Steve Sarkisian explains Texas environment amid transfer portal era: 'Guys want to be here'

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian was very honest when assessing his team’s culture amid transfer portal movement. He mentioned how his players want to be in the program and don’t have the sense that they have to be there.

Having little transfer portal turnover is a good thing for a program, mostly anyway. But it’s something Sarkisian and the rest of the Longhorns pride themselves on each year.

“We’ve tried to create an environment that is fair,” Sarkisian said on Sirius XM. “I’m not going to sit here and say that, hey, our guys don’t have any NIL, that I’m not going to … But the point is, we try to be fair, we try to be honest, we try to be transparent. As far as where guys are at in our program, what they need to work on, what they’re doing, right? Maybe what they can improve upon … 

“The standard is a standard, and if you’re not meeting that standard, then it then it’s our responsibility to let you know, and if you’re exceeding the standard, it’s our responsibility to let you know, and that’s as a team, that’s as individual players in the program. But I think now the veteran players are holding players to a point of accountability, to where it’s not coming out of a sense of if you don’t do this, you’re gone. It’s more out of a sense of love. It’s meant: we need you. We want you to do well. And so I think we’ve created an environment where guys really want to be here, they don’t have to be here.” 

The ultimate goal is to win a national championship, especially after back to back semifinal losses in the College Football Playoff. It seems like Sarkisian has everyone on board for that same goal.

“They’re working towards a common goal,” Sarkisian said. “There’s a commitment towards something that when I mentioned the portal opening the day that it opened, we didn’t have anybody kind of going in before it opened. I said I hope nobody wants to leave. You know, really, I know a lot of programs are trying to create space and move players. I said, I hope nobody else wants to leave. I hope that we created an environment for you here that makes it really difficult for you to want to leave, and understandably so that some of you probably will have to, just because that’s the nature of the beast. 

“And unfortunately, we’ve had a couple guys going. We had a kicker go in. That man, he was a kicker for us for three years, and made some massive kicks. But because it’s going into a senior year and competition, all these things, he felt like he had to move on. And I understand that … but man, that those are hard guys to leave your program. But that’s also the nature of college football where we’re at today … I love these guys … That’s why we love college football and I just don’t want to lose that aspect of it.”