Since the moment The Athletic’s Dianna Russini reported that Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian’s reps were kicking the tires on potential NFL opportunities, he and his boss have been adamantly denying it.
After weeks of battling further reports and rumors, Sark put his foot down on Wednesday.
“I’d like to comment on something before I get into our team, something that has been bothering me now over the past few weeks, and that is people reporting or insinuating that there’s a possibility I could leave the University of Texas, and that is absolutely false and untrue,” Sarkisian said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’ve had no discussions, not with my agent, not with the university, not with any other school, not with any NFL team, about ever going anywhere else. I came here to win championships. I’ve got two kids enrolled at the University of Texas, one in law school, one on our team. I’ve got a third that hopefully decides to enroll at the University of Texas next fall. And my wife and I just had our son here in Austin. This is our home. We came here to win championships.
“We’ve built a damn good football program over the five years that we’ve been here. We’ve been to two College Football Playoffs. We won a Big 12 championship. We went to the SEC championship game in year one. We’ve had 23 players drafted the last two years, which is more than any other school in the country. And our team GPA is at an all-time high. So can we please stop putting things out there that you have absolutely zero evidence on, and then can we please stop retweeting, putting it back out there, as if it’s true, as if it’s the gospel? It is not true.”
After entering the 2025 season with a No. 1 ranking and huge hype, the Longhorns have disappointed despite having a 7-3 record. There were some rumblings that Sarkisian might want to bolt rather than face a hot seat in the coming years.
“I’m told that representatives for Texas coach Steve Sarkisian have let NFL decision-makers know that he would be interested in potential head-coaching openings, including the Titans,” wrote Russini in late October. Sark responded by saying that speculation “really pisses me off,” while Texas AD Chris Del Conte said the report lacked any merit. ESPN’s Desmond Howard threw fuel on the fire this week, speculating that Sark might leave, which Del Conte once more refuted.
Russini clarified that her sources were not Sarkisian’s agents, but did say, “Unfortunately, they never added that Steve Sarkisian wants to stay at Texas, right? They just said, ‘This is not true; we did not talk to any NFL teams.'”
Now, Sarkisian, who is 45-20 in five seasons at UT, has made that part clear. Whether it’s because he never intended to leave or because his reps’ feelers came back empty, we’ll probably never know for sure.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.