Advertisement

Bohls: Steve Sarkisian needs some serious momentum to kick-start his Texas program

kirk bohls, austin american-statesman
·9 min read
14

While I got ya, here are nine things and one crazy prediction:

1. This could be Sark's biggest game yet. As Longhorns head coach, that is. Beat Kansas State on Saturday and Texas is right in the mix to still have a chance to reach Arlington and win the Big 12. Lose, and Sark regresses to 5-4 on the year and 10-11 at Texas with zero momentum and lots of doubts. Of the 10 teams he’s beaten, five finished with a winning record or have one now. The 10 victims are a collective 56-48 and include just three Power Five teams in Texas Tech and Kansas State last year and struggling Oklahoma this fall, which is not very impressive. His best two wins are his very first game against an eventual 13-1 Louisiana team and a complete thumping of a really bad OU team. 
 It’s really hard to believe Texas’ last conference title came in 2009. That staggering 13-year gap, and counting, between titles is the longest in school history. If you consider that John Mackovic won the first Big 12 title by rolling left in 1996, that makes just two league titles for Texas in 25 years. That’s alarming. The previous longest drought was 11 years from 1931-41 spanning three head coaches. 
 It’s truly amazing that Kansas State obliterated a really good Oklahoma State team — right, Texas? — 48-0 and with a backup quarterback who threw for 296 yards and a school record-tying four touchdown passes. The Wildcats scored on five of their first seven possessions. Yet Texas is somehow favored on Saturday, I’m presuming, because it is healthier at quarterback, coming off a bye, is facing the 112th nationally-ranked passing offense and has a greater sense of urgency than Kansas State. Or the Longhorns are just due.

More: Texas-Kansas State showdown features the league's best running backs

2. My dream College Football Playoff Final Four. Which, of course, means it will never happen. But if I could wave a magic wand, we’d have Tennessee, TCU, Illinois and Oregon in the playoff. That’d be three teams that have never sniffed the CFP and a Ducks team with a first-year coach in Dan Lanning that got smoked in its season opener. The Horned Frogs must stay unbeaten or will lose out to a better name brand. Sound familiar? TCU would also be guilty by association in a league where every other team has at least two losses. 
 What I hope doesn’t happen is an all-SEC/Big Ten playoff field with Ohio State, Michigan and two from the trio of Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama. That has gotten stale in my opinion. 
 Ran into old friend William Yarnell, who said his son Nate got his first college start at quarterback in September and led Pitt to a road win over Western Michigan. He’s currently third-string and also mimicked Hendon Hooker on the scout team before Pitt’s overtime loss to Tennessee this year. Nate is a former 6-foot-6 starter at Lake Travis who broke his thumb the summer before his senior season and is now a redshirt freshman for the Panthers. And do you know how he relieves stress? He plays a mean piano and can knock out a terrific “Moonlight Sonata,” making him one of a select few who can throw a dime on an out route as well as belt out some Beethoven. 
 Would Lane Kiffin take the Auburn job after Bryan Harsin was mercifully dismissed? Does Kiffin have a limited upside at Ole Miss, and is he hoping to eventually coach at every SEC school? Buyer beware at Auburn, which owes Harsin $15.5 million after paying Gus Malzahn $21.5 million to go away just two years ago. 
 I feel badly for Harsin. When I ran into him at SEC media days in Atlanta in July, we chatted about pending realignment. He told me when Texas was being courted by the Pac-12 when he was in Austin, Mack Brown asked his Longhorns staff what league they’d prefer to join. “I said Big Ten,” Harsin said. “Why? It’s a slow league.”

3. Congrats to Kate Knifton. The Texas grad student will be honored Wednesday in New York by U.S. Rowing as the U23 female athlete of the year. She’s an Austin McCallum grad who has rowed at stroke seat for Texas’ back-to-back national championships and the NCAA runner-up team in 2019. She’s a two-time first-team All-American and rowed for the 2022 U23 world champion squad. She's been to the Big Apple before, once as a dancer who performed at the Macy's Day parade. The 22-year-old has been rowing since her father Matt — a former rower on the UT club team and owner of the Texas Rowing Center club — persuaded her to try the sport. "He said if I went to the first week of practice, he'd take me to (clothing store) Lululemon. I figured I'd take the free clothes and then quit," she said. "I ended up loving it." ... Knifton also tried her hand at swimming and volleyball, but loves the rowing competition. "It's the longest six minutes of your life. It's definitely kind of monotonous, but very physical and mentally intense." Knifton and her teammates hope to make it three straight national titles next spring to tie an Ohio State record. She has set a goal of rowing in the Olympics. She admits she and her rowing mates aren't blessed with the same NIL deals as the revenue sports, so you won't see her scooting around in a Lamborghini. "They offered me one, but I didn't want it," she joked.

Golden: Texas volleyball must overcome complacency along with all its opponents

4. Hoops hotbed. College basketball starts next week, but boy did Texas' men's and women’s hoops teams open with a bang in their charity exhibitions over the weekend. The men smoked Arkansas 90-60, and the women crushed DePaul 105-62. Razorbacks coach Eric Musselman came away very impressed with Chris Beard’s team’s athleticism and defense, which forced 23 turnovers and held Arkansas to 40% shooting. "I thought the two freshmen for Texas were phenomenal,” Musselman said. “I thought (Arterio) Morris and (Dillon) Mitchell were really, really outstanding. Texas totally outplayed us. Coach Beard's team had great toughness tonight.” 
 Vic Schaefer’s crew should have a ton of scoring options with lots of newcomers, the same as Beard’s, and that should make for a lot of excitement as they both christen Moody Center.

5. Couldn't escape from LA. It was hardly the way Austin FC wanted to finish its season, getting blanked 3-0 by LAFC, but the team made amazing strides in Year Two, which should totally alter its perception before next season. Verde will be the hunted, not the hunter. Asked if the league will view Verde differently, goalkeeper Brad Stuver said, “Hopefully. We’ll see. I don’t think anybody will write us off. But we can’t play the 'everybody’s looking down on us' card and the 'chip on the shoulder' anymore.” 
 For sure, Austin announced its presence and won’t sneak up on the rest of the league as it did in 2022. It does have some room for improvement and will almost certainly make changes to refresh because few teams stay unchanged. To put into perspective what Austin FC did. Philadelphia reached the MLS Cup final for the first time in its 13th season. LAFC is there for the first time in its five-year history. It ain’t easy. 
 Austin nearly made a game of it when Diego Fagundez had his foot stomped by Sebastien Igeagha in the box, but the VAR review didn’t confirm a penalty. Fagundez understandably was upset by the no-call and said so afterward. He told us Austin reporters, “I thought the officiating could have been a little better. But I think the officials were against us the whole year.”

Golden: The Colts lost the game, but Sam Ehlinger showed he's more than capable in his NFL debut

6. More soccer. Fagundez and Stuver, both of whom were spectacular this season, expressed hope they will be back next season. Mid-year addition Emiliano Rigoni never seemed to get comfortable with the team and was always a little bit off his game, but other than midfielder Alex Ring, Austin’s had little luck with its designated players like Cecilio DomĂ­nguez (released after a suspension over reports of domestic abuse) and Tomas Pochettino (invisible). Nor has Moussa DjittĂ© been a consistent force. After a brilliant campaign, MVP candidate SebastiĂĄn Driussi didn’t show Sunday, thanks to his LA shadow Kellyn Acosta, but Austin just had no offensive answers for LA. I do expect Verde to beef up its defense in the offseason and try to get more out of Maxi Urruti and Ethan Finlay. Roster decisions will be made in the next few weeks. 
 Josh Wolff did a heckuva job in his second year as a head coach, pushed a lot of right buttons and had the team in position to contend for the MLS Cup.

7. Whimsical idea. Had an entertaining what-if chat with KVUE pals Tyler Feldman, Jeff Jones and Cory Mose. Feldman’s a die-hard Pittsburgh guy and Penn State fan. We were discussing the Steelers' formerly-named Heinz Field, which is now called something no one can pronounce or has heard of. How’s this for a concept: These companies pay teams big money to slap their name on stadiums, so what if media outlets offered similar but much more affordable deals to these companies and, say, a television station or a newspaper would be paid to continue to call it by its old name of Heinz Field, for instance. Hey, we all got to pay the bills.

8. Scattershooting. While wondering whatever happened to former Texas State football coach Brad Wright, who coached the Bobcats to their last conference title in the Southland in 2008.

9. On the couch. On the plane trip to LA, I finished one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s “Zero Fail. The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service.” I’m a huge history buff and this is one of the most compelling, meticulously detailed and fascinating books I’ve ever read. Author Carol Leonnig does some of the best reporting ever, chronicling one disastrous sex scandal and screwup after another by the Secret Service as they protected everyone from JFK to Trump (code name Mogul) and Obama (Renegade). Gave it 10 ducks.

Crazy prediction: Tom Brady will play three more NFL seasons.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas coach Steve Sarkisian sorely needs a win to jump-start his team