Steve Sarkisian's Biggest Strength at Texas Isn't His Play Calling – Sports Illustrated

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Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian awoke the team out of a slumbering decade of football when he became the head coach in 2021. While the results from his first season were poor, he has gone on to be the only coach to make the college football playoffs twice in the past three seasons.
He has made a name for himself as a great play-caller and has received praise for his resource management; however, there is another skill which may just be his strongest of all.
Here is why Steve Sarkisian's biggest strength is not his play calling.
Texas has been a major force in the recruiting world since at least the advent of modern recruiting and has never lacked the raw talent to assemble a top-tier contender. That being said, the Longhorns have not always done the best job turning those talents into real contributors.
That was especially true between the end of championship-winning head coach Mack Brown's tenure and the hiring of Sarkisian in 2021. Coaches Charlie Strong and Tom Herman brought in five top-10 and two top-3 recruiting classes but only achieved one double-digit win campaign across a combined seven years.
Sarkisian, who has had slightly better high school classes due to his strength on the recruiting trail, has already turned in three seasons with at least 10 wins. This is an even more impressive feat when one considers Sarkisian's reticence towards using the transfer portal prior to the 2026 offseason, meaning he has been shaping high school talents into next-level playmakers in an age where that has become a lost art.
Sarkisian's ability to mold young athletes is also shown in the number of first-team All-Americans he has produced. Already, he has coached four All-Americans, nearly matching the five that the combined efforts of Strong and Herman delivered.
His skills are perhaps most exemplified in his draft record. After Strong and Herman had a collective 21 players drafted with just three going in the top two rounds from the 2015-2021 drafts, Sarkisian pushed out 34 draft choices, with 12 being selected before the third round.
Sarkisian's developmental capabilities will be on full display this season as he has assembled his, and indeed possibly Texas', most talented team ever.
The 2026 Longhorns are set up for greatness
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Carter Long is a sophomore Journalism and Sports Media student at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a general sports reporter for the Daily Texan on the baseball beat. Long is from Houston and supports everything H-town.
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