AUSTIN – Of all the people wearing burnt orange on Saturdays this fall, the most pressure sits with head coach Steve Sarkisian. His Longhorns were picked to win the Big 12, record double-digit regular season wins, and flirt with national relevance. Texas has done that in its history, albeit over a decade ago, but not Sarkisian.

Sark has never led a team to 10 wins or to a conference championship.

In his nine seasons leading a collegiate program, his teams have lost at last four games eight times. The only season his team lost fewer than four times was in 2015 when he was let go at USC after five games – the Trojans were 3-2 at the time. Sarkisian’s best season was his first at USC – a 9-4 mark that included a win in a bowl game. He’s never won more than eight games in a regular season.

Sarkisian is 13-12 through two seasons at Texas. A tenure defined by second-half collapses and the inability to win close games. The Longhorns are 16-7-2 in first halves under Sark. But have lost the second half in eight of their 12 losses and the fourth quarter in nine of those games. Texas was outscored in the fourth quarter of all four of Texas’ regular season losses in 2022. Sark’s crew outscored opponents by 179 points in the first three quarters of the 13 games last year, but were -12 in the fourth quarter on the season.

Texas has blown six second-half leads compared to only two come-from-behind victories in that same span. The Longhorns overcame a one-point halftime deficit to Kansas State in 2021 and overcame a two-point Baylor halftime lead in 2022.

They are 4-10 in one-possession games since 2021. The only two losses of eight points or more in Sarkisian’s tenure were both in year one – 19 points at Arkansas and 23 points at Iowa State.

“I’m my hardest critic,” Sarkisian said last week on the day before fall camp began for his third season in charge on the 40 Acres. “I self-evaluate a lot, and I’m very comfortable in doing that and talking about it because at the end of the day, I just want to be at my best for our players.”

Texas enters 2023 with its best shot to win the Big 12 since Mack Brown and Colt McCoy were on campus. The roster is loaded with talent – nothing new in Austin – and with experience and toughness – something foreign in the last 13 seasons.

The Longhorns return 10 starters on offense, including a starting five along the offensive line that averages 20.1 starts each. The defense returns the preseason Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year in linebacker Jaylan Ford while adding former SEC star Jalen Catalon as well as five-star linebacker Anthony Hill.

“Part of performing well in the fourth quarter is playing more guys throughout the game so we’re fresh (in the late moments),” Sarkisian said. Over 80 percent of the 2023 roster was signed during his regime. “I think we have the ability to do that more now. We’ll have a comfortable, solid two deep, so we won’t feel a drop off.” 

Sarkisian is known as an ace play-caller. He helped the Atlanta Falcons reach the playoffs and Alabama win the national title. He’s coached for the best – Pete Carroll and Nick Saban – and with some of the best. Offensive line coach Kyle Flood was at Atlanta and Alabama alongside Sarkisian as he repaired his reputation and built back trust in the profession after the USC firing. Flood thinks Sark’s strongest skill isn’t play calling, and that his ability to build relationships with players is what is working most in Texas’ favor. 

“Our program has improved because of his connections with the players on a daily basis,” Flood said about Sark. “I’m not sure I’ve ever worked with a guy who has a better connection to the players than he does. I see the way the players interact with him, and have sat in that chair, I know how hard that is to create.” 

Tight ends and special teams coach Jeff Banks is another person on the Texas staff that worked with Sark before his arrival in Austin. He called Sarkisian “the best play caller in the business” during his yearly check-in with the media prior to the start of fall camp. But that’s not why Banks is excited for 2023. 

“He’s grown as far as managing the complete day-to-day, 365 days of being a head coach,” Banks said. “From a play calling standpoint, he’s the best in the business. But as far as managing the rest of the job as head coach, he’s grown tremendously in the last three years.” 

To Texas’ credit, no one is shying away from expectations in 2023. Not even Sarkisian. He likes his team. The Longhorns possess a blend of developed experience and youthful talent on the roster. The coaching staff returned nine of 10 on-field assistants, including the entire defensive group. The program is sure to face rowdy crowds and motivated teams on the Big 12 farewell tour, but when is the target not fixed on the burnt orange? 

“I think they’ve (the team) kind of assumed this mentality of, ‘Embrace the hate,’” Sark said. “We’re the University of Texas, we get it…We can sit there and be a punching bag or we can go attack the people we’re going to play. And I think they’ve assumed that responsibility of say, hey, we’re going to go after everybody else too.”