ESPN Ranks Texas Longhorns Coach Steve Sarkisian Among Top 10 Coach in CFB

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian is continuing to ascend up the coaching rankings.

Texas Longhorns Head Coach Steve Sarkisian heads to the locker room after a loss to the Washington / Sara Diggins/American-Statesman / USA

With all of the changes in the college football coaching world there is a new pecking order in regard to who is the best in the sport.

College football lost an elite mind and personality in Jim Harbaugh who has since returned to the NFL after leading his alma mater, Michigan, to the title this past season. The sport also lost the greatest of all time, as Alabama head coach Nick Saban called it a career and retired from coaching, and will transition into a media role next season.

ESPN's staff of writers ranked the top 10 coaches in college football, and Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian broke into the rankings after the best season of his coaching career.

Texas Longhorns Head Coach Steve Sarkisian heads to the locker room after a loss to the Washington / Sara Diggins/American-Statesman / USA

ESPN's Bill Connelly tabbed it as the year that Sarkisian put it all together after years of working with elite quarterbacks and coaches at previous stops such as USC, Washington, and Alabama. He also revealed that Sarkisian has now returned Texas to prominence, and his next challenge is keeping them there.

"His breakthrough as a head coach came in 2023. After going just 13-12 in his first two years leading a perpetually underachieving Texas program, Sark's Longhorns won 12 games, took their first Big 12 title in 14 seasons and made their first College Football Playoff appearance. Now they head to the SEC with legitimate top-5 bona fides and a coach capable of not only leading them back among the country's elite but keeping them there," wrote Connelly.

Keeping Texas there will be harder with the new SEC schedule that the Longhorns are playing, but Sarkisian has been recruiting and acquiring talent at one of the highest levels in the sport so it should be manageable. Texas fans have been waiting for their program to bounce back, and now that they tasted success again, they never want to return to the depths of mediocrity hell that they were stuck in.