Steve Sarkisian sends message to Texas fan base, donors

Texas‘ first season under Steve Sarkisian didn’t go as expected. While the Longhorns started the 2021 campaign with a 4-1 mark, which included wins over opponents such as Texas Tech and TCU, they completely fell apart from there – losing their next six games to drop to 4-7.

Although Texas closed the season with a win over Kansas State, the Longhorns still just finished the year with a 5-7 mark and missed out on a postseason bowl game – and that doesn’t sit well with the program’s fan base.

As Sarkisian enters his second season at the helm of Texas’ program in 2022, he is fully focused on getting the Longhorns back on track. In a recent story from ESPN, Sarkisian spoke about the positivity surrounding the program and sent a message to the team’s fan base and donors.

“Ultimately, we got to start winning some more games. … I’m not naive to that,” Sarkisian said. “But as far as just people tugging and pulling and moving in different directions, no. I felt like everybody is moving in a positive direction. That was something that I challenged our fan base to do, our donors to do, our administration to do, was trust the fact that you hired me to do a job.

“Let’s get on board and let’s all move in the same direction to make this thing special again.”

Before going 5-7 last season, Texas went 7-3 in 2020, 8-5 in 2019, 10-4 in 2018 and 7-6 in 2017 – all under coach Tom Herman. The Longhorns’ last season winning just five games was in 2016, which was Charlie Strong’s final season leading the program.

Sarkisian, 48, is in his third head coaching position at Texas after spending time at both Washington (2009-2013) and USC (2014-2015). Over eight years as a head coach, Sarkisian has compiled a 51-42 overall record with two bowl wins in four outings.