ESPN calls Steve Sarkisian the No. 7 coach in college football in 2024
Offseason “talkin’ season” has reached the coach ranking stage, and the worldwide leader thinks highly of Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian.
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ESPN polled its college football reporters and ranked Sarkisian as the No. 7 head coach in the sport ahead of the 2024 season. The Longhorns’ breakthrough 2023 vaulted Sarkisian into the top-10 after a 13-12 start to his career at Texas.
It was only a matter of time until Sarkisian put all the pieces together. After all, the guy has studied under three of the greatest coaches in modern college football history in LaVell Edwards, Pete Carroll and Nick Saban. Be it throwing for nearly 7,500 yards in two seasons with Edwards at BYU, serving as quarterbacks coach for Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart and Mark Sanchez under Carroll at USC, turning Jake Locker into a first-round pick (and then coaxing a pair of brilliant seasons out of Keith Price) while flipping Washington from 0-12 to 9-4, or averaging 47.2 and 48.5 points per game, respectively, in two seasons of calling plays for Saban at Alabama, Sarkisian has been heavily influential in offensive brilliance for most of the past 30 years.
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. – Bill Connelly
Sarkisian is scheduled to battle the No. 1 man, Georgia’s Kirby Smart, this year in Austin as part of the Longhorns’ first season in the SEC.
Other Southeastern Conference coaches who just missed the top 10 put together by ESPN’s college football reporters were Brian Kelly at LSU and Eliah Drinkwitz at Missouri.
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ESPN ranking of the top 10 coaches in college football for 2024
- Kirby Smart, Georgia
- Kalen DeBoer, Alabama
- Kyle Whittingham, Utah
- Dabo Swinney, Clemson
- Mike Norvell, Florida State
- Dan Lanning, Oregon
- Steve Sarkisian, Texas
- Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss
- Lance Leipold, Kansas
- Ryan Day, Ohio State
