Steve Sarkisian reveals how the SEC 'separates itself' from other leagues

Steve Sarkisian knows how much more it just means now that he has worked for nearly a full season as a head coach in the SEC.

Sarkisian spoke about Texas’ debut season in the Southeastern Conference while on ‘The Paul Finebaum Show’ from Austin on Friday. He thinks it has gone well, especially with his team tied atop the standings, as they’ve adjusted to what it is to play in their league.

“It’s been okay, you know. It’s been okay,” said Sarkisian. “I think our players have kind of grown into this conference as it’s gone. They realize what it’s like week in and week out.”

However, Sarkisian knows how much more of a challenge it has been for them this season. They have found that, unlike other conferences in his opinion, you can win or lose in any game during any weekend of your fall.

“Well, I think that the challenge that sometimes doesn’t probably get enough credit? Every conference has their top one or two teams, right, and that’s no different than the Pac-12, Big 12, and anybody else. Where I think this conference separates itself is the middle and bottom half,” Sarkisian said. “I truly believe anybody in this conference can beat anybody in this conference on any given Saturday. I don’t know if that can necessarily be said to be true in the other conferences around the country.”

This goes into the strength of schedule conversation that has been happening around college football this past week. Several SEC teams are atop those ratings with who they have to play with their conference schedules factoring into that.

Again, that has every team, including the contenders like Texas, at risk in every game of league play. Sarkisian just had to go down the results across the schedule to this point in the season, including multiple that involved their next opponent this weekend in Kentucky.

“Like, last week, getting ready to go play at Arkansas? Yeah, that’s a rivalry for us. But you point out, ‘Hey, guys, they beat Tennessee on this field earlier in the year’. When you’re going to play in Nashville against Vanderbilt? ‘Hey, guys, they beat Alabama on this field earlier this year’. You’re getting ready to play Kentucky tomorrow? ‘Hey, guys, they beat Ole Miss in Oxford earlier this year,'” Sarkisian said. “So you’re talking about all these different teams. For a lot of it with our players, when they see it? Okay, they understand it and then it’s a little easier to get them ready to go.”

“I just think it speaks volumes to this is the Southeastern Conference. You know, I know there’s a lot of discussion about that going on,” said Sarkisian. “Here’s a team (in Kentucky) that has won one conference game but you think about how good and how talented they are, how well they’ve played so many teams.”

Texas is just three-quarters of the way through their league’s slate yet Sarkisian already sees the difference. That’s why he’s trying to make their conference’s case overall, especially with the discussions nationally about the differences between them all.

“I think, in our league, we’ve got really strong opinions of what this conference stands for,” said Sarkisian.