Ahead of last weekend's game against Mississippi State, Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian was reminded by an analyst on his staff that his Longhorns had never gone into a bye with an undefeated record.

Sure enough, Texas was 4-3 before it got some time off during Sarkisian's first year in Austin in 2021. The Longhorns then went 5-3 before their bye in 2022. Texas was 15 seconds away from taking a 6-0 record into last season's bye, but a late Oklahoma touchdown pass at the Cotton Bowl spoiled those plans.

But that analyst need not worry. Texas took care of the visiting Bulldogs in Week 5 and is 5-0 with a bye on this week's schedule.

"I think everybody would probably agree there's nothing like going into a bye coming off of a win as an undefeated team. That's always something that you strive for," said Sarkisian, whose team doesn't play again until it faces Oklahoma in Dallas on Oct. 12.

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What will the bye week look like at Texas? Instead of practicing Monday, Texas just held its typical meetings and lifted weights. The team will practice and start its prep work for Oklahoma on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Aside from a lift Friday morning, the players will have the entire weekend off.

Sarkisian and the Texas coaches will use the weekend to recruit. Since Texas has another bye scheduled for after the Vanderbilt game Oct. 26, the coaching staff won't have to make it to every high school on its recruiting map.

"We're trying to be really diligent with the areas of which we're attacking (recruiting) and being very strategic in that approach," Sarkisian said. "We'll attack some things this weekend, and then have a chance there early November for another week to go do it again."

While the Texas players got a break from their Monday media obligations, Sarkisian still showed up at the Carpenter-Winkel Centennial Room for this weekly conference. During his 40-minute session with reporters, Sarkisian addressed the good, bad and ugly of the first five games of UT's season.

To be clear, there's a lot more good than bad and ugly. After all, Texas is the top team in the US LBM Coaches Poll. The Longhorns are currently listed behind just Alabama in the Associated Press poll, but the Longhorns did top those rankings for two weeks. Texas has not trailed in a game yet this season.

Sarkisian said Monday he is pleased with the balance of a Texas offense that is averaging 322.2 passing and 191.4 rushing yards per game. He noted that Texas has given up just three touchdowns to its opponents and the defense has posted good numbers on third down and in the red zone. He even gave Will Stone a shout-out since the junior kickoff specialist has allowed just four returns this season.

"I'm proud of our guys through five games, but as you guys know, we've got a long way to go," Sarkisian said. "We're not a third of the way through this season if we (are) trying to accomplish what we want to accomplish."

As for the bad, Sarkisian noted that Texas has forced just two more turnovers than it has committed. As evidenced in a 35-13 win over Mississippi State, UT has had a problem with what Sarkisian described as "unforced errors." Sarkisian likes the big plays he's seen from his receivers, but that position group's blocking on the perimeter must get better.

"I think there's a lot we need to clean up, pre-snap penalties, holding, a lot of that's on me to be the leader in the room in the offense, but we'll get that taken care of on the bye week and get ready for OU," quarterback Arch Manning said after beating Mississippi State.

Relatively speaking, Sarkisian said the Longhorns are pretty healthy right now. Just seven players — one of which was starting quarterback Quinn Ewers — were ruled out for the Mississippi State game. Sarkisian felt, though, that the bye week will be helpful for the Longhorns as they attempt to recharge and reset mentally.

"I would say (the bye is) coming at a very good time, because we've been playing a good amount of ball, but there's a lot we have to clean up," UT linebacker David Gbenda said over the weekend. "With this bye week, it is going to give us a chance to just recuperate and understand the flaws that we had and just really go back to the drawing board, work on the technique and get the younger guys in for reps but also look ahead a little bit and understand what we have going on in this next phase of the season."

As for that next phase of the season, Sarkisian doesn't have any creative nicknames for it.

"Just phase two. I save all my creativeness for the play calls," he joked.

Sarkisian said Texas will attack this phase of the season as a four-week block. First comes the bye. Then Texas has games against No. 17 Oklahoma, No. 5 Georgia and Vanderbilt.

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This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas football, Steve Sarkisian reach bye week with undefeated record