Texas HC Steve Sarkisian shares what he learned under legendary coaches

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian details the biggest things he learned from Nick Saban and Pete Carroll.

Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian has grown to become a fantastic coach in his own right, but the path to get here was certainly anything but linear.

Sarkisian started his coaching career with the USC Trojans as a quarterback coach under Pete Carroll before taking on the same role with the Oakland Raiders under Norv Turner. His stint in the NFL was successful, but after one year he decided to rejoin Carroll at USC as the associate head coach.

Finally, in 2009 Sarkisian got his first chance to become a head coach as he took over a Washington Huskies program that finished 0-12 the year prior. Sarkisian went 34-29 with the Huskies over five years before eventually returning to USC again to take over as the head coach.

In the midst of his second year in LA, Sarkisian and the Trojans parted ways due to some off-the-field concerns. Sarkisian returned to the sport a year later with Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide as an offensive coordinator where he was an instrumental part in the Tide’s Playoff run. After another one-year NFL stint with the Falcons and two years with Saban, Sarkisian finally got his chance to be a head coach again.

Sarkisian has made the most of his new opportunity as he has guided the Longhorns to a 25-14 record over the past three years including a College Football Playoff appearance in 2023. Getting back to the top of the mountain has been nearly a decade in the making for Sark, but he will be the first to admit that the trials and tribulations he experienced are what got him back to being a successful head coach.

In an appearance on the ‘Joel Klatt Podcast’, Sarkisian named Nick Saban, Pete Carroll, and Bill Belichick as the three greatest coaches football has ever seen and what he was able to take away from them.

While Saban and Carroll have polar opposite coaching styles, they were both as successful as you can be in the sport, mainly because they were authentically themselves. Sarkisian said of the experiences, “I feel like I’ve been fortunate to work for two amazing men in our sport that have been tremendous, and the life lessons I learned from them well beyond football.”

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