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The story of Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian is an incredible one when you break it down.
He was an up-and-coming head coach at Washington from 2009 to 2013, which afforded him what was undoubtedly a dream job at the time — the chance to replace Lane Kiffin for the USC Trojans.
Sarkisian got that USC job, but it ended in disaster thanks to a rather public drinking problem. He then had to start his life over and build back his career from the ground up. That started with getting sober but it also meant taking assistant coaching jobs at Alabama and then with the Atlanta Falcons.
Ultimately, when Tom Herman was fired that opened up an opportunity for Sarkisian to once again be a head coach, and the rest has been history for both him and the Longhorns.
He's gone 38-16 in four seasons. Last season, he got the Longhorns in the College Football Playoff. They're in again this time around and they'll have a chance to go to the National Championship game by beating Ohio State in the CFP semifinal game at the Cotton Bowl.
It's a great story for Texas, which last won a national championship in football in 2005, but all this success has put a ton of attention on Sarkisian. In fact, ESPN's Adam Schefter believes that there will be NFL teams looking to poach him from Texas once the Longhorns' run is done — championship or not.
“Well I think there are a couple of teams that have some interest in speaking with Sark after the season ends,” Schefter said on ESPN's morning show, Get Up. “So, if Texas were to lose this week, then that would free him up to go do that if that’s what he wanted. And, if they win and go on and somehow find a way to win the national championship, I would think there might be even more teams that would be interested in talking.”
There will absolutely NFL teams attempting to bring Sarkisian into the league, but will there be mutual interest?
Here are three reasons why Sarkisian bolting for the NFL would make sense.
Steve Sarkisian does have NFL coaching experience
Sarkisian has never been a head coach at the NFL level, but he does have NFL experience. It would be one thing to transition from college to the pros if you've never experienced life in the NFL before, but Sark does know the ropes.
He was the quarterback's coach for the Oakland Raiders in 2004. After he was fired at USC he spent a year at Alabama as an offensive analyst under Nick Saban. He then took the offensive coordinator job for the Atlanta Falcons from 2017 to 2018.
Sarkisian knows the league and he knows people in the league. Heading to the NFL wouldn't be too foreign of an idea for him.
Sarkisian is an excellent offensive coach
The NFL has become an offensive league, and it's never been more evident than it has been in 2024-25. The Detroit Lions are the league's best team and they boast the league's most explosive offense.
The Lions are averaging 409.5 yards per game and 33.2 points per game. Offense is the name of the game until and unless something drastic changes to the NFL rules, which favor quarterbacks and wide receivers — and that's not happening — so having an offensive-minded head coach is almost a must in today's era.
Sarkisian's Texas team has put up 443.9 yards and 34.3 points per game this season, which tracks right along those NFL trends. He's gotten the most out of quarterback Quinn Ewers and has even shown that he can sprinkle in talented backup quarterback Arch Manning into creative packages.
Sark is a great offensive mind, and his talent would absolutely translate as an NFL head coach, especially now that he has a bit more seasoning as a play-caller.
Sarkisian wouldn't have to deal with recruiting, transfer portal or NIL
Sarkisian is a Saban disciple and one of the reasons Saban left Alabama was that he grew sick of this new era of college football.
Now, head coaches not only have to recruit players to come to their school, but they have to try to offer the best financial incentives as well. It's becoming less about football and more about money, and that's not even to mention the transfer portal.
You can recruit a kid to play for you as a freshman but if he doesn't get any playing time — and many freshman don't — one of your rival schools in the conference can offer him more money to transfer.
There's no longer opportunity for development or team building in college football, and that has turned away many good coaches from the game. Saban was the big example, but he's far from the only one.
Sarkisian hasn't expressed any frustration with the way things are, but imagine how much easier life would be as an NFL head coach. All he'd have to focus on would be football, while the front office could take care of everything else.
That's a coach's dream, and that's the biggest reason the NFL may make sense for a coach like Sarkisian.
