Steve Sarkisian reveals mantra on changing college landscape

College football is about to play its second season in a whole new era. Talks of NIL, the transfer portal and realignment all feel more commonplace than foreign now. Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian says every coach and program are still trying to adapt to it in order to best keep up. Or, in other words, to avoid being the ones who get left behind.

Sarkisian spoke on this new generation of college sports during an appearance on ‘The Rich Eisen Show’. He says it has changed the landscape completely but its on the head coaches to teach on two fronts with the sports as well as the business.

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“There’s been some pretty radical changes that have occurred in college football. You can talk about NIL, you can talk about the transfer portal, you can talk about conference realignment. We’re in changing times right now in the space that we operate in,” said Sarkisian. “It’s like an old boss of mine once told me. Adapt or die. There’s a reason dinosaurs aren’t here anymore. They couldn’t adapt. So we’ve got to continually adapt to the changing times…We’ve got to make sure that we’re doing our part as coaches to navigate through that but never lose sight of our job to make sure that we’re putting our players in the best position to be successful.”

While these changes are mostly progressive and well received, they have caused concerns in college athletics. Some are worried that some programs will recruit using only NIL as the pitch and, in turn, that’s what players will come to expect. Steve Sarkisian says that won’t be the case with the Texas football program. NIL success may be an outcome of playing well for the Longhorns. However, it won’t be a focus considering everything else Texas brings to the table.

“I think people are still pretty tactful about things like that but you’ve got to read between the lines. You’ve got to have the ability to read the coverage as I say. If it looks like Cover 2 and it smells like Cover 2, it’s probably Cover 2,” Sarkisian said. “We want people that want to be at the University of Texas because they love this place. They love our football program, the history and tradition, the education, the city of Austin. Whenever I talk recruiting, NIL is on the back burner because if you’re coming here because of NIL, you’re coming for the wrong reasons.”

It may still take some time before anyone in college sports finally gets their footing in this new age. Even so, Steve Sarkisian is trying to get his program ready as quickly as possible. His pitch remains quite simple. All of these changes are great for the sport and will be afforded to you as a Longhorn football player. There’s so much more to it, though, and that is what Sarkisian wants to continue to put the focus on.

“Regardless of what they’re doing off the field from an NIL perspective or of a guy might transfer or might not, we’ve still got to coach them hard,” said Sarkisian. “Don’t come play football at the University of Texas because of (NIL). Come here because we’ve got a rich history and tradition. We’ve got a great stadium. We are going to the SEC…The byproduct of that will be maybe you’ll get some NIL deals because we’ve got a great city to live in.”