KYLE FLOOD: On behalf of Coach Sarkisian and our whole program, we really want to just say thank you to everybody here at the Citrus Bowl. It is a first-class experience all the way. We' are really excited to be in the game and, certainly, want to thank the people here in the city of Orlando.
I have been fortunate now to be in this city quite a few times, my brother lives down here, and to play in my second Citrus Bowl. The warmth that this city gives you when you come down here, and the way we have been treated has just been first class all the way. We really appreciate it, and we are excited about the game.
Q. Trevor, any further decision if you're going to enter the NFL Draft, and can you talk about the motivation for the team not being in a College Football Playoff game to finish the season in the right way?
TREVOR GOOSBY: For us, it is sending a message to College Football Playoffs and the rest of the nation that we are a dominant football team, and we are a physical football team. Whether we should have been in or not, that is up to the College Football Playoff, but we are just here to send a message and dominate this game.
As for my decision, I am going to go throughout this game, focus on this game and make a decision after that.
Q. Arch, we haven't really heard from you, we heard from your dad, but can you take us through your decision to come back next year and what kind of went into that decision?
ARCH MANNING: Yeah, I felt like I developed a lot this year, especially towards the back half, and I want to keep it going. There is no reason to leave. I feel like I have a lot more football left to play, and excited to still be part of this team.
Q. You guys have had a lot of turnover since the season has ended. Can you maybe speak to what that transition has been like for you guys, is this just part of college football nowadays, and how do you guys move forward without a lot of key guys here?
KYLE FLOOD: I think it is. I think this is something that everybody in college football is going to have to get adjusted to, some players making the decision, some players making the decision to move on and go to the draft and some players making the decisions that they are going to eventually go in the portal when that opens. I think everybody is navigating this in real time. It is not like you can call a coach from five years ago and say, hey, how did you guys do this. It didn't exist back then. We are all navigating it.
What has helped us as a staff is the experience coming from the NFL and knowing how to practice with less players. That part has been pretty seamless for us. We kind of know how to do that.
Then there is an exciting part to it, as well, where you get some younger players who maybe didn't have as big a role during the regular season. Now their role gets to expand, and I think for us as coaches that is really exciting and not only does it give them a chance to impact the game this week but you get a little glimpse of maybe what is coming in the future.
Q. To that end, how do you handle playing time, seeing Arch all year and what he can do --
KYLE FLOOD: I like what he does.
Q. Do you use KJ Lacey and some of these younger players more than you would normally?
KYLE FLOOD: It is really position by position. I don't think quarterback for us has ever been a rotational position. I don't really see that. But there are other positions now where the running back room is a little bit different than it was two weeks ago. You know, so there is going to be guys that -- Ryan Niblett, Christian Clark, Michael Terry, James Simon -- all these guys are going to have a role in the game. It is really more position by position.
On the offensive line, we are fortunate. With our starting five, they are all here for the game, and they are excited to play. But there are other positions where rooms have changed a little over the last two weeks. I think there you are going to see a little more rotation and a little bit more flexibility in terms of the game plan.
Q. Can you just talk about the evolution of the offensive line this season? You had some movement at left guard, and then you settled in with Hudson at left guard and Connor Robertson at center. Can you just talk getting to that point?
KYLE FLOOD: Really what we have been searching for all year is consistency, and I think we have found that a little bit better toward the end of the year. We played three of our best games up front, arguably against the three best defenses that we saw -- Ohio State, Oklahoma and Texas A&M -- really three of our best performances of the year, and there are some other games where we weren't happy with our performance.
All the movement, the switching of players, that is never ideal for an offensive line, I am just going to be honest with you. Over the last 32 years, I have been coaching that position, you would like to have five guys, you would like them to play the whole year. Now, because of injuries, that rarely happens. But if a guy goes out with injury, comes back healthy, you get him back in there.
You like to have continuity. Continuity generally leads to consistency. It is the most important part of that position. It is what we have been searching for. I think we found that later in the year. And that is exciting for us, and now we have to continue against a really good defense.
Q. Your uncle Peyton played in the Citrus Bowl years ago. Have you talked to him about it? And how special is that, playing in the same game that Peyton played in?
ARCH MANNING: Yeah, I was in New Orleans over the break, and my grandfather told me about those games and my dad. It is cool. I is cool being part of this game, especially that he played in it, and we are excited to play a good Michigan team.
Q. With Tre and DeAndre gone from the team now and going into the 2026 season, how important are these practices in this game to sharpen your leadership skills?
ARCH MANNING: Yeah, definitely important for us to step up, just two guys that have been here awhile and good players left. For these young guys to step up, get more reps and kind of get our timing down with them.
TREVOR GOOSBY: It is just a good test of our leadership. Obviously losing key guys, it's important that, like Arch said, we step up and lead the guys in order to take the W.
Q. We heard Sark for the first time mention the portal as an option for the offensive line. Before we get to that point, can you give an update of what you've seen from the interior in the freshman class?
KYLE FLOOD: One of the collateral positives, if you want to call it that, of having less players is, when you practice, everybody stays in the same area. Whereas when you have a scout team, I don't necessarily get to see those guys performing on the scout team. I hear from the defensive coaches how they are doing and that kind of stuff, but now I get to see everything.
That to me is exciting, and now we are playing a team that, from a run game standpoint, does a lot of the things that we do. Now, I see the guys doing the things that we are doing on our side of the ball as well. Guys like Danny Cruz, Nate Kibble, Jaydon Chatman, this has been a really good two-week stretch for them as they have improved.
Q. Is it realistic to try to build an offensive line through the portal? Or would you prefer to continue to develop guys and attack it that way?
KYLE FLOOD: I think if you asked any college coach, they would tell you, in a perfect world, you would love to recruit your own players, retain them, and develop them over three, four, five years, whatever that looks like.
But kind of like what I said before, that is not college football anymore. It is not. If you recruit really good players, they may have options at other places that they may decide to take, and that is just part of college football now.
Is it realistic to do it? I think everybody is going to try to do it, certainly at a place like Texas, where we can recruit the best high school players in the country and recruit at a high level, we are always going to try to do that.
But I always think, going forward, the portal is always going to be part of that process as well.
Q. Somewhat of a hypothetical now, but if you were to recruit the portal at the offensive line, are you still looking for the same characteristics in players, and is it any different coaching someone who may have played for multiple offensive line coaches as opposed to someone fresh out of high school?
KYLE FLOOD: You started that question in a bad way because once you said hypothetical, I really shouldn't answer it. But I'm going to answer it, though. I'm going to answer it.
Q. I appreciate it.
KYLE FLOOD: No worries.
Is it different coaching? Well, again, in the NFL, you get free agents every year, and you have to coach those guys and you have to fit them into your system. I think the art of recruiting is really the art of evaluation. It is not evaluation, is he a good player or not. That is not really the evaluation. The evaluation is does he have the traits to really excel at a high level in your system.
That was the Trevor Goosby evaluation, because a lot of people, when Trevor was in high school, didn't see what Trevor has become, which is an elite offensive tackle in college football.
But what I saw were the traits. I am not in the prediction business, right. I have said this before, I am in the production business, not the prediction business. I don't predict it. But I knew he had the traits to play at a really high level in our system.
Whether it is a high school player, whether it is a player in the portal, that is really what you are looking for. Then you have to meet these guys. Meeting them now, when they are in the portal, is not like meeting them in high school when they come on an official visit and they are there for a weekend.
It is really like your NFL Top-30 visits where you say, Hey, I have to get this guy in a room and I have to find out does this guy want to be coached, does he believe in the things that we believe in, how great does this player really, really want to be.
Q. Piggybacking off that, you've been in this industry for a long time. How tough is it when you see guys making decisions off money and financial stuff more so than the other things that you used to talk to guys about how important it is, college football, the campus, all these kind of things? How tough is it when it's mainly a financial decision?
KYLE FLOOD: I don't think that matters if you are a player, a coach, in a different profession. When you make decisions just purely based on the financials, I think you are setting yourself up to make bad decisions. It has to be more than that.
We try to advise the guys on that, and every player is coming from a different place. It is not frustrating to me. It doesn't make me angry. It is none of those things. It is a part of college football now. If you don't embrace it and if you don't evolve with it, it is going to be hard to be successful.
I think for us as a staff we have tried to embrace it. Again, our first priority is to recruit great high school players, develop them and retain them. That is our first priority, but we know that's not going to be the only way college football works anymore.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports