SEC spring meetings are two weeks away and Steve Sarkisian has already taken a shot at one of his conference rivals.
“At Texas, we will only take 50% of a player’s academic credit hours,” Sarkisian said. “You may be a semester from graduating, but you’re going all the way back to 50% if you play here and want a degree. But at Ole Miss, they can take you. All you have to do is take basket weaving and you can get an Ole Miss degree.”
Sarkisian isn’t the only SEC coach to speak out about Ole Miss recently.
“[They would say], ‘Hey, Coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi,'” Kiffin said to Vanity Fair. “That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus’ diversity feels so great: ‘It feels like there’s no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that’s the real world.'”
In the Vanity Fair article, Kiffin clarified his comments, saying he wasn’t intending to take a shot at the program and that “I just hope [my comment] comes across respectful to Ole Miss.”
Florida head coach Jon Sumrall, who was an assistant at Ole Miss in 2018, responded to Sarkisian’s comments in a post on X.
“Grateful to coach at a top 10 public university that also offers advanced basket weaving!” Sumrall said.
SEC coaches will convene at the conference’s annual spring meetings from May 26-28 in Florida.