Steve Sarkisian Opens Up About Major Controversy Surrounding College Football

Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian has led the team to a successful 9-3 campaign in the 2025 campaign, his fifth season as the head honcho in Austin.

Although that doesn't spell College Football Playoff for the team this season like it has the past two times, quarterback Arch Manning is looking like many expected him to in the beginning of the season, and there is a strong blend of youth and experience in the 40 Acres.

However, during his most recent press conference, Steve Sarkisian didn't have much to say about the upcoming Citrus Bowl with the Michigan Wolverines, instead choosing another topic that covered all of the NCAA teams, not just the Longhorns.

Sarkisian Gives Thoughts On Overall College Football Commissioner

Midway through his conference, Sarkisian made talk on the overall scale of college football, offering somewhat of a backhanded compliment on the landscape of the sport.

Steve Sarkisian Texas Footbal — Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian pauses during the second half against the Arkansas Razorbacks at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Scott Wachter-Imagn Images | Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

"Look at the popularity of the Southeastern Conference," Sarkisian said. "Look at the viewership of our games, and people love our sport, people love our conference, but, man, under the hood, we've got a little bit of a we've got a broken system going right now, and we've got to get a lot of different parties on the same page."

"And it's not going to be an overnight fix. It's everybody's like, well, 'we just need a commissioner of college football.' Well, the Commissioner is no good if he doesn't have power. And without power, putting rules in place with no enforcement does nobody any good."

Sarkisian seemed to criticize the use of committees in the entire college football realm.

"We just got committees all over the place that say this is what we're going to do, but I don't know who follows through with what's the enforcement of I know we do within the SEC, but on a bigger scale, I don't know where all of those things are falling to, and I think a lot of it is we've got to start to corral this, and we got to start knocking off one thing at a time, but yet, we've got to do it in unison."

Sarkisian then talked about the committee that figured out the College Football Playoff, one that he has likely been at odds with as of recent times.

"Well, this is a committee over here talking about the CFP and the committee and the criteria for choosing the teams. There's another committee over here talking about the calendar of how we operate."

Sarkisian then spoke about how college football likely needed one commissioner and one governing body, which he believes is supposed to be the NCAA as a whole.

"That means we probably need a commissioner, and that that Commissioner probably needs one governing committee which can govern the rules that are getting put in place by these committees," said Sarkisian. "Well, that's supposed to be the NCAA. Unfortunately, right now, the NCAA has no teeth, because anytime anybody puts things in place that we all signed up to be part of the NCAA, but yet, when the NCAA tries to put a rule in place, somebody inevitably is going to go sue the NCAA and say, 'No, I don't like that rule.' Well, then you shouldn't have joined this, this group that we all chose, chose to join, which was the NCAA."

"Right now, the NCAA just doesn't have enough teeth to enforce the things that we're saying we're going to do. So we've got some issues here. We've got a lot of smart people in place. Somebody has got to take the bull by the horns, no pun intended, and say, Hey, this is what we're going to do. Who's willing to follow us and do this this way?"

As Sarkisian makes his thoughts known, the Longhorns gear up to face the Michigan Wolverines on New Year's Eve in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl.