For a coach who says everything is fine, Steve Sarkisian is giving off some weird vibes
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If you listen to someone assure you repeatedly that “everything is fine,” over time, you start to believe the opposite might be true. The more you hear those words, the more hollow they become. It can instead sound like a person is trying to convince themselves that everything is fine when in reality, maybe they’re not.
Steve Sarkisian would like you, me and Joe Blow to know that everything is fine with him at Texas and he’s not going anywhere. The Year 5 Longhorns coach made that point emphatically on the SEC Teleconference on Wednesday, wherein he addressed outside speculation about his future … unprompted:
Here was the full quote:
Sure, that’s fine.
That could’ve stemmed from what came out before the game at Mississippi State when Sarkisian’s name was at the center of a report from The Athletic’s Diana Russini that his representatives, “have let NFL decision-makers know that he’d be interested in potential head coaching openings, including the Titans’.”
There’s some careful wording in there that certainly makes it safe for Sarkisian to offer up an emphatic denial that he’s got 1 foot out the door. Whether he waited to address that until Texas suffered loss No. 3 and saw it’s name next to the No. 17 spot in the Playoff Poll heading into the penultimate weekend of the regular season, well, that’s in the eye of the beholder.
It’s also apparently in the eye of the beholder whether or not Texas has underachieved this year. As in, the program who earned its first preseason AP No. 1 ranking in its rich history.
Ask Sarkisian about that, and he’ll remind you that “underachieving” is a subjective term.
If Sarkisian had just cut off that first part of his response to longtime Texas columnist Kirk Bohls, that response doesn’t get all of that social media engagement. If everything is fine, why is it so hard for Sarkisian to just say “I’m proud of how we handled adversity, but we haven’t achieved our goals this season.” Forget the preseason ranking. Truth serum Sarkisian would never tell you that 7-3 is an acceptable place to be for a program who has been to consecutive semifinals. Do you think Sarkisian has approached his team after these 3 losses and told his team, “you guys met my expectations today.” No chance.
But instead, that reasonable question was turned into an icy exchange by Sarkisian. Why? Nobody expects Sarkisian to pretend that everything is fine.
Sarkisian presented that front repeatedly when asked about Arch Manning this season. The “I’ve never filmed any of you guys when you’re using the bathroom” response to early-season speculation about Manning wincing after throws was weird, and if you’ve observed Sarkisian in a local media setting, it’s been noticeably weird how little insight he provides on Manning.
“Dismissive” might be the best word to describe Sarkisian’s 2025. After that Florida loss, Sarkisian seemed to dismiss the idea that Texas’s Playoff chances were in significant danger even though it was a 2-loss team heading into the midway point of the season. With 3 losses, Sarkisian dismissed the idea that his team has underachieved.
Speaking of getting to 3 losses, Sarkisian apparently has some strong thoughts about that dreaded total.
As Lane Kiffin said on The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday, he, Kirby Smart and Sarkisian have a group text, wherein they discuss things like what a loss means. Here was the index that they came up with after watching Brian Kelly get fired at LSU, according to Kiffin:
One small, tiny issue with that.
Smart is the coach of a 1-loss team who is very much in the top 10, as is Kiffin. In fact, all but 2 (No. 11 BYU and No. 16 Georgia Tech) of the remaining 1-loss teams are in the top 10.
Another small, tiny issue with that is Sarkisian is coaching a 3-loss team who is ranked No. 17. According to their own index, not only does that mean the Longhorns are out of the top 25 — every 2-loss Power Conference team is currently inside the top 25 of the Playoff Poll — but it means that Sarkisian should be fired.
Mind you, Sarkisian’s squad lost 3 games last year. So did Smart’s and Kiffin’s. Not only are all of them are still employed, but they’re all on 8-figure contracts.
(OK, Kiffin technically isn’t there yet. He’s only making $9 million annually, but if he’s not making $10 million annually after all of this drama for his services, knock me over with a feather.)
In fact, Sarkisian got both a raise and an extension after a 3-loss season in 2024. It made him one of the 5 highest-paid coaches in the sport.
Everything should be fine in Austin, even in the likely event that Texas ends its season playing in the Citrus Bowl instead of another College Football Playoff. After all, Texas was the only program in America who entered 2025 having reached the semifinal in consecutive years. Hence, why it earned that preseason No. 1 ranking. It’s also why it earned the right to say that 3 regular-season losses isn’t fine. Whether he admits it or not, Sarkisian has felt a bit off all year.
According to who, you ask? You, me and Joe Blow.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
