Steve Sarkisian on Big 12 coaching changes, impact on players

Texas Longhorns football coach Steve Sarkisian believes midseason coaching changes don’t serve to help anyone. In his Monday press conference, the first-year head man spoke about the recent moves at TCU and Texas Tech.

The Horned Frogs announced Sunday that they had reached an agreement to part ways with coach Gary Patterson, who was in his 22nd season in Fort Worth. The Red Raiders fired Matt Wells ahead of a Week 9 game against Oklahoma.

Steve Sarkisian worries about the effect that midseason coaching changes has on the locker room, particularly older players.

“When coaches get let go in season, I don’t know what message you’re sending to their team,” Sarkisian said. “Outside of that there’s a dysfunctional locker room or something like that. You’re saying, ‘We’re scrapping this season and moving on to the next one.’ How does that feel if I’m a senior in the locker room? ‘There’s the guy I came to play for and I’ve been with him for the last three or four years and now he’s gone. I guess they’re giving up on us now.’ …When you lose out on that opportunity at the end of somebody’s career, it’s tough. But this is where we’re going.”

Coaches getting let go in the middle of the season isn’t a new trend, but it seems to be happening at a much higher rate this year. In addition to the two Big 12 schools, USC, Washington State and LSU also fired their head coaches before the end of the year.

TCU’s announcement Sunday came as the biggest shock, as Patterson is arguably the most successful coach in program history. He is the Horned Frogs’ all-time winningest coach, with 160 career victories. They have struggled in 2021, and currently sit at 3-5 ahead of only Kansas in the conference standings.

Sarkisian believes the focus is shifting more to big picture goals such as the College Football Playoff and conference championships. But he offers a reminder that for more teams than, that is not going to come to fruition.

“I know everybody wants to look at the Big 12 championship or the SEC championship and the College Football Playoff,” Sarkisian said. “There’s so much attention and focus on that. When you talk about that, you’re maybe talking about eight teams? 10 teams? How many college football teams are there? Another 120 programs? They’re all striving and working toward common goals within their own locker room and their own team.”

It’s hard not to wonder if this shift has anything to do with the rapidly changing climate of college athletics. On July 1, a Supreme Court ruling on NIL laws enabled college athletes to start earning money through various avenues. The result could be that an already competitive profession just got even more cutthroat as teams try to keep up and attract star recruits.

“I don’t love the temperature of this, but I also know in this day and age of college football, it’s becoming more and more of a business,” Sarkisian said. “We’re trying to keep it a little bit more holistic, it’s still college athletics. We have a responsibility to these young men to groom them to be positive influences in society. Whether they end up as football players or businessmen or fathers and husbands, whatever that may be. …I’m not as concerned for the coaches themselves. We’re grown men. We can handle it. I’m more concerned for the players in the locker room.”