Latest news with #SteveSarkisian
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Longhorns offer top recruit in 2027 class
On Sunday afternoon, the Texas Longhorns were busy on the recruiting trail. They made offers to multiple prospects in the 2027 class, including talented defensive back Eli Johnson. The Texas native has drawn interest from some of the top programs in the nation, and now the Longhorns have entered the mix. At the moment, Johnson has received offers from Houston, Florida State, Colorado State, California, and Baylor. He is ranked as the 14th-best safety and the 24th player from the Lone star state in his class by 247Sports. That could change over the next few months, as Johnson has not set a commitment date. Advertisement While many schools are still in the mix, Johnson did not hide his excitement about receiving an offer from Texas on social media. In a post on his X account, the Steele High School product said, " Beyond blessed to receive my 20th offer from Texas Football." The Longhorns 2027 class only has one commitment so far in Taven Epps. The four-star recruit is ranked as the fifth-best linebacker in his class. If Johnson chose Texas, a defense that includes Epps and Johnson would make life hard for offensive coordinators. Although the Longhorns still have plenty of time to add talent, they have made their interest in Johnson clear. Their next step will be to get Johnson to campus for a visit. That will give Steve Sarkisian and his coaching staff a chance to provide Johnson with a preview of what his future could hold as a Longhorn. Advertisement Over the last few years, the Longhorns have excelled at developing defensive backs and have chosen Johnson as their next target. Follow us on X (formerly Twitter) at @LonghornsWire. This article originally appeared on Longhorns Wire: Eli Johnson
Fox News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Trailer for 'College Football 26' released, with game to include real-life coaches
After a successful first relaunch in 2024, the newest installation of EA Sports' "College Football" video game series will be back in full force this summer with some tweaks and changes. The trailer for "College Football 26" was released on Thursday, displaying some of the changes EA Sports made to the game following "College Football 25." Arguably, the biggest change in the game is that real coaches will be involved for the first time ever in the series. Over 300 current college football coaches, including assistants, lent their likeness for EA Sports to use in "College Football 26," according to a release. The release didn't share all of the coaches who agreed to be a part of "College Football 26." However, Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman, Ohio State's Ryan Day and Texas' Steve Sarkisian were seen in the trailer, while Penn State's James Franklin, Oregon's Dan Lanning and Georgia's Kirby Smart were among those named in the release. For the second straight year, thousands of players have agreed to lend their likeness for the "College Football" video game series. There will be over 2,800 new plays and "unique schemes" added to "College Football 26" from last year's game. The Wear and Tear feature also underwent changes, allowing users to "manage fatigue strategically and save your favorite playmakers for key moments with Dynamic Substitutions that allow you to rotate players in and out on the fly." In terms of game atmosphere, EA Sports also enhanced the Stadium Pulse feature for "College Football 26." In the newest edition of the game, there will be a more intense camera shake, new heads-up display visuals and a clock distortion that will force users to the high pressure of playing on the road at a hostile environment. Rivalry games, the College Football Playoff and high-stakes matchups will also be more impacted by Stadium Pulse. Other game features include the return of the Trophy Room (which shows all the trophies and accomplishments a user has won while playing the game) and Cross-Play across Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 in Dynasty Mode. Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith and Alabama wide receiver Ryan Williams were named as the cover athletes for the standard version of "College Football 26" on Tuesday. The deluxe version of the video game includes a few more star players (such as Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik and LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier), coaches (such as Day and Smart), legends (Reggie Bush, Tim Tebow, Denard Robinson) and mascots, along with Smith and Williams. "College Football 26" will be available for purchase on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on July 10. The game can also be preordered now through the EA Sports MVP bundle, which includes the deluxe versions of "College Football 26" and "Madden 26," granting three-day early access to both games. Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily!
Fox News
5 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
Steve Sarkisian denies claims Texas spent excessively to build roster, cites 'irresponsible reporting'
The University of Texas at Austin's athletic department has long been heralded for its access to seemingly unmatched financial resources. The Texas Longhorns football program maintains arguably some of the best — if not the top — amenities in the nation. Since the advent of name, image and likeness (NIL), there has been a noticeable uptick in the amount of financial resources programs across the U.S. have allocated to football, basketball and other sports. Ohio State reportedly built one of the country's most expensive rosters en route to January's national championship. Some have asserted Texas' spending heading into the 2025 campaign was on par with or even surpassed the $20 million the Buckeyes spent. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian denied the $40 million price tag linked to the Longhorns. Sarkisian referenced a recent Houston Chronicle column that highlighted Texas' roster payroll. The column accounted for revenue sharing and Texas NIL collective payouts. According to the outlet, revenue-sharing funds totaled $20.5 million. The total spent on the football team was reported to be between $35-$40 million. Sarkisian suggested $25 million was a more accurate figure for Texas' investment. He also hinted the $40 million figure was a result of "irresponsible reporting." "There was one anonymous source that said that's what our roster was. I wish I had $40 million on our roster. We'd probably be a little bit better team than we are," the coach said during a recent appearance on SiriusXM's College Sports Radio. Sarkisian then addressed the current landscape of college football. "The idea to think that a lot of other schools aren't spending money to get players? It's the state of college football right now. It is what it is," he said. Texas has advanced to the College Football Playoff the past two seasons. The Longhorns lost 37-31 to Washington in the 2023–24 playoff semifinal. After defeating Clemson in the first round last season, Texas survived a double-overtime thriller against Arizona State in the quarterfinals. But the Longhorns could not get past Ohio State in the semifinals. "It's been a great run. I wish I had about another $15 million or so, though. We might have a better roster," Sarkisian said. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
New York Times
6 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
SEC leaders show support (and some trepidation) for College Football Playoff play-in games
DESTIN, Fla. — Everybody who watched the SEC championship last year remembers Texas and Georgia's back-and-forth battle, ending in a 22-19 overtime win for the Bulldogs. Some said the game didn't really matter because both teams were going to the College Football Playoff, but the losing coach of that game, Texas' Steve Sarkisian, still sounded ticked more than six months later. Advertisement 'It means something to win an SEC championship, and anybody that tells you it's diminished, they're lying,' Sarkisian said Tuesday at SEC spring meetings. 'It means a lot in our building and I'm sure in everybody else's building.' And yet you can sense here that something is evolving, the best evidence being the equivocation Tuesday by Kirby Smart, who coached Georgia to that win for his third SEC championship. 'I enjoy the SEC championship, I'm a firm believer in that,' Smart said. 'But I'm going to support whatever, as a conference, we choose to do in that format.' The SEC is mulling a drastic change for as soon as next year that could entail the elimination of the championship game or the addition of more games to the final weekend before the Playoff is set. The change seems predicated on whether the SEC and Big Ten receive automatic bids in the next CFP format. If they do, both conferences are eyeing these play-in games to the CFP. "This idea of somebody's gonna go 16-0 in college football. Man, put a statue up somewhere of that team. Because I just don't know if that's gonna happen again." – Steve Sarkisian at SEC spring meetings in Destin — The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) May 27, 2025 'It's an intriguing deal,' Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin said. 'We want to keep our options open and give our commissioner as much latitude as possible to kind of take the conversations in the direction he feels like it needs to be. But it's an intriguing idea.' The idea is still conceptual, conference officials cautioned, but if the automatic bids are secured, the play-in idea grows more likely. The most firm option was first floated in the Big Ten: The top two seeds would still play in the championship game, with both assured bids, while the next four teams would be matched in two play-in games. The non-championship games would likely be at campus sites. This is what it would have looked like by last year's SEC standings: Championship: No. 1 Texas vs. No. 2 Georgia Play-in: No. 3 Tennessee vs. No. 6 South Carolina Play-in: No. 4 Alabama vs. No. 5 LSU Advertisement A more radical proposal has been floated in the SEC, where the top eight teams would be matched in tournament-style seeding, with the winners of the four games getting the automatic bids. • No. 1 Texas vs. No. 8 Ole Miss • No. 2 Georgia vs. No. 7 Texas A&M • No. 3 Tennessee vs. No. 6 South Carolina • No. 4 Alabama vs. No. 5 LSU SEC commissioner Greg Sankey downplayed this option, and Smart probably spoke for many when he decried the risk it would put on the top seed. 'I don't want to devalue the regular season,' Smart said. 'I don't think a team like Texas last year, they were the No. 1 seed going into the SEC championship, there's some scenarios where they have a play-in game? I don't agree with that. They can play a championship game, but there should be some value to a regular season in terms of what you perform and what you do. You don't see a basketball regular season champion go in the SEC tournament, play, and then not make the (NCAA) tournament.' The reason the eight-team field is even being considered is that it would involve more teams. Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne pointed to a common sentiment within the conference to keep more teams and fan bases engaged late in the season as a big motivation. 'It's obviously important that you want to go deeper in the year for everybody involved to feel like, hey, there's still a lot on the line, and that's healthy for everybody,' Byrne said. This is also seen as a way to essentially correct regular-season standings that may be deceiving because of different schedules. Indiana, which went 11-1 with help from an easier Big Ten schedule, is last year's most cited example. In the SEC, the play-ins could be a way to solve tiebreakers like last year, where the six teams that finished fourth through ninth had 5-3 conference records. Of course, one team would have been locked out of the eight-team play-in format last fall, and three would have been locked out of the six-team format. But the hope is that a nine-game league schedule, which also is likely in a world with automatic bids, would lead to less crowded standings. 'When teams are playing difficult schedules, we're talking about the difference of one loss or maybe one more quality win that might vault them into a spot they might not have been otherwise, then it becomes attractive,' Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione said. There, of course, would be another beneficiary: ESPN, which would get two or three more meaningful games, and the SEC would get a cut of that. 'I know a lot of that's going to be determined by television revenue,' Smart said. But the major driving force is clear: Removing the CFP selection committee from the decision-making process. The NCAA uses a selection committee for other sports, which have bigger fields and feature seasons where teams play more games. Football is naturally much more subjective, Stricklin said. Advertisement 'I don't know that given the size of college football, with the few number of games we play, and the disparity in the quality of the different conferences, if we're ever going to get to a point where nationally, it's going to make sense the way we all want it to,' Stricklin said. 'And so I think we have to be honest about that and be creative.' Stricklin, in a long talk with reporters on Tuesday, cautioned that the play-in idea is just one in a lot of 'blue-sky thinking.' He mentioned the idea circulated a few years ago of the SEC going its own way and forming its own Playoff, something Stricklin said he doesn't want. But he also doesn't believe the current selection committee model, without automatic bids, is sustainable. Sankey was asked if the play-in format would dilute the regular season and answered by referring to those who said the 12-team Playoff would dilute the regular season. 'I can tell you I was at the Georgia-Alabama game, Week 3 … that was a pretty incredible night,' Sankey said. 'I think everybody competed at the highest level as hard as they could. And we had that over and over. So I think these absolutes on what does and does not dilute the regular season are kind of older conversations.' Still, concerns remain. Sarkisian pointed to fan travel: Texas fans (if they chose) went to Atlanta for the SEC championship, then back to Austin for a first-round CFP game, then back to Atlanta for the quarterfinals, then to Dallas for the semifinals. And Texas had it relatively easy compared to other teams. It's just one caution for Sarkisian, who didn't say he was against the idea but opined that a conference championship still matters to players. And to the coach himself. 'Everybody wants more teams, everybody wants more games, TV wants more games, I get all that,' Sarkisian said. 'But let's not lose sight of some of those things that we got into this sport for a long time ago, that still mean a lot, to a lot of us.' (Top photo of fans in the stands at the 2024 SEC Championship game between Texas and Georgia: Butch Dill / Getty Images)
Fox News
7 days ago
- General
- Fox News
Texas' Steve Sarkisian tempers hopes of future 'undefeated champions' considering modern college landscape
The Texas Longhorns have advanced to the College Football Playoff in each of the past two seasons. The Longhorns are once again projected to make a run in this upcoming season's playoff, but head coach Steve Sarkisian is doing what he can to temper some of those lofty expectations. Sarkisian also threw cold water on the notion that whatever team is crowned as national champions will finish the season with a perfect 16-0 record. "I don't think we'll see an undefeated champion," during SEC Spring Meetings. Sarkisian pointed to the difficulty of maintaining a fully healthy roster throughout the extended college football season. "It's so difficult to stay healthy for so long. This idea that someone is going to go 16-0 in college football? If so, put a statue up." The 12-team playoff format debuted last season. After a team plays its full 12-game regular-season slate, they could qualify for their conference championship. Under last year's format, conference champions from the Power 4 earned a bye. The 13-0 team would then need to win a quarterfinal, semifinal, and championship game to finish at 16-0. Sarkisian then recalled the vast differences in the current sport's landscape and his time on the Southern California coaching staff in 2003. "Then we grew into a two-team playoff, and we grew into a four-team playoff, and now we've grown into where we're at today," he continued. "I think at the end of the day, we all just want the best teams to have an opportunity to compete for a championship. The length of the season, last year, we played 16 games and that was just to get to the semifinals. It would have been 17 to win a championship." Sarkisian also addressed the raised expectations Texas and quarterback Arch Manning will face for the 2025 season. Manning saw action at times last season, but Quinn Ewers' jump to the NFL opened the door for him to become a full-time starter. "Arch is a great player, but I hope for everybody here that we don't get too far ahead of ourselves," Sarkisian said. "Let's let this guy go play this year. Let's let him have fun in finally getting his opportunity as the starting quarterback for the Texas Longhorns. It's been a lifelong dream for this guy to do this." The Longhorns suffered a 37-31 loss to Washington in the 2023–24 playoff semifinal. After defeating Clemson in the first round, Texas survived a double-overtime thriller against Arizona State in the quarterfinals. But, the Longhorns could not get past the eventual champions — Ohio State — in the semifinals. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
