For all the recent “The Longhorns Are Back!” talk, the revitalization of the University of Texas’s football program might be the second most intriguing comeback story of Steve Sarkisian’s time in Austin. Just a decade ago, Sark, as friends and fans call him, was regarded as a wunderkind, having energized a dormant University of Washington team and then taken the reins at the University of Southern California, in 2014. But at USC he flamed out spectacularly, showing up drunk to athletic department events before being fired in the middle of his second season.
Sarkisian got sober, and University of Alabama coach Nick Saban offered him a lifeline: a $30,000-a-year job as an offensive analyst. From there, Sarkisian rebuilt his reputation and, as Saban’s offensive coordinator in 2020, oversaw one of the most lethal attacks in the sport’s history. In 2021 he took the Texas job.
Wins didn’t come quickly, but change did. Sarkisian has had to navigate a tumultuous era for college football. The previous three seasons have seen the adoption of new rules governing the transfer portal, which enables players to change schools once without penalty, and of NIL, a set of regulations that allows college athletes to monetize their names, images, and likenesses. Sarkisian also has changed the way he coaches: before the start of training camp, he takes the time to share his story with his players. (Soon after he spoke to Texas Monthly, Sarkisian and his wife, Loreal, announced that they were divorcing.)
And this season the Longhorns will make their long-awaited move from the Big 12 to the Southeastern Conference, widely regarded as the toughest league in the sport. SEC players are generally bigger, faster, and stronger than the Big 12’s, and the teams are tougher too. Instead of facing Iowa State and Kansas, the Horns will now compete with powerhouses Alabama and Georgia.
But expectations remain high in Austin. The Longhorns went twelve and two last year and earned a spot in the four-team playoff. Entering his fourth season, Sarkisian has reached the next stage of being a big-time college football coach: it’s time for a championship.
Texas Monthly: I’ve heard you say that before you took the UT job, you paused for a moment to make sure you understood what you were getting into. You signed up in January 2021, and three months later the new transfer portal rules went into effect. Two months after that, NIL came along. Then you learned that UT was going from the Big 12 to the SEC. You couldn’t have known precisely what you were signing up for.
Steve Sarkisian: Exactly! But there are some fundamental things that will never change, right? Our job is to develop young men on the field and put them in the best position to be successful—in the classroom, so they can walk out of here as a college graduate, and as men, so that when they’re done and they move on in life, they have a positive impact on our society and in their community. As a husband, a father, a community leader, a businessman—whatever that looks like.
I think it’s important not to lose sight of that, even in this era of NIL, and now we’re getting ready to transition into revenue sharing and even more change. We can’t lose sight of that.
TM: Every coach touts a team’s culture, and one aspect of the “Sark culture” you talk about often is the importance of vulnerability in the locker room. That’s more Ted Lasso than Bear Bryant. Why is vulnerability so important to you?
SS: That was something I had to learn in the second half of my career. I wasn’t very vulnerable early on in my career, up until 2015. I just wasn’t. And I was trying to be a little more Bear Bryant than I was probably comfortable being. And going through my own personal issues, I learned the value of being transparent and honest and of serving others. And when you can do that, that’s how you start to get some empathy for one another and appreciation for what people are going through. And quite frankly, that’s how you get to love.
Really, at the core of our [team’s] culture is love. Our team truly loves one another, and it takes time to get to that point. Love doesn’t happen overnight. You have to work toward it, but the best way to get to love is through empathy and support. And then the only way you can get there is by being vulnerable.
Eighteen- to twenty-two-year-old males, their first inkling isn’t to share or get vulnerable, right? But if I can start to teach some of those habits and to work on that, then yeah, that’s great for our culture. But, man, it’s going to be beneficial for them in life.
TM: How do players react to that kind of approach? I would imagine some of them are kind of, like, “What’s going on here?”
SS: Early on it was a bit of a challenge when we first started doing some of the exercises [such as guided conversations and having each player write down messages of gratitude]. But I can tell you this now: in year four the veteran players do a great job emulating what it looks like for the younger players and helping them understand the value in it. So I think players are getting on board much quicker than they did when we started.
TM: Apart from upgrading the roster’s talent, what did you have to do to get this program ready to play big boy, SEC-style football?
SS: There’s a level of physical and mental toughness you have to have—it’s not being mentally tough for just one play. There’s a consistency the SEC requires, because week in and week out, you can’t pick and choose when you’re going to play that style of football. We’re tough all day. It doesn’t matter what day of the week it is. It doesn’t matter who the opponent is. It doesn’t matter what the drill is. That, I think, is now part of our DNA.
TM: You’ve got freshmen on the team who were five years old the last time the Horns played the Aggies. How do you make sure everyone in your locker room understands what that game is going to mean to people?
SS: I don’t think it’s going to be very hard at all. We’ll be ready to play.
I’ve always been a huge college football fan and absolutely love all the pageantry, traditions, and passion in our sport. Growing up in Los Angeles, I always tuned in to the Texas–Texas A&M game. One of the coolest things about us going to the SEC is that we are getting to rekindle rivalries. Playing OU, A&M, and Arkansas this year is so cool for us and for fans of great rivalries.
TM: There’s the adage that people change places, but places also change people. How do you think UT, and maybe even the state of Texas, has changed you?
SS: I really appreciate the pride that Longhorn Nation has. When you first come on board, you’re trying to figure out where you fit in. It’s one thing to put on the hat of being the head football coach here at the University of Texas, and it’s a big hat, don’t get me wrong. But the one thing people at Texas have instilled in me is pride in this place through the support that they’ve given me. And that’s made me want to give back, whether it’s supporting other programs at our university, contributing on campus and supporting [UT] president [Jay] Hartzell, or connecting with our fans on a different level.
I don’t feel like I just wear this hat and am up on some pedestal because I’m the head coach. I feel like I’m part of the community. It probably took a little time for me to get there, but that’s probably the biggest thing I’ve learned. This is a really big family.
This interview was edited for clarity and length.
This article originally appeared in the September 2024 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “Steve Sarkisian Says the Longhorns Are Ready for the SEC—And the Aggies.” Subscribe today.
