Texas Football: The fire Steve Sarkisian talk needs to stop

In what is likely one of the most inexcusable losses in the history of the Texas football program, new head coach Steve Sarkisian is now coming under fire for his shortcomings against the Kansas Jayhawks. Sark just got seemingly outcoached by the former Buffalo Bulls head coach Lance Leipold in a truly embarrassing overtime loss at the hands of the Jayhawks by the final score of 57-56.

At least when former Texas head coach Charlie Strong and the 2016 Longhorns’ team lost to Kansas, it was on the road in a spot with clear direction moving forward. Texas had the ability to fire the head coach at that point and move the program forward in the right direction at that time.

Now, Texas is locked in with Sark and there’s not really any clear direction for the program moving forward outside of one major theme. Change and stability are both going to be the foundations of Texas come next offseason.

If that sounds extremely difficult to do to both instill the right type of change and stability in the same offseason, that’s because it will be.

There is blame literally going around to all sides at the moment following this terrible loss to Kansas last weekend. Of course, a ton of the blame is falling on Sark and his coaching staff. And they do deserve a good bit of this blame. Getting outcoached by Leipold, who was at the helm at Kansas as the head coach for a few months fewer than Sark at Texas, is inexcusable.

Texas football should not be talking about firing Steve Sarkisian right now

Blame is definitely falling on some of the players right now too. And some of that blame is deserved too as it feels like not all of the players are fully bought-in and the energy just isn’t where it needs to be on gameday.

Some of the blame is even going to the fans, boosters, and administration. Establishing a culture over the course of the past decade that hasn’t produced much in the way of consistent success in the win column is a fault that can go to all parties, but it feels like a blanket answer that isn’t helpful to blame the fans and administration at the moment.

The fact of the matter is that, barring a complete meltdown or something else major happening that changes the narrative, the Longhorns are stuck with Sark for at least the next couple of years. His contract was signed over the course of the next six years, and a buyout in the next 10-12 months would cost the school around $30 million (if not more depending on the exact timing of that hypothetically going down).

To add to that point, Texas is not going to be able to convince many quality potential head coaching candidates that this is the right spot for them to build if Sark is let go within his first couple of years at the helm. Sark is going to need time to figure out this issue on the Forty Acres. And it won’t be easy.

There’s no looking past the fact that this season was a disaster since the start of Big 12 play for Texas. It almost seems impossible for Texas to even reach bowl eligibility when there was talk of a Red River rematch in the Big 12 Championship Game just five weeks ago.

Sark is going to have a lot on his plate to start righting the ship for the Longhorns next offseason. He has almost even lost the opportunity to build some positive momentum this fall, which will hurt.

Following this bad one-point overtime loss to the Jayhawks on the night of Nov. 13, Sark and the Longhorns boast a record of 4-6 (2-5 Big 12). Next up for the Longhorns is the last road game of the regular season against the West Virginia Mountaineers on Nov. 20.