Steve Sarkisian’s agents moved quickly to knock down any thought of him moving to the NFL and the Texas coach doubled down after his team’s overtime win over Mississippi State.
The Athletic’s Dianna Russini noted Saturday that she was “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’.”
Advertisement
Not long after that report, Sarkisian’s agents Jimmy Sexton and Ed Marynowitz said in a statement, “Any reports regarding communications on coaching opportunities with NFL teams are patently false and wildly inaccurate. Sark is solely focused on coaching the University of Texas football team.”
After Texas’ 45-38 overtime win over Mississippi State — a game that the Longhorns trailed by 17 points in the fourth quarter — Sarkisian spoke out in even stronger terms against the note in Russini’s story.
“I’d love to touch on this so bear with me for a second,” Sarkisian said when asked about the report. “It really pisses me off that one person can make a report that in turn, the entire media sports world runs with as factual. To the point of my agency, my agents have to put a statement out that they never have done. Historically, CAA, Jimmy Sexton and Ed Marynowitz have never had to do that. But I had to do that to protect my locker room and my team. And 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.
“And I respect what you guys do. I really do. And everybody else. But the fact that everybody ran that as truth is really embarrassing, OK? So 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. And so where that report came from, I’d love to talk to that person because it’s absolutely ridiculous.”
Sarkisian is in his fifth season with the Longhorns after he was the offensive coordinator at Alabama. Texas is 43-19 in his tenure and won 25 games over the 2023 and 2024 seasons after just 13 wins in Sarkisian’s first two seasons at the school. No. 22 Texas is 5-2 heading into its game at Mississippi State on Saturday night after an overtime win at Kentucky in Week 8.
Advertisement
[Get more Longhorns football news: UT team feed]
Before spending two seasons as the Crimson Tide’s OC, Sarkisian was the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons in 2017 and 2018. He took that job after he served as an analyst for Alabama during the 2016 season.
Sarkisian is currently the fifth-highest paid coach in college football behind Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Ohio State’s Ryan Day, USC’s Lincoln Riley and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney. Sarkisian’s 2025 salary is just under $11 million, and he signed a contract extension through the 2031 season in January.