Steve Sarkisian called out rumors of his interest in NFL jobs and high-level college openings as “untrue” while asserting his commitment to the University of Texas for the second time this week.
Sarkisian used the opening minutes of his weekly SEC teleconference to address churn in the rumor mill pulling him into vacancies around the NFL and college football.
“I’d like to comment on something before I get into our team, something that has been bothering me now the past few weeks,” Sarkisian said. “And that is people reporting that, or insinuating that there is a possibility I could leave the University of Texas. And that is absolutely false and untrue.”
No. 17 Texas (7-3, 4-2 SEC) plays Arkansas in Austin on Saturday before ending the regular season six days later in a grudge match with No. 3 Texas A&M. That Friday night game is also in Austin.
And Sarkisian is hoping by taking more time to detail his desire to stay with the Longhorns now, he won’t need to bring it up again later.
“I’m not going anywhere. Never do I do this because I never want to be a distraction, so I never address these things. But at this point now, I feel like it is important that I do this because it’s important for our team, it’s important for our university,” Sarkisian said.
“I’ve had no discussions, not with my agent, not with the university, not with any other school, not with any NFL team about ever going anywhere else. I came here to win championships. I’ve got two kids enrolled at the University of Texas — one in law school and one on our team. I’ve got a third that hopefully decides to enroll at the University of Texas next fall, and my wife and I just had our son here in Austin.”
Last month, Sarkisian was linked to the vacancy with the Tennessee Titans and quickly dispelled the report. He also denied interest in other jobs.
The SEC standings have become the autobahn down the stretch.
Texas hasn’t lost at home this season (4-0). The Longhorns are fifth in the SEC standings with two conference losses. Undefeated No. 3 A&M has won all seven SEC games with only the Texas fight left in the conference. No. 4 Georgia has one loss and beat Texas head-to-head. No. 6 Ole Miss and No. 10 Alabama also have one conference loss. Georgia beat Ole Miss last month and No. 8 Oklahoma, which lost to Texas and Ole Miss, knocked off the Crimson Tide last week.
But Sarkisian isn’t giving up his team’s mission to return to the College Football Playoff and crash a few parties.
“This is our home. We came here to win championships,” he said. “We’ve built a damn good football program over the five years we’ve been here. We’ve been to two College Football Playoffs, we’ve won a Big 12 championship, we went to the SEC championship game in Year 1, we’ve had 23 players drafted the last two years, which is more than any other school in the country and our team GPA is at an all-time high.”
“So can we please stop putting things out there that you have absolutely zero evidence on and then can we please stop retweeting, putting it back out there as if it’s true as if it’s the gospel. It is not true. … And if you have a question about my future with the University of Texas, ask me on one of these calls, ask (athletic director) Chris Del Conte, he’ll be more than happy to take your call, so that we can set the record straight so that we can focus on our football team which is really what we should be doing.”
