Steve Sarkisian addresses postgame interview with Holly Rowe

The 24-23 win over No. 1 Ohio State was, obviously, a landmark moment of Steve Sarkisian's tenure at Texas thus far. Unfortunately, the game was also a launching point for two off-field controversies that engulfed the University of Texas and the Texas Longhorns separately, which have dulled the afterglow of Saturday night's win.

The first was a racist tweet centering on UT students celebrating in the stands of Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium by a candidate for statewide office that prompted many politicians, up to and including the governor of Texas, to respond. If you're not aware of what I'm alluding to, Google is your friend.

The second controversy very much had to do with Texas football, because it involved the head coach and the starting quarterback.

On Wednesday, Arch Manning apologized for a tasteless comment he made at his regular Monday press conference, in which he said he'd laughed at an AI-generated video of Sarkisian hitting ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe. That video, while obviously fake, riffed on reality, in which Sarkisian blew off off his customary post-win interview with Rowe to celebrate with his team. ESPN cameras caught the tail end of the interaction, with Sarkisian flashing the Hook 'Em hand sign as an obviously-annoyed Rowe rolled her eyes.

That interaction was a continuation of what happened in the first half, when technical issues on ESPN's side delayed Sarkisian's interview with Laura Rutledge. Trailing 20-3 at the time, Sarkisian bailed on the interview to go speak to his team. Rutledge told the audience of 14 million that she apologized to Sarkisian on behalf of ESPN for the delay.

Clear as mud, right?

Anyway, on Thursday, Sarkisian addressed what happened and, while not apologizing, expressed regret for how everything played out. 

"As as it pertains to after the ball game, again there was a delay after I greeted Coach Day in the middle of the field. There was a delay in the moment, you know, through that delay, I wanted to go celebrate with our team. We just had a 21-point fourth-quarter comeback against the No. 1 team in the country," Sarkisian told local reporters, via On Texas Football's CJ Vogel. 

"If hindsight's 20/20, if I could do it all over again, I would have exuded more patience in that moment and and and sat through and waited for the interview with Holly. Obviously, we have a ton of respect for ESPN and Holly. Holly and I go way back to even to my days of playing at BYU, and we've got a great relationship. ESPN is a great partner of ours.

"We know we're going to have more opportunities with that crew covering us, and we're looking forward to those opportunities. So, could have definitely handled that situation better with a little bit more patience in the moment. But that obviously led to the situation. situation with Arch (Manning) and his press conference as it pertained to the AI video, and obviously Arch recognizes he made a mistake, and it's an unfortunate one. Nowhere do we condone domestic violence or violence against women. Nothing in our program says that nor Arch individually."

Obviously, it took an amazing and unfortunate confluence of events for a 21-point fourth-quarter rally over the No. 1 team in the nation on Saturday night to, by Thursday, force the head coach to clarify that Texas football does not condone domestic violence (which, to be abundantly clear, no one within the program has even been accused of). 

Anyway, the newly-ranked No. 1 Longhorns will somehow try to pick up the pieces against UTSA on Saturday night (8 p.m. ET, SEC Network+).