Texas Football: Bob Stoops believes Sarkisian will ‘return glory to Austin’

There are plenty of takes coming down this weekend regarding new Texas football head coach Steve Sarkisian ahead of the regular season opener against the No. 23 ranked Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns and head coach Billy Napier. If Sarkisian can get a win for No. 21 ranked Texas out of the gates against an opponent as challenging as Louisiana this weekend, it will go a long way to get this team headed in the right direction permanently.

And there are some believers out there around the college football media landscape in what Sark can do for the Longhorns football program over the long haul. Even the noted former Oklahoma Sooners head coach Bob Stoops had a bright outlook for Sark as the new Longhorns head coach in some segments on Fox on Sep. 4.

In the Fox “Big Noon Kickoff” and at halftime in the meeting between the No. 12 Wisconsin Badgers and No. 19 Penn State Nittany Lions, Stoops gave some of his thoughts on the direction Sark can take the Longhorns in. Stoops mentioned that he believes that Sark can bring “glory back to Austin” in an upward trend in success for Texas.

Stoops reportedly did mention in his take on the Longhorns that “it kind of pains him to say” that Texas is headed in the right direction. But he does like the coaching staff that Sark hired around him and that Texas is “going to be a strong team”.

Former OU head coach Bob Stoops fights the pain to speak on optimism for Texas football HC Steve Sarkisian

The main takeaway was that Stoops and some of the other Fox College Football commentators/analysts (i.e. Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, etc), believe that Texas will be on an upward trend in terms of player development under Sark. They also noted that new co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Pete Kwiatkowski should help improve the results for the defense this fall.

All of these words don’t really matter until Sark shows that he can improve on the success in the win column for the Longhorns starting this season. Texas did have some decent seasons under Herman but just didn’t get consistent results on the field or on the recruiting trail in recent years.

We’ll see how Texas is able to do as slightly more than a one-possession favorite in this season opener against one of the best Group of Five programs in the entire country in Louisiana. Texas definitely has the ability to take control of this game early on and get a big first win of Sark’s tenure on the Forty Acres.

Texas is set to kickoff against the Ragin’ Cajuns at home at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on Sep. 4 at 3:30 p.m. CT. It will be Fox that broadcasts this game in front of a national audience in this pivotal weekend for Sark and the Longhorns.