Texas Football: Herbstreit feels Sark is a fantastic head coach hire

A wild sequence of events over the weekend for the Texas football program, after the hire of Steve Sarkisian, drew various reviews from the media.

There were so many different types of reactions that emerged from the Texas football program electing to hire the current Alabama Crimson Tide offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian to replace the now former fourth-year head coach Tom Herman. The somewhat surprising news that shook both the Big 12 landscape and college football world as a whole emerged on the morning of Jan. 2.

The reactions that arrived for this news involving Herman, Sarkisian, and the Longhorns were very polarized from all around the college football media landscape. It all started out with ESPN College Gameday’s Kirk Herbstreit giving a pretty positive take on the news (per 247Sports).

From all that he stated over the weekend on the Longhorns hiring of Sark, it sounds like Herbstreit is very high on the hire by the football program. Here’s more on what he had to say on the matter, specifically concerning Sark.

"“I don’t know if Sark is going to get this job or not, but you’ve got to give him a lot of credit for reinventing himself under Nick Saban,” Herbstreit said. “If you look at him today vs. where he was, I can see why he’d be a viable candidate for anybody, especially an elite program like Texas. He’s the real deal.”"

Keep in mind that while Herbstreit was giving his reaction on the set of College Gameday over the weekend that the news was not official from the school yet that Sark was going to be the next head coach.

Herbstreit also gave similar reactions that a number of Longhorns fans did to this news. Some wanted a better candidate hired, and others just want this program to be taken to new heights compared to what Herman and fellow former Texas head coach Charlie Strong were able to do.

Texas is not an easy destination to win at, and a lot of people recognize that. It will also not be easy for Sark to settle in immediately. But he’ll have a lot of tasks hitting him right away once Alabama concludes their run in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game next week against the three-seed Ohio State Buckeyes.

Moreover, the Longhorns rounded out the Herman tenure for four years as head coach with a record of 32-18. He finished up the 2020 season with a 7-3 (5-3 Big 12) record, winning five of the last six games of this campaign. That included a dominant win in the Alamo Bowl back on Dec. 29 over the Colorado Buffaloes, by the final score of 55-23.

Sarkisian is definitely a surprise hire for the Longhorns. He was the Broyles Award winner as Alabama’s offensive coordinator this year. Getting the “Nick Saban Rehabilitation Clinic” under his belt following his parting with the Atlanta Falcons two years ago clearly worked out well so far for Sark.