It’s not new news that the Texas Longhorns fanbase is a hard one to impress. 

They expect excellence and reject failure audibly, something that can be felt by players, coaches and administrators at times. Even a road win in SEC football can leave them dissatisfied, as the Longhorns learned after their 16-13 victory over the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday.

As the team prepares for its fourth consecutive road game, head coach Steve Sarkisian has addressed the people who appear to simultaneously be his biggest supporters and loudest critics during the fall.

Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisia

Oct 11, 2025; Dallas, Texas, USA; Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian looks on before the game against the Oklahoma Sooners at Cotton Bowl. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images / Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

As he embraces his fifth season with the program, Sarkisian is familiar by now with how Longhorn fans operate. Following a narrow win against the lowest ranked team in the SEC, he addressed the expectations associated with donning burnt orange. 

“Expectations at the University of Texas are always going to be high,” he said. “But I think we’ve raised the bar from where we were when I got here to where we are now, and that’s a credit to the players and the staff and the organization and the administration. We’re a playoff team. That’s what we are now.”

The team has reached two consecutive College Football Playoff semifinals, which makes their struggles this season even harder for fans to stomach. With opponents like Vanderbilt, Georgia and Texas A&M still ahead, some worry that Texas still hasn’t seen the hardest of their 2025 conference schedule.

To those people, Sarkisian’s response is simple. 

“I don’t know what’s the hardest part of our schedule yet,” he said. “We’re going on the road for the fourth straight week. We’re getting on an airplane to go play a game in a hotel that’s not our own. That’s pretty challenging too, for not only young people, but coaches and everybody involved.”

He noted that this stretch of the season has been challenging from a “mindset perspective,” given their busy travel schedule and the fact that they’ve been forced to play in front of fans that don’t belong to them. 

They dominated the Oklahoma Sooners two weeks ago at the Cotton Bowl with the help of a large crowd of Longhorns, meaning that they might simply be longing for their own fans.

However, near the end of his remarks, Sarkisian noted that the team won’t dwell on the uncertainty of last week’s win. 

“The SEC is a very daunting task when you work your way through our conference,” he said. “Michael Taaffe reminded me in the locker room the other night the sec champs of last year went to that same stadium and won 13-12. And so, it’s not always about how pretty wins are in our conference. Sometimes you just gotta find a way to win, and we were able to do that.”

The team’s next travel destination will be Starkville, Mississippi, where they are set to take on the Mississippi State Bulldogs at 3:15 p.m. on Oct. 25.