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Is Steve Sarkisian’s future at Texas already in danger? | College Football Enquirer

Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Pete Thamel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde discuss Texas’ disastrous loss to Kansas amid the Longhorns’ 5-game losing streak, and debate if Steve Sarkisian should be the guy to lead Texas into the SEC.

Video Transcript

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DAN WETZEL: All right, so let's get to this. I mean, look, Tom Herman gets fired. He's 32 and 18. He's 22 and 13 in the Big 12. He goes 7 and 3 last year-- 5 and 3. He made a Sugar Bowl and won it, for whatever that's worth. He must have been sitting there--

PETE THAMEL: He beat Georgia, right?

DAN WETZEL: I think he did beat Georgia. He's sitting there, I think, last night with a very fine bottle of merlot, just sipping it watching this, going bye, that life. Y'all thought I sucked, you had to drive me out of town.

Steve Sarkisian, who has not had a glorious head coaching record, and he comes in as an experienced head coach, coming right off of the Alabama offense, where it turns out those screen passes don't work quite as well when it's not Najee Harris leaping people. You don't bring in Steve Sarkisian to a team that isn't good enough at 7 and 3 and say, hey, this is a mess, rebuild it. This isn't a first-time head coach. This isn't like-- this isn't a lot of things. You bring him in to win-- to win big. They've lost five straight. How-- I mean, it's one year, but you don't lose to Kansas-- you don't lose five in a row if you're a coach that's going to take you to the next level. You just went down three levels in your first season. Like, this has got to be alarm bells everywhere on Steve-- with Steve Sarkisian and Texas. Pete.

PETE THAMEL: Well, I first guessed this in a lot of ways when they fired Tom Herman. I didn't necessarily think, oh, my God, you can't fire Tom Herman, but you better upgrade. And there weren't a lot of upgrades. Look, if they hired Urban Meyer, you shake-- you shrug your shoulders and say, OK, that's a guy who defiantly wins 10 games a year 80% of his college seasons, right? Like, that's a guy who is a proven winner who can go and win.

Steve Sarkisian in-- so five seasons at Washington, two at USC, never won 10 games. So they basically-- and his exit from USC was one of the more spectacular meltdowns of the last generation. Steve Sarkisian's a very good coach, he's a very good man. He knows how to run a program. He's a competent college football coach. But to insert him in the caldron of Texas, with the dysfunction-- they're still behind in facilities until that end zone gets built. There's so much you have to overcome. I just don't think he was, like, this massive upgrade. It was let's get rid of the guy we don't like and then try to just throw money at our problems. And that's essentially what happened here.

And the collision is, like, this program has to go in win in the SEC in three years. And that's really what's going to undo Sark. It's not that he's not competitive in the Big 12 and they're going to be a mediocre Big 12 team, it's the Texas brass is going to say, oh, my God, this is not the guy who's going to get our roster ready to go compete with LSU, Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Vanderbilt. Yes, yes.

DAN WETZEL: But look--

PETE THAMEL: I mean-- like, they would get run off the field by Tennessee right now. That's just the reality. If Kansas--

DAN WETZEL: They could not win the bean pot.

PAT FORDE: No.

DAN WETZEL: They couldn't win the--

PETE THAMEL: No, they cannot win the bean.

PAT FORDE: They would be last in the bean pot.

PETE THAMEL: Yes.

PAT FORDE: They'd be last in the bean pot. Let's say-- I mean take the damn steer off the helmet and they're terrible, OK? I think we can admit that. This is-- if you want to talk about product on the field, this is like the Big Ten getting Rutgers. I mean, you're bringing in a team that is way below the rest of the league right now-- way below. You can spin it however you want. They just lost five in a row. They lost to Kansas. They suck. And you're going to bring them into the SEC now and say, yeah, they're Texas, they'll be fine. They'll be fine. Come on. I mean, that's how bad this is at this moment.

Now, can it be fixed? Yes, it can be fixed. Is Sarkisian the guy fix it? Eh. He might-- looks more like Willie Taggart right now than a savior, you know-- Willie Taggart, who didn't even get two full years at Florida State before he was run out. If next year's going like this, Sark's gone. Because Texas has to not just hit the hammer-- hitting the panic button, but pound the panic button if they are still in this position as they get closer to getting into the Southeastern Conference because this is embarrassing enough. You want to go in and just absolutely get your helmet handed to you week in and week out by the Mississippi schools, and Kentucky, and South Carolina, Missouri? That's the way you're headed right now.