Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian reveals keys to success after SEC move

Finally, Oklahoma and Texas are now officially members of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The conference that features LSU, Alabama and Georgia in football now has two more powerhouses in Oklahoma and Texas.

Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian spoke at length about the move to the SEC, and the Texas football coach detailed the keys to success in the transition from the Big 12 to the SEC (courtesy of ESPN’s Chris Low.)

“When I talk about beating those teams late in the year, that’s what I’m saying. You’ve got to go through the grind of a season and then beat those teams when it counts if you want to win a national championship.”

If you want to win in college football, you have to beat Alabama, Georgia and others. But Sarkisian admits they were already prepared for that, so that’s positive.

“The good thing for us is that the plan to put this roster together didn’t really have to change from what the original plan was. We knew the path to winning a national championship was going to be through Alabama, Georgia and those teams. Now you might have to go through them more than once.”

The Longhorns just made it to the College Football Playoff last season, losing to Washington, so Steve Sarkisian has a good feeling about the direction the program is headed.

Steve Sarkisian returns to SEC, this time as head coach of Texas

Sarkisian previously coached in the SEC, serving as an assistant for the Crimson Tide in 2016 before moving on to the Atlanta Falcons, returning to Tuscaloosa in 2019 and 2020. From there, he took the head coaching job with the Texas football program.

And Sarkisian reflects on his time at Alabama: “I think back to the offensive line that we had at Alabama in 2020,” Sarkisian said. “We had some great guys with a lot of talent, but the guys that we had up front, the number of them, it was something you just don’t see very often. I know we worked so hard on that. It wasn’t so much the defensive line when I got here, it was the offensive line. We had to do a complete makeover.”

Sarkisian has been with Texas for three seasons now. After going 5-7 in his first year, they have won 20 games in the past two seasons, although both postseason runs ended with bowl game losses (Alamo Bowl and then CFP).

Sarkisian has a 25-14 record during his time at Texas and a 17-10 mark in the Big 12, but a move to the SEC will be a much bigger task. The Longhorns’ 2024 schedule includes games against Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, Texas A&M and Kentucky, not to mention a non-conference game visiting Michigan.

Texas won’t play LSU or Alabama in 2024, at least not in the regular season. Still, it will be a big change, as Oklahoma and Texas are headed to the SEC in a series of conference realignments.