBURY: We’re going to start with a brief opening statement by Kalen [DeBoer] from Washington. And then we will take questions from Coach DeBoer. Go ahead.

COACH DEBOER: Yeah, first of all, just grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the Allstate Sugar Bowl. And just proud of our football team and everything we have accomplished this year.

Got to give a congratulations to Coach [Steve] Sarkisian and Texas for the season they’ve had and their participation in the bowl as well.

So to be part of the final four, we know every team that gets to this point is really good and deserving of being there. And he certainly has led that program.

And we’re familiar with each other from the meeting a year ago, but he’s done an awesome job raising the level of his team to where they’re at this year.

We’re proud of our Pac-12 championship that we just won here a couple nights ago. And just been an awesome experience and proud of our staff, proud of our guys. Looking forward to the challenge here that lies ahead.

Hi, Coach. I know that you’re excited to be in the playoffs, but I’m wondering if somewhere, maybe within your program, the fans or whatever, there’s a level of disappointment you’re not in the Rose Bowl. And what do you think about coming to New Orleans, a place that probably as a coach you haven’t been to many times?

COACH DEBOER: Yeah, first of all, never played in the Sugar Bowl or played in New Orleans for that matter.

I’m sure that across the fan base — and I haven’t had a chance to get a pulse of it. Been too busy here going through the morning. But I’m sure there’s a lot with the Rose Bowl and all that.

But we’re just happy to be in — to have this opportunity and be in the Sugar Bowl, be in the final four. And just being the No. 2 seed says a lot about our team and what we’ve accomplished this year.

So the next game is the most important game, and that’s the one we have here coming against Texas.

Coach, how much does playing them last year in the Alamo Bowl help this year at all? I know the players are different and everything. But how much will you take from that?

COACH DEBOER: I mean, there’s a little bit of familiarity, just with how you see each other, as far as what you saw at least a year ago, I guess the colors that you’re lining up against and all that.

But I think we’ve continued to evolve and change, and I know they have as well. So it is a unique situation, especially not being in the same conference, that we’re playing in a bowl game one year later.

But the familiarity, that would be maybe about it. And there’s some things, schematic carryover and stuff, that certainly applies. But you continue to build. You continue to build on all of that on each side of the ball, and they’ve done the same.

Yeah, Kalen, wondering — it’s a long time before the game. Wondering if you had a chance to sketch out what the next month looks like? And if so, kind of walk us through the general plan.

COACH DEBOER: Yeah, nothing official yet. But this week will just be really some runs and lifting later in the week here. The guys need a break. It’s been a grind, and so giving them a chance.

We have our end-of-the-year banquet, our celebration, happening here in about an hour. So we get a chance to come together. We didn’t have a watch party because we knew we were bringing the guys back just a few hours later, and we’ll get to celebrate then. And a lot of parents have flown up and families have flown up from Vegas. If they didn’t get to Vegas, they’ve flown up here for the weekend. Guys got a chance to spend time with them this morning. So we didn’t have a big watch party, so to speak. But we’ll do some lifting and running.

And by the end of the week, we’ll get into a practice or two. But for sure, practice.

And then we have finals starting Saturday through the next week. And so we’ll try to get a couple practices in right in the middle of that time. And we’ll get the guys away and get them a chance to go home when their finals are over. And then bring them back kind of leading up to some practices before we leave for the Sugar Bowl.

JOHN SUDSBURY: Would you say your program is ahead of schedule from what you had planned when you took over the job? Year two, you have a Pac-12 championship, undefeated season, and you’re in the College Football Playoff.

COACH DEBOER: I don’t know. I think, yeah, if you had told me two years ago that this is what we’re playing for and where we’re at, might have been — I would have been ecstatic. I really would have.

I don’t think there’s necessarily a plan. You kind of know there’s some steps that you have to go through in building a team to get to an elite level like we’re at right now.

But I think I learned at a couple stops along the way, and one in particular at Fresno State, where you should never — don’t underestimate what you’re capable of doing and how quickly you can do it.

And a year ago, I would have put a number on what I thought was the number to get to. And I thought we could have a good, solid season. Getting to 11 wins, I think that was just part of the process. the results came became a part of the work we were putting in, and you catch a couple breaks along the way. And the momentum kind of snowballs in a good way, and we got 11.

And then just kind of the continuity of a lot of guys returning gave us a jump on this season. You know, so many guys that chose to stay and not go on to an NFL opportunity in particular. Just really got the momentum going. And we have a lot of guys that put their heart and soul into this program. We have nine guys who are in their sixth year in this program and some more who have put a lot of time into other programs and transferred in.

So I don’t want to say there’s a timeline, but we’re fired up that we’re in this spot here in year two as our coaching staff.

Coach DeBoer, you had 19 years and two days away from your first head coaching job when you coached that job at Sioux Falls. Did you ever think in that time, those 19 years, that you would be standing 60 minutes away from a national championship?

COACH DEBOER: No, not at this level, that’s for sure. It really has never been kind of the way I looked at it. I just always was working where I was at. And my feet were planted in that place.

And just love coaching. Love the game. Love being around people. Bringing them together. Trying to do something special as a football team. And that’s really been the focus. And you end up being around great people in some great places. And you have to say that those are some breaks you catch along the way, some wins that happened that help you get over some humps and you win some championships.

And, again, just goes back to the people, though. I think those relationships is really where it starts. When you pore into it, good things can happen.

Hey, Coach, congratulations. I was curious how many times you’ve gotten to see Texas play even if a little bit on television? And how do they strike you in comparison to the team you saw in the Alamo Bowl?

COACH DEBOER: I don’t have enough to compare to a year ago, I mean, it’s kind of crazy, with west coast and all that.

I caught the end of a couple games. I just caught an overtime game, I think the very end. And I remember Coach Sark (Steve Sarkisian) doing an interview. So I couldn’t even really tell you what all transpired there.

But certainly, you take note here and there when you flip on the TV, maybe in between meetings on a Saturday morning while you’re getting ready and going through your day and your routine. You take note because that’s a team we played a year ago and, obviously, one of the best teams in the country. And so if you get a chance, you flip it to that station.

But as far as really studying and understanding the level that they’re truly at right now, I can’t maybe articulate that at this point.

But just even yesterday, knowing the numbers they put up and how much of a dominating game that was that they played, that’s really impressive. And playing some really good football at the right time, and that’s a lot about what the playoffs are and what you need to win a conference and a national championship.

Coach, just looking at this season, how bittersweet it is to have this swan song in the Pac-12 but at the same time to represent them so well nationally. Just what you can say about going through the schedule, going through those match-ups, and obviously having the opportunity to play for a national championship.

COACH DEBOER: Yeah, as far as us representing the Pac-12, I think that it was just a grind of a year. The depth of the teams and how good they were, just was with so many ranked teams. I think there was eight — maybe not at the same time, but up to eight at one point had been ranked. And really, really, we played the top end of that and had to beat a great Oregon team twice.

So that really says a lot about our guys. It says a lot about the league here. There’s great coaches. There’s some great quarterback play.

We knew it was going to be that going into the year. I think everyone was probably a little bit concerned about how it actually happened where a lot of teams beat up on each other. We were fortunate enough to get through unscathed. But I think there was a lot of those teams in that three-loss area in the league that really did beat up on each other. And it was a matter of who you had healthy on a particular weekend and what that match-up looked like.

But the league was as tough as — and I’m going based off of what a lot of people who have been around here and some of the coaches who have been in the league for a long time say, too, because I’ve only been in it two years. But they said it’s the best they’ve ever seen it.

So us representing the Pac-12 here in the last year, it’s an honor. It’s something we take a lot of pride in as far as representing UW. But we would love to represent the Pac-12 here in this last year in a great way.

JOHN SUDSBURY: How would you evaluate Michael Penix’s play this year?

COACH DEBOER: Yeah, he’s just been elite. There’s a rain game in there. There’s a win game. There’s a couple things with guys missing games that are a big part of the supporting cast around him.

But he’s been constant. He’s been a great leader for us. He puts up the stats. He has the game-winning drives. He’ll lead you down the field when it matters most. He’ll win in the fourth quarter like this last weekend when you had a three-point lead and you get a chance to ramp it up to ten. He’ll get the job done when it matters most.

So our team has nothing but great confidence in him. He’s just become a vocal leader, not just a guy that leads by example, whether it be at halftime or in the fourth quarter when you need it most. I mean, he’s just played with a lot of courage. And a lot of it is tied to everything he’s been through. Means a lot to him.

JOHN SUDSBURY: Thank you very much for your time today, Coach. Look forward to seeing New Orleans in a few weeks.

COACH DEBOER: Awesome. Thank you.

JOHN SUDSBURY: We are now joined by Steve Sarkisian, the head coach of the Texas Longhorns.

COACH SARKISIAN: First and foremost, what an honor it is to be selected to play in the College Football Playoff and in the Allstate Sugar Bowl. It’s a game I’ve always, as a kid growing up admired, to think, wow, I would love to be part of that. And now at this stage in my career, finally get to. So I know our team is extremely excited. It’s been a heck of a journey to get to this point. I know our fan base is excited. And looking forward to playing just a really quality opponent in Washington. Got a ton of respect for the job that they’ve done over the past couple years. Coach [Kalen] DeBoer and his staff, what a tremendous season they’ve had up to this point being undefeated. Great quarterback play. Really good defense, receiving corps. So should be a heck of a game. Looking forward to the opportunity and getting to New Orleans.

Yesterday was certainly an eventful day in college football. You were able to finish early. What was your reaction? And were you trying to keep up with where you might wind up and so forth as the day went along and how confident were you that y’all were going to wind up in the top four?

COACH SARKISIAN: We played early. And then we bussed back to Austin from Arlington, or Dallas. So on the bus, we were watching the Alabama-Georgia game. Got home last night and had a chance then to watch Florida State-Louisville and Michigan-Iowa. Clearly, the night before when we got a chance – getting out of meetings, got a chance to catch the Oregon-Washington game. So I think we’re all fans of college football, so you watch it all. And then all you try to do when it’s your turn, play as good as you can and try to win a championship. That was the goal for us, was to be Big 12 champions. And whatever happened outside of that would be a bonus. And quite frankly, all the way up until our name popping up on the screen this morning, we didn’t know. We didn’t know. We didn’t know. You get into a room of 13 people. And they try to get to the best four teams that they think to represent the country in a playoff. And they chose us, and we’re extremely fortunate. So I was – I don’t know if I was confident, nervous, I don’t know what I was feeling; but we’re definitely excited now.

Coach [Steve] Sarkisian, congratulations. So you have talked about – and I think you said this on social media – the reward is the opportunity to do more. How would you say the team internalizes that? What does that mean to your players for the opportunity to do more?

COACH SARKISIAN: Well, I think the idea is, when you get a job done, when you perform a job, that reward is you get to do more. And that simple – in an aspect of when you look at it from an individual player’s perspective, right, maybe he’s got a reduced role on the team. But if you do that job well, we’ll provide you more work to do. We’ll try to expand your role, whether it’s special teams or offense or on defense.

And I think the same can be said as a team. As you go into a season, if you perform well enough in your conference play, the reward is that you get to compete for a conference championship. If you perform well enough in that conference championship, the reward is either, A, a bowl game or, B, a College Football Playoff berth, which we’ve earned that.

But now it’s back to work, right? We can’t just settle to where we are. There’s more work to be done.

And so I think our players receive it really well. It’s a pretty clear message. So we just try to earn more. We try to earn more opportunity and this is a heck of an opportunity we got.

Q.Hey, Coach. You’ve been a part of championship teams as an assistant and on staffs. Butwhat is it like to be in this position as a head coach and to have led your program to this point?

COACH SARKISIAN: It’s fantastic. I would never try to downplay this at all. We put in a lot of time and effort. We work extremely hard as a coaching staff, as an administrative staff, as a recruiting staff, and then ultimately as a team and our strength and conditioning staff.

So the idea to see the joy and excitement on everybody’s faces today, being the head coach, I mean, that’s why we do what we do. We try to earn these opportunities and then make the most of them.

And so the idea that we’ve been good enough throughout the year, that we’ve improved throughout the year, that we’re building a roster and we’ve got a culture in place of one that is representative of a championship-caliber team, as a head coach, it’s awesome.

So I’m really happy for all parties involved that we’ve gotten to this point. I’m proud of a lot of people for the work that they’ve done.

But for me, like I said – I was telling somebody earlier, I’m going to take today and enjoy our team. We’ve got our banquet tonight. I’m going to be celebrate being Big 12 champions, and we deserve to celebrate that. I’m going to celebrate the fact that we’ve earned an opportunity in the top four, and we’re going to enjoy that. And then I’m going do a home visit after that.

But for the next couple hours, I want to enjoy this, because these moments in this journey are ones that you don’t want to miss and you don’t want them to go by too quickly without taking a moment to let it sink in.

Q.I’m betting you’re the only team that’s thrown two touchdown passes to 300-pound defensivetackles. I’m just curious about your portfolio of trick plays. Do you have a hundred of them inyour portfolio? How many do you bring in to each game?

COACH SARKISIAN: We try to practice gimmicks or trick plays throughout training camp, throughout the season. And they’re all kind of always up.

But I do think there’s something about the morale on a team that when you can break up a little bit of the monotony that every play is so detailed and we got block this and block that front and read this coverage this way, sometimes it’s having a little bit of fun and going back to the park and just how we used to play football as kids and letting the guys enjoy that aspect of it.

So we carry those things. We practice them. We allow the guys to have fun with them. And sometimes we’ll practice those plays for months. And they just don’t come up at the right time in-game to call them. But the players know when they’re ready and then you try to, just like I said, hope that moment comes up when it fits right to call it.

And you can kind of sense the confidence in the players because they know, if you want me to keep calling those types of plays, you got to execute them. And they’ve done a pretty good job of that this year.

Last year you played Washington in the Alamo Bowl. How much of that will you be able to use that in preparation for this year’s game, if anything at all?

COACH SARKISIAN: I think there’s some things personnel-wise, having an idea of different players at different positions when you start getting into the scouting report.

I haven’t had a chance, quite frankly, to watch their film from this year and things they’re doing the same or things they’re doing differently or who they’re featuring or whatnot. But we’ll have a decent idea of the players and the personnel.

And they’ve got a heck of a team. We know that. And they were a really good football team last year. They’ve continued to build off of what they were able to do a year ago and continue to find ways to win. And they’ve been paying their best football when it’s needed in the biggest games, and most notably Friday night. Thought they played a heck of a ballgame.

I think we’ll be able to take, like I said, kind of some of the personnel and some of that aspect of it, but I won’t know much more than that until we start looking at the tape.

Coach, looking at the fact that Washington on one side is having one final ride in their conference, and then you as well representing the Big 12 and moving on to the SEC, just what you can say about the background of that nationally. And at the same time, knowing that a win over Alabama, obviously, had a lot to do with the committee seeing your worth and putting you into this College Football Playoff.

COACH SARKISIAN: Yeah, it is kind of ironic in this day and age of just all that’s happening in college football right now. Two of the teams of the four that are in the playoff, ourselves and Washington, are in our final years and won our conference championship in our final years in our representative conferences. So that is kind of the unique side to the whole thing of it all.

What was the second question? I apologize.

Looking at the fact that when the committee was discussing going through all of this, that win over Alabama holding a lot of weight for you both.

COACH SARKISIAN: Yeah, no, I’m glad that the committee recognized that win. Because I think the early-season, out-of-conference games like that, those marquee games are great for college football. And we all want to play them, believe me.

We got games scheduled in the next four years with Michigan and Ohio State. And I think that those games, A, our players love those games. I think they’re good for your team and finding out about your team and the character of your team and the growth of your team. I think the fans love them. I know TV loves those games.

And the fact that you can get kind of, if you want to call it, rewarded for winning those games is great. And on the flip side for Alabama, that they don’t get punished for that game.

If that game wouldn’t have gotten recognized in this selection, then that would, I think, give people some hesitation or some pause to play those nonconference marquee games like we were able to play this year against Alabama and we’ll be able to do now moving forward in the future.

Well, you sort of alluded to this already, but is there anything to be gained or gleaned from the fact that you guys played each other in the Alamo Bowl last year?

COACH SARKISIAN: Well, for me personally, probably a little gained. Obviously, having spent five years being a head coach there, clearly, there was some emotion involved a year ago and seeing a lot of familiar faces and people and part of their organization. So to kind of remove some of that and now just go play a really good football team and prepare for them, I think that’s helpful.

I think for both sides, again, the familiarity of the personnel. I’m sure schematically, there’s going to be some carry-over from a year ago. And there’s going to be things that are new. And that’s our job to figure that out and, ultimately, get our teams, respectively, both teams, prepared to play.

Should be a great game. I think both teams have improved. And we’ll know more of that as we start digging into the tape, as I said.

Should be a great game. And like I said, the Sugar Bowl has always been one of those games that I’ve always admired from afar. So now to be part of it is, obviously, very exciting and looking forward to the opportunity.

JOHN SUDSBURY: Coach Sarkisian, thank you very much for joining us today.