When the game was over and Steve Sarkisian could talk about the way Saturday played out, he was clearly angry.
Several hours before Texas kicked off in Starkville against Mississippi State, The Athletic published a report from NFL insider Dianna Russini that Sarkisian’s representatives had indicated his interest in NFL openings this year.
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Shortly thereafter, Sarkisian’s agents Jimmy Sexton and Ed Marynowitz issued a statement on social media calling the report “patently false and wildly inaccurate,” which is notable because that’s just not how Sexton usually rolls. This is a man who has become the most prominent coach’s agent in college football in part because he knows how to weaponize the media and use rumors, whether true or not, to create leverage for his clients.
In a world where a lack of clarity works to Sexton’s advantage most of the time, you just don’t ever see him coming out so strongly to knock down a report like that.
By the evening, Texas had beaten Mississippi State 45-38 in overtime, coming back from a 38-21 deficit and avoiding a loss that would have knocked the Longhorns out of College Football Playoff contention. Afterward, Sarkisian blasted The Athletic’s report by saying, “It really pisses me off that one person can make a report that, in turn, the entire media [and] sports world runs with as factual … I had to do that to protect my locker room and my team. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous. I thought it was completely unprofessional of that person to put that report out, and the fact that everybody ran with it is borderline embarrassing for the media … I’ve got a small circle when I make decisions on what I do and what I don’t do, and nobody would speak on my behalf without me knowing.”
This leaves us with three options.
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First: Russini, one of the most well-connected and well-respected NFL reporters out there, completely whiffed.
Second: Sarkisian has interest in returning to the NFL, where he was an offensive coordinator in 2017 and 2018, but didn’t intend for it to get out and is trying to preserve relationships at Texas by coming out so strongly to deny the report.
Third: Sexton and Marynowitz, who are constantly in conversations with NFL and college teams, have been floating Sarkisian as a potential candidate either as a leverage play or to get him out of Texas, which has underachieved this season. It doesn’t even matter whether Sarkisian knew or approved of it, they’re just playing the game, and they came out with the statement to make sure their lucrative relationship with Sark doesn’t go sour.
If we’re ranking those possibilities, let’s be very clear that No. 2 or No. 3 are by far the most likely. And if you’ve watched Texas this season fall from preseason No. 1 to punching bag, it’s not hard to figure out why.
Steve Sarkisian and the Texas Longhorns eked out a win over Mississippi State in Starkville on Saturday. (Justin Ford/Getty Images)
(Justin Ford via Getty Images)
Sarkisian isn’t in line for an extension. He’s not going to get a raise. He’s either going to find a soft landing or enter 2026 with a lot of noise around his ability as a play-caller and perhaps even his job as a head coach. Nobody in the country has been given more resources, and nobody is delivering less value for the money this season.
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The Longhorns are just not very good. They don’t pass the eye test physically, they struggle with simple stuff on offense, and their defense isn’t nearly as dominant as it was supposed to be.
It’s the classic example of a team where you can’t quite put your finger on what’s wrong, but none of it looks right and Texas fans are compelled to wonder if something weird is going on behind the scenes.
By the end of the night, Texas’ playoff hopes were still intact — barely — but nobody wearing burnt orange could feel good about what they watched in Starkville against a bad Mississippi State team. Texas is 6-2, but it’s probably just a matter of time until Vanderbilt or Georgia or Texas A&M ruins the Longhorns’ season for good.
With all the drama surrounding Sark, it’s no wonder Texas reigns as America’s most miserable fan base in Week 9.
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Conference Champions of Misery
ACC: There’s not much more you can do with this iteration of NC State. After 13 seasons under Dave Doeren, it is what it is — a wholly unremarkable, middle-of-the-pack ACC program that no longer looks like it has any upside with the current regime. That’s why one of the hottest rumors of this year’s coaching carousel involves NC State and Doeren coming to some sort of agreement by the end of the season where the two parties can go their separate ways and perhaps even call it a retirement. Will it happen? Time will tell, but after a 53-34 loss to Pittsburgh, it doesn’t feel like there’s much more juice to squeeze out of this lemon. Doeren has been a solid coach with a high floor and low ceiling, but if the program wants to contend for ACC titles it’s time to seriously consider a change that would at least generate some excitement.
Big Ten: You’re not in a good spot as a program when an 11-point loss at home to your biggest rival is one of your better performances of the season. But compared to Michigan State’s 25-point losses to Indiana and UCLA the last two weeks, a cosmetically competitive game against Michigan actually seems like progress. That’s not good enough for Michigan State fans, though, and it shouldn’t be. Between 2008 and 2021, Sparty dominated this series, winning 10 of their 14 matchups. But this program’s sudden fall to the bottom of the Big Ten should probably be talked about more than it has been. Mel Tucker’s off-field implosion, plus a questionable hire in Jonathan Smith who had no Midwest ties, has left Michigan State in the most unenviable position. It must either make an expensive coaching change (more than $30 million in buyout money) and start all over again or figure out how to sell fans on patience with a coach who just isn’t connecting to the fan base or the Michigan State culture.
Jonathan Smith’s Spartans are struggling in his second season at the school. (Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
(Nic Antaya via Getty Images)
Big 12: At this point a year ago, it looked over for Dave Aranda at Baylor. But an administration partial to patience, plus a six-game winning streak to end the regular season, saved his job for another year. In a situation like that, the question as a coach becomes how you’re going to reward the faith. But after a 41-20 loss to Cincinnati, Aranda may be back in choppy waters as the season winds down. At 4-4, the Bears are not disastrous by any means. But take note of the attendance when they return home next week to face UCF. Baylor’s home games so far this year have not been great from an attendance standpoint, and it’s hard to keep a fan base engaged when you’re stuck in the middle of the Big 12 without being a threat to the upper-echelon teams in the league. Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades, who also chairs the CFP selection committee, is going to have to figure out if Baylor’s relative stability in the middle of the Big 12 outweighs an obvious apathy problem with the fan base.
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Group of Five: There’s some fierce competition to determine the worst team in FBS, but Charlotte is making a strong case as the season heads into the home stretch. After a 54-20 loss to North Texas, Charlotte is 1-7, with a 35-point loss to Temple, a 17-point loss to Army, a 28-point loss to South Florida and an 11-point loss to Rice among other unsavory results. The 49ers’ only win came against an FCS opponent, Monmouth, in Week 3. Meanwhile, athletic director Mike Hill was fired fewer than two weeks ago after signing a contract extension last year. In other words, it’s a whole mess for a program that was in a bowl game in 2019 but has gone 19-43 since.
Headset Misery
Brian Kelly: The suffocating second half Texas A&M executed to crush LSU, 49-25, will make for a very tense week in Baton Rouge. After LSU began the season with a 17-10 win at Clemson, Kelly and his acolytes around the program truly believed they had something special. But now we know there’s nothing special about beating Clemson, 5-3 LSU isn’t sniffing the CFP and they are so far behind an operation like Texas A&M culturally and schematically that people should start giving back salary out of pure shame. It was all a fraud perpetrated upon the LSU fan base, and both Kelly and athletic director Scott Woodward are responsible for putting a lifeless, substandard product on the field. In Kelly’s fourth year, that’s unacceptable, and it’s time for some frank conversations and tough decisions to figure out whether this coaching staff needs to be brought back.
Brian Kelly and the Tigers are 5-3 this season. (Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images)
(Tyler Kaufman via Getty Images)
Alex Golesh: With so many jobs open, someone is going to poach the South Florida coach and give him a contract worth at least $30 million dollars. Maybe a lot more. But before doing that, an administration making that offer should watch the second half of South Florida’s 34-31 loss at Memphis and ask some tough questions about whether Golesh’s costly tactical mistakes represent just a bad day or a core part of his philosophy. Because if it’s the latter, oh boy. While play-calling is always easier to evaluate with the benefit of hindsight, let’s focus on two moments that didn’t require any. Leading 24-17 in the third quarter, Golesh turned down a 24-yard field goal and instead went for it on fourth-and-3 and didn’t convert. It’s just a bad call. You’re controlling the game, so take the points and go up two scores. Then, as Memphis marched toward the goal line inside the final two minutes, Golesh declined to use any timeouts to stop the clock.
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Eli Drinkwitz: Speaking of dumb and costly fourth-down decisions, it needs to become socially unacceptable for coaches to rely on “the book” while ignoring things that actually matter, like game situation, opponent, score, momentum and other things that need to factor in beyond just analytics. When Missouri had fourth-and-goal at Vanderbilt’s 2-yard line relatively early in the third quarter, there was no reason for Drinkwitz to play for a touchdown. The score was 3-3, it’s a tough game on the road, and a chip-shot field goal to take the lead on the road would’ve been a very good outcome at that point. But Drinkwitz couldn’t help himself — and not only did Missouri get stuffed, it lost quarterback Beau Pribula with a serious lower leg injury that will likely take him out of the lineup for several weeks. In a game Vandy eventually won 17-10, everything mattered — including Drinkwitz’s bad decision.
Jeff Lebby: Leading the Longhorns 38-21 early in the fourth quarter, this was the night where Lebby — arguably the least qualified head coach hired in the SEC over the last decade — had absolutely no excuse not to get his first conference win. Mississippi State was taking it to Texas in every facet of the game, the Longhorns looked completely disinterested in the proceedings and all the Bulldogs needed was to avoid vomiting all over themselves. Unfortunately for Mississippi State, a few people are going to need trips to the dry cleaner this week — most notably Lebby, whose play-calling down the stretch was something to behold. Over its final four drives, including overtime, Mississippi State ran 17 plays for minus-16 yards while also giving up a 79-yard punt return for a touchdown with 1:47 left that tied the game. After that, State got the ball to Texas’ 42-yard line with 50 seconds left — on the edge of field goal range for their kicker — but followed with two bad passing plays that went nowhere. With two timeouts, what’s the excuse for not running the ball and at least getting close enough for a field goal attempt?
Brent Venables: Over the first month of the season, there was a lot of praise for Oklahoma’s investment in quarterback John Mateer and offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle from Washington State. But it didn’t take long for the SEC to figure either of them out. Part of that regression might be related to Mateer’s hand injury that forced him to miss a few weeks, but it was very clear in a 34-26 loss to Ole Miss that Mateer was the second-best quarterback on the field. The stat line didn’t look awful — 17-of-31 passing for 223 yards – but Mateer’s propensity to probe and hold the ball rather than make quick decisions is hard to overcome when the Sooners suffer from chronic struggles in the run game. Venables isn’t on the hot seat yet, but with road games at Tennessee and Alabama coming up, his quality of life could get complicated in a hurry.
Moments of Misery
North Carolina improved, but not quite enough: Credit Bill Belichick for two things. First, the Tar Heels are incrementally getting better. They showed it last week in a close loss at Cal and backed it up with a near-upset of Virginia. Also, with a chance to win the game in the first overtime, Belichick went for two — which is exactly what you should do given the overtime rules. If North Carolina had kicked the extra point, they’d have gotten the ball right back and been forced to go for two with a touchdown in the second overtime. So you might as well just go right there. Unfortunately for the Tar Heels, Virginia stopped them just short of the goal line for a 17-16 win. Good process, tough result — and perhaps there’s some good energy in Chapel Hill despite being 2-5.
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South Carolina blew its opportunity: Even for a team that wasn’t going to meet its goals for the season, beating Alabama would have been a really big deal. And, frankly, the Gamecocks should have beaten Alabama on a night where they took a 22-14 lead early in the fourth quarter and had a magical atmosphere brewing in Columbia. And even though Alabama responded with a 14-play, 79-yard touchdown drive to tie the game, South Carolina had a chance to take the ball down the field and win inside the final couple minutes. But losing teams find ways to lose, and it’s just that kind of season for the Gamecocks. Quarterback LaNorris Sellers got the ball knocked loose by Deontae Lawson, Alabama recovered at South Carolina’s 38 and marched in the winning touchdown with 34 seconds left. Statistically, South Carolina played Alabama to a draw. But when you’re 3-5 after starting the season at No. 13 in the Associated Press poll, you can’t sell moral victories.
Oklahoma stepped on their own comeback: Make no mistake, the Sooners got outplayed at home in their 34-26 loss to Ole Miss, which will make for some interesting discourse in Norman about where the program is headed. It’ll also raise the temperature around Brent Venables heading into next Saturday’s game at Tennessee and Sooners legend Josh Heupel, who quarterbacked Oklahoma to its last national title in 2000. But let’s home in on what happened with seven minutes left when Ole Miss was forced to punt, leading 31-26. At that moment, with the Rebels looking shaky, it felt like Oklahoma could go win the game with a touchdown — especially after Isaiah Sategna III popped up a return near midfield. But Sategna fumbled at the end of the play, Ole Miss expanded the lead to eight with a field goal and Oklahoma didn’t really threaten from that point on. If Sategna just held onto the ball, who knows how the game might have turned out.
GameDay once again turned into the CAA showcase hour: After yet another one of his rants decrying the current pay-for-play environment of college football, Nick Saban told the “ESPN GameDay” crowd in Nashville that Vanderbilt “better do something to keep Clark Lea here “cause he’s gonna go somewhere,” which might seem innocent enough except for one thing. Saban is a client of agent Jimmy Sexton and, in many ways, Saban’s ability to set and re-set the market for coaches is the reason Sexton has maintained such strong control of the industry for the last 20 years. Oh, and guess who else is a client of Sexton/Creative Artists Agency? Lo and behold, it’s Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea! Imagine that. Not to suggest there’s some nefarious plot here, but this is how the sausage gets made. And just like last week, when Saban kickstarted the James Franklin rehab tour by telling his fellow CAA client it was “unfair as hell” for Penn State to fire him, it all feels too cozy.