Steve Sarkisian’s Coaching Evolution Leads Texas to Big 12 Championship
ARLINGTON, Texas — The knock on Steve Sarkisian when Texas hired him three years ago was that he hadn’t really won anything of consequence as a head coach.
He won 56 games in six-plus seasons at Washington and USC. But he never won a division title, much less played for a Pac-12 title. His issues with alcohol led to his ouster at USC and to treatment.
He waited five years to become a head coach again and spent most of it at Alabama, working for Nick Saban. He helped Alabama win the 2020 national title as its offensive coordinator.
The History
When he was hired, the reviews were wait-and-see. Sure, one of Saban’s assistants, Kirby Smart, had pushed Georgia to the brink of a national title by that point, and Smart and his Bulldogs have won the last two titles. But not every apple that falls from any coaching tree is ripe for the picking. Just take a look at Bill Belichick’s coaching tree.
But we forget something about people in any profession. Evolution and change is possible. Second chances can be cashed in. Just because you didn’t win anything of consequence in your first try doesn’t mean you can’t in your second.
“Hopefully, what comes out of this is my story can inspire others, to maybe make changes in their own personal lives for growth, because we don’t have to stay where we are, right?” Sarkisian said.
Texas’ 49-21 Big 12 Championship victory over Oklahoma State, its first league title sice 2009, was as much about the development of its players as it was about the development of the Longhorns’ head coach.
The Process
From the start of this season, Sarkisian set the tone, one that was three years in the making. He’s called it “trust equals time plus consistency.” For those folks that live in Tuscaloosa, Ala., they probably know it better as “the process.”
“These guys know we’ve been talking about being champions since the summer and we haven’t backed off of it,” Sarkisian said. “I’ve challenged them. I’ve made it very known publicly that that’s what the season was about and they never blinked.”
Process is messy. So is change management. Sarkisian has had to engage in both at Texas.
Texas failed to be bowl eligible Sarkisian’s first year. They frittered away winnable games. Twenty-one players left the program. But, Sarkisian said, “the right ones stayed.”
There was less of that in Year 2, but the Longhorns made enough mistakes to keep them from reaching the Big 12 Championship Game last season.
This season, Sarkisian challenged them. He did so with the understanding that his players trusted him.
“I needed to remain consistent over time for them to keep getting closer to me and in the end the thing that I just praise them for was they trusted me, they trusted me this year,” Sarkisian said. “They believed me when I told them how things would go.”
Several times Sarkisian pointed out the words “Big 12 Champions” on the hats belonging to Quinn Ewers and T’Vondre Sweat, who accompanied him to the post-game podium. Texas fans may have been chanting “S-E-C” while the Longhorns were getting their Big 12 hardware, but he said those words are important to him and to his players.
That’s three years’ of work. His work. Their work.
“To be really clear on that, we’re here to celebrate this victory in a season and what we were able to accomplish this year,” Sarkisian said.
Back in 2020, before Sarkisian even took the Texas job, Iowa State’s Breece Hall said “It’s five-star culture vs. five-star players” after Iowa State beat Texas in one of Tom Herman’s final games as Longhorns head coach.
The next year, Sark took the Longhorns to Ames and they lost, 30-7, reinforcing Hall’s point. He told The Athletic recently that the game “…felt ugly in the moment. We didn’t play very good, kinda got our butts kicked.”
Culture
After Texas beat Iowa State two weeks ago, Sark referenced Iowa State’s mantra to make a point about his own program’s development.
“Five-star culture vs. five-star players,” Sarkisian said. “Well, now we have both.”
It underscored Texas’ biggest problem since the Mack Brown era ended. The Longhorns could recruit big-time players. But the culture never sustained it. Not under Charlie Strong. Not under Tom Herman, who failed to carry it over from their Sugar Bowl-winning season in 2018.
It took Sarkisian years of learning from Saban “the process” and three years of “trust equals time plus consistency” to make Saturday a reality for Texas.
“It’s been a process since Day 1,” Sarkisian said, echoing his former boss.
Remember when the Longhorns were trying to get rid of Charlie Strong and Texas boosters were dead set on prying Saban from Alabama, which was never going to happen?
Turns out they got the next-best thing in Sarkisian, a coach who learned most of Saban’s tricks in Tuscaloosa and imported them to Austin.
In doing so, he returned Texas to the top of the Big 12 and validated the second chance to be a head coach.
“I didn’t take this job just to say, ‘I was the head coach at University of Texas,’” Sarkisian said. “I took this job with the mindset of we’re gonna go win championships.”
iframe src=”https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/1986400/1964875/” width=”510″ height=”500″ frameborder=”0″>You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
