Steve Sarkisian goes scorched-earth on college football’s wild West culture | Exclusive

Matt Hayes, USA TODAYTue, May 12, 2026 at 9:10 AM UTC

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AUSTIN, TX – He’s trying to stay out of it, he really is. But we’re long past that futile exercise. It’s not a matter of when he speaks up, but how.

So why not now?

When you’re the head coach at big, bad college sports behemoth Texas, when you’re the former coach at another mega program at USC, when you’ve worked under the greatest coach in college football history at Alabama, someone, at some point, wants your opinion.

“I try my best to not get consumed with how bad it is,” Steve Sarkisian says of college football’s five-year journey down the rabbit hole. ‘It just wears you out.”

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It’s too late for that.

In a college sports world where money fuels the engine of drastic, unrecognizable change, common sense is tied up and held hostage in the trunk. Right next to the donut-sized spare you better never have to use.

Until the damn car blows a tire.

“We all signed up to be part of the NCAA, and then we all allegedly make the rules,” Sarkisian said, and this interview with USA TODAY Sports began with him wondering aloud why anyone cares what he thinks.

It quickly morphed into buckle up, no one is safe.

“Everyone knows the rules, right?” he says, then says it again in case there’s any misunderstanding. “Then we go to our attorney general and say we don’t like that rule, let’s just sue. Right now, no one is afraid of the consequences.”

So now it’s time someone spoke up.

The College Football Playoff, and the selection committee. Free player movement, and private NIL. Forgotten academic standards. The systematic breakdown of amateur sports.

Sarkisian doesn’t need to do this, doesn’t need to say what someone must while others running the sport are bickering over millions and eventually billions. All in the name of higher education.

He may have the best team in the nation in 2026, and could begin the season on top of the preseason polls for the second consecutive year. He has taken the Longhorns to the CFP semifinals in the two of the past three seasons, and he lacks for absolutely nothing. Financial support, elite facilities, the framework to support players on and off the field.

Just put your head down and play ball and ignore it all, right? Only he can’t. Not anymore.

He sees the dichotomy of California, arguably the nation’s No. 1 public academic institution, seamlessly accepting 32 players from the transfer portal — some of those players on their third school. One on his fourth.

He’s sees Power conference schools — with Texas among them — spending their way to a championship roster, and big-money boosters with more control than ever. In some cases, they’ve become de facto team owners.

He sees free player movement gutting continuity and roster building and development. Sees players who not long ago couldn’t rub a couple of nickels together, now playing one school off the other for real, foundational wealth. Or others who believe there’s value in their game, only to find out there isn’t — and now they’ve lost their scholarship and they’re sitting with hundreds of others in a purgatory portal and may never get back in the game.

An environment where schools must play this unholy game to survive, and those with the financial wherewithal have an inherent advantage. He knows Texas is at the top of the food chain, but that doesn’t mean he can’t see the carnage below.

A true wild, wild West. No rules, no standards, no fear of being caught.

“It’s like we’ve forgotten about academics, yet less than 5% of these guys will play in the NFL,” Sarkisian said.

It is here where Sarkisian is reminded of the swift move allegedly pulled off earlier this spring by the Ole Miss staff. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney claims Ole Miss coaches were recruiting Tigers linebacker Luke Ferrelli while he was in class — and after he had just transferred from Cal. Sent Ferrelli a photo of a million dollar check, and Swinney has the receipts to prove it.

And NCAA enforcement has done nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Guess where Ferrelli is enrolled? Ole Miss. Which brings up another of the “inequitable” hills Sark is prepared to die on.

“At Texas, we will only take 50% of a player’s academic credit hours,” Sarkisian continues. “You may be a semester from graduating, but you’re going all the way back to 50% if you play here and want a degree. But at Ole Miss, they can take you. All you have to do is take basket weaving, and you can get an Ole Miss degree.”

If you think that’s harsh, we’re just getting started.

Behind the CFP curtain

The latest hot-button issue is the CFP, and the money-driven argu ment of 16 or 24 teams. Those favoring 24 teams sell it as more access, but for whom? Undoubtedly, more Power conference teams.

But Sarkisian has a bigger problem, one he says has yet to be addressed: the selection committee.

This goes beyond how the committee promised last season to focus on strength of schedule, and wound up right back at wins and losses as the determining factor. Beyond the ridiculous conference championship parameters that handcuffed the committee and left a 12-team playoff with Tulane and James Madison — instead of Notre Dame playing at Ole Miss and Texas playing at Oregon.

Is the committee actually watching every game of significance, every fall Saturday?

Not highlights, entiregames. And evaluating based on the entirety of the resume, including strength of schedule.

“The committee doesn’t have the bandwidth to watch that many games,” Sarkisian said. “They see the media and coaches polls, and they copy them. You’ve got a 12-team playoff, and that means there are at least 30 teams that impact it. Now all of a sudden, you want to go to 24? Now the polls become an even greater factor, because now you’re asking (the committee) to watch 40 teams a week — if not 50.”

The enormity of that statement stops Sarkisian mid-sentence: 40 or 50 teams in one weekend. He leans in to make the obvious point that everyone who watches ball Saturday from noon to well past midnight can clearly understand.

“I’m a football junkie,” he continues. “When we don’t play, I’m watching quad-box because it’s what I love. But I can’t keep up. I don’t vote anymore in the (US LBM) coaches poll, because it’s not fair for me to vote. I couldn’t tell you how NC State played against Wake Forest. How could I know?”

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian looks on during the first quarter of the game against the Georgia Bulldogs at Sanford Stadium on November 15, 2025 in Athens, Georgia.

CFP executive director Rich Clark says the committee has access to every game played every weekend, as well as previous games. Each committee member has their own iPad, and direct access to games to watch anytime, anywhere.

“I can assure you, they watch the games,” Clark said.

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Six of the 13-member selection committee — nearly half — are full-time FBS athletic directors, including chairman and Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek. Four members are former coaches — Mark Dantonio, Gus Malzahn, Jeff Tedford, Mike Riley — two are former players and one is a writer.

That brings us all the way back to strength of schedule vs. wins and losses. Because anyone can watch games, but can it be done through the lens of strength of schedule?

The selection committee began last season with stricter guidelines to heighten strength of schedule. It was all part of an unwritten you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours deal between the SEC the the CFP executive committee.

The SEC would move to nine conference games and agree to a 16-team format beginning in 2026, and the committee would use strength of schedule as a significant factor in the selection process. They even added new strength of schedule metrics to the equation.

Yet the difference between Texas and Miami in 2025, Sarkisian says, was one loss — not strength of schedule.

Texas lost road games at Ohio State, Georgia and Florida, the latter likely preventing the Longhorns from earning a spot in the playoff. That one loss, Sarkisian said, shouldn’t have negated three Top 10 wins: No. 3 Texas A&M, No. 6 Oklahoma and No. 9 Vanderbilt.

Miami finished 10-2 in the ACC, and like Texas, failed to reach its conference championship game.

“(Miami coach) Mario Cristobal is a friend of mine, and they had a tremendous season’” Sarkisian said. “Miami lost to two unranked teams last year. What would their record have been if they played our schedule? What would our record have been if we played theirs? But there’s scheduling inequity.”

Cristobal has a simple response: “We beat the three SEC teams we played, including the team (Texas) lost to.”

Miami beat Florida in the regular season, and beat Texas A&M and Ole Miss in the CFP. The Canes had one Top 10 win in the regular season, at home against Notre Dame.

“Everyone talks about NIL. But my biggest gripe is the selection committee,” Sarkisian said. “There’s no transparency on what exactly the committee is doing. We have to figure that out.”

Now Sarkisian is getting lathered up, the former star quarterback at BYU allowing his competitive fire take over. Who among us believes Congress, the biggest do-nothing body next to the NCAA, could get on the same page and make an impact?

So you throw more garbage at the problem. Garbage in, garbage out.

“I’d go back to a four-team playoff, and have your own conference playoff to get the four teams if you want more inventory for your television partners,” Sarkisian said. “We have to think outside the box. Just adding teams and going to 24, that’s a very spastic view, thinking that’s going to solve the problem. Forever in college athletics, we don’t think about the unintended consequences of decisions we make. It’s all knee-jerk reactions. Look where it has gotten us.”

Rules, what rules?

Big-time college football and the NCAA. These two were never really made for each other, the former always finding workarounds for the rules of the latter. Sometimes legal, other times not.

When Sarkisian was the coach at USC in 2013, the school found a unique workaround for the problem of serving breakfast bagels to players. You could serve bagels, per NCAA rules. You could just couldn’t serve them with any spread — because it was considered an “excessive meal” instead of a “snack.” Hand on the bible truth.

So Sarkisian came up with the idea to buy a peanut grinder. Giving peanuts to players was legal, and if you threw the peanuts in the grinder, you had peanut butter. Legal peanut butter, not the illegal stuff bought at grocery stores.

Teach coach Steve Sarkisian reacts after the game against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Davis Wade Stadium on October 25, 2025 in Starkville, Mississippi.

From peanut butter as an excessive meal, to ignoring blatant tampering. Some things never change with the sport's governing body.

“Think about where we are today, and that was not that long ago,” Sarkisian said. “Then I get to Texas in 2021, and the entire world changes. Conference realignment — of which we were a major player — NIL, free player movement, 12-team playoff, revenue sharing, and now we’re talking about a 24-team playoff. No one takes a breath to reset. It's all reactionary.”

He stares out the large window from his meticulous office in the south end zone of Memorial Stadium, and there’s a painting crew on Campbell-Williams Field. They’re painting the logo of a supplement company that agreed in 2025 to a multi-year deal, described by Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte as one of the most lucrative on-field signage in all of college sports.

Texas has the largest athletic budget in all of college sports, generating more than $270 million annually. And the school is always searching for more revenue drivers, more ways to stay ahead of the ever-changing financial landscape.

If the rule is he with the most money wins — and it clearly is — why wouldn’t all involved be chasing cash? Don’t blame Texas or Ohio State or USC or LSU for throwing around financial weight, or elite players for using financial leverage. They aren’t the problem.

College football is racing toward copying the NFL in every way imaginable — with the exception of how it’s structured. Rules aren’t enforceable, and enforcement is more unpredictable than ever.

Because enforcement leads to legal wrangling, which leads to millions in legal fees and lost suits ― and invariably no more sacred cows with litigation.

From arguing private NIL deals, to player movement, to eligibility, to finally and frighteningly, judge shopping to avoid consequences for gambling.

Just last week, two people close to the situation told USA TODAY Sports that Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby will sue the NCAA in Lubbock County, Texas to gain eligibility — if Sorsby and his attorney and the NCAA can’t work out a deal that gets Sorsby on the field in 2026.

The NCAA has voluminous evidence of Sorsby gambling on multiple sports with $1 and $2 bets, including gambling on Indiana to win in 2022 — when Sorsby was a freshman quarterback for the Hoosiers. Sorsby did not play in the game he bet, multiple people told USA Today Sports.

“There’s a reason in the NFL, when you get caught tampering, you get drilled. You lose draft picks,” Sarkisian said. ‘You don’t practice the right way, you lose practice days, coaches get fined. There are a lot of things in place to protect their rules and guardrails. Right now in college football, there’s no fear. People do whatever they want.”

SEC super league

We all know where this thing is headed if the NCAA, or whatever governance structure is eventually formed, can’t get its arms around the myriad problems.

If the federal government and/or the Oval Office can’t push through legislation to control the now uncontrollable.

But it’s not about finding an association of schools willing to start their own league. The pie-in-the-sky idea of the strongest in college football pulling away from the weak, thereby splintering and sucking the life from the sport.

It may be as simple as the SEC taking care of itself.

“There’s lot of sentiment for breaking away and having your own rules. That’s realistic,” Sarkisian said. “You’re going to sign up or you don't, but if you do, here’s our rules. Here’s how this thing is going to work.”

There’s nothing futile about that exercise of dramatic change.

And maybe it’s not a matter of when it happens, but how.

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian rips CFP committee, NCAA enforcement

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