Paul Finebaum surprises himself with his take on Steve Sarkisian, Texas

Texas’ unprecedented 57-56 overtime loss to Kansas on Saturday wasn’t a step in the right direction for a Longhorns program that’s now lost five straight games, but UT’s administration and people across the college football landscape still believe that Steve Sarkisian is the man for the job. Of those people that think the Longhorns’ head coach will be just fine in Austin is ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum.

Sarkisian, who’s in his first season at Texas after serving as the offensive coordinator at Alabama under Nick Saban from 2019-2020, got his Longhorns squad off to a strong start in 2021. His new team jumped out to a 4-1 start to the season – which included a season-opening win over a ranked Louisiana team – and was ranked No. 21 in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 poll.

Since then, however, Texas has lost games to Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Iowa State and Kansas and sits towards the bottom of the Big 12 standings. The Longhorns have two regular season games remaining – at West Virginia and vs. Kansas State – and they will need to win both of them in order to become bowl eligible.

Despite the current downhill slide Texas is on, Finebaum doesn’t think it’s time to jump ship on Sarkisian – even after a loss to a Kansas team the Longhorns were 31-point favorites over.

“That’s where we are. These games take weird turns,” Finebaum said on The ESPN College Football Podcast. “He’s lost a couple of games like this, he’s lost a couple of games by more, but I still think he’s doing a pretty good job of showing up every week and not going Dan Mullen on the media – and I feel good about it.

“This is unusual for me, but I know Sark well enough to believe he can get it done.”

Steve Sarkisian explains struggles of building chemistry as first-year head coach

During his weekly media availability last week, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian was asked about the difficulties that come with building chemistry as a first-year head coach, no matter if the team is thriving or struggling.

“I think one thing we tried to do when we first got on board was to try to really develop the relationships with the players,” Sarkisian said.

“When you didn’t sit in their home, when you didn’t have eight, 10, 18 months to recruit a young man and you just show up, we’ve got to get to know them. And we’ve got to get to know them on a lot of levels and not pass judgment early on. When I first took the job, I said it was going to be a clean slate for everyone in the program, and nobody would be judged, good, bad or indifferent, that occurred prior to us arriving.”

Texas and West Virginia kickoff at noon ET Saturday in Morgantown.