Speaking at the Touchdown Club of Houston on Thursday, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian addressed his future as unambiguously as possible. “I mean this when I say this, I hope I retire at the University of Texas,” Sarkisian said, via Inside Texas.
The comment comes ahead of Sarkisian's sixth season at Texas, his most anticipated and pressure-packed yet. After being the only team to reach back-to-back semifinals in 2023-24, the preseason No. 1 'Horns failed to make the 12-team Playoff in 2025 but are expected to be better this season with Cam Coleman flanking an experienced Arch Manning and Will Muschamp back in Austin to run the defense.
Sarkisian has never expressed an overwhelming desire to coach at the game's highest level. The former CFL quarterback has spent only three seasons at the NFL level, one as the Oakland Raiders quarterbacks coach back in 2004, and then a two-season run as the Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator from 2017-18.
That hasn't stopped some from seemingly try to will Sark-to-the-NFL into existence. Last November, Dianna Russini, then of The Athletic, reported Sark's representatives had informed NFL teams he was interested, particularly in the Titans gig (a job that ultimately went to Robert Saleh). That triggered same day, on-the-record denials from Sarkisian's agents at CAA and Sark himself. “I’d love to touch on this, so bear with me for a second because it really pisses me off that one person can make a report that in turn the entire media sports world runs with as factual,” Sarkisian said after a comeback overtime win over Mississippi State. “To the point where my agency and my agents have to put out a statement that they have never done. Historically, CAA, Jimmy Sexton, and Ed Marynowitz never do that. But I had to do that to protect my locker room and my team."
The most revealing comments Sarkisian has made toward his future have been his comparisons to where he is in his career with his mentors Pete Carroll and Nick Saban. Carroll was 52 when he won his first national championship at USC; Saban was 52 when he won his first at LSU. (Ironically, those both came in 2003; Carroll and Saban were born six weeks apart in the fall of 1951.) Sarkisian turned 52 in March. "The last 20-22 years have been the greatest years of their careers," Sarkisian told Joel Klatt last year. "Well, why is that? What happened? I asked them both the exact same question and really got the exact same answer: They figured out who they were, and then they coached who they were rather than trying to be something that they're not."
Sarkisian will have to win his first title before he can think about going on a Carroll- or Saban-like run of dominance, but that's clearly how he sees his own future playing out.