Texas Football: Pressure, scrutiny mounting on Steve Sarkisian

All of the talk surrounding the Texas football program and first-year head coach Steve Sarkisian is pretty negative right now, and with good reason. Texas is now sitting on a four-game losing streak, the program’s worst in more than a decade. Sark saw his team get downed by the Iowa State Cyclones and head coach Matt Campbell on the road in Ames by a convincing 23-point margin.

Sark and the Longhorns fell short to Iowa State on Nov. 6 by the final score of 30-7. This was one of the worst losses in program history to Iowa State. In fact, it is only the fifth loss to the Cyclones in program history for the Longhorns. Texas also extended the losing streak to a series worst three games by falling short to Iowa State over the weekend.

There is an emerging theme here with Longhorns head coaches in their first year. It was mentioned over the weekend that the likes of Sark, Tom Herman, and Charlie Strong, all boasted 4-5 records through their first nine games as Texas head coach. That is an interesting trend to come out of the weekend.

Nonetheless, the way that these losses happened for Texas was much different this year under Sark than we saw in the first seasons for Herman and Strong. Texas never had a four-game losing streak in Big 12 play under Strong or Herman. It feels like this was very preventable and is a troubling trend for Sark and his staff to deal with moving forward.

Texas football HC Steve Sarkisian feeling the pressure mount after loss to Iowa State

If there is any good news for the Longhorns through this disappointing four-game losing streak, it’s the fact that Herman and Strong both made bowl games in their first year at the helm. That happened despite the 4-5 start to each of those seasons.

The finish to the regular season is not the most difficult for the Longhorns either. Texas is nearly a 30-point favorite over head coach Lance Leipold and the Kansas Jayhawks this coming weekend at home at DKR.

Texas will be hosting a number of big-time targets of the 2022 and 2023 recruiting classes for the Kansas game this weekend. Getting a win over the Jayhawks isn’t going to move the needle too much for the Longhorns.

There has to be some type of momentum established down the stretch if there is to be anything positive taken away from the stretch run of the regular season. Texas does have the Jayhawks, West Virginia Mountaineers, and Kansas State Wildcats, remaining on the regular season schedule.

In theory, all of those are winnable games for the Longhorns. But we’ll see how this team is able to execute down the stretch. But the Longhorns had a shot to win all of the contests during this four-game skid, maybe outside of Iowa State last weekend.

All in all, this losing streak is not a great look for Sark and his staff. This is a concerning trend that the Longhorns can’t close out games in the slightest. Breaking this habit is going to be a major theme of next offseason.

There will also be a large emphasis on what Sark and his staff do on both the recruiting trail and in the NCAA Transfer Portal. Just landing a few solid transfers, or hauling in a decent 2022 signing class, is not going to be enough to get Texas out of this whole.

At the moment, it really looks like the Longhorns are headed down a similar road as the program was under the direction of Herman and Strong. But we’ll have to give Sark some time to get settled in and establish the culture he wants on the Forty Acres.

Following the 30-7 loss to Iowa State on the road last weekend, Texas now sits on a record of 4-5 (2-4 Big 12). Next up is the aforementioned matchup against Kansas at home at DKR on Nov. 13, with kickoff time set for 6:30 p.m. CT.