Steve Sarkisian comments on teams poaching Texas players, confidence in program

Steve Sarkisian was honest about schools trying to poach players, even ones at Texas. Amid reports of schools trying to get quarterback Maalik Murphy to transfer, Sarkisian had an honest self evaluation.

There’s no doubt about poaching or perhaps bending of the rules in the transfer portal. That much is obvious.

Sarkisian was asked if he was concerned about schools trying to break through and poach players.

“I think one, we have to say to ourselves, it’s a reality right,” Sarkisian said, via Danny Davis of the Statesman. “That’s going to happen. I don’t think we can walk around with our heads in the sand saying that, ‘Hey we’re gonna recruit good players, and it’s just gonna be great. No one’s gonna try to come poach our guys.’

“But two, I just think that’s where your culture kicks in. We’ve got such a good culture right now that I don’t think players really want to leave. Now there’s times when we may have to try find creative ways to get ‘em to want to stay, but I don’t think we have guys on our team that are thinking, ‘I want to get the heck out of here. I don’t like the locker room. I don’t like my coach. I don’t like our system or our schemes.’”

Sarkisian doubled down on his players enjoying the Texas Longhorns life and what his program represents.

“I think that we’ve got a lot of players that like what we do,” Sarkisian said. “They like the environment, they like the culture that we have, they feel like they’re improving and getting better. I definitely am aware that people are probably going to try to come after our guys and that’s okay. We’ve just got to make sure we handle it accordingly.”

Retaining Murphy on the roster was a big one for Texas. Quinn Ewers is the entrenched starter at quarterback and No. 1 overall prospect Arch Manning is in the room as well.

But Murphy is a high-quality backup and might be the guy off the bench should Ewers go down with injury.

As a member of the Class of 2022, Murphy was a four-star recruit out of Gardena (Calif.) Junipero Serra, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He was the No. 15 overall prospect in the state, the No. 12 quarterback in the class and the No. 205 overall prospect in the class.