Steve Sarkisian's ultimate goal? "Getting the Tower lit up and getting a '1' on the Tower"

Officially, the UT Tower is completely engulfed in burnt orange and lit up with a ‘1’ for national championships. For most, sports accomplishments represent the occasions associated with this lighting configuration. Mike White‘s softball team was the last Longhorn athletic program to put the UT Tower into this configuration after winning the 2025 national championship.

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In recent years, some non-athletic ventures have also seen their national successes honored by this setup, whether it’s a program from the McCombs School of Business winning a competition or some other venture that shines a championship light onto the 40 Acres.

Texas football has lit the top of the UT Tower burnt orange many times during the Steve Sarkisian era. Sarkisian and company even lit the entire UT Tower burnt orange in 2023 after winning the Big 12 Championship.

It hasn’t been engulfed in burnt orange with that ‘1’ in honor of the football program in almost 20 years.

And that’s something Sarkisian thinks about regularly as head coach of the Longhorns.

“Getting the Tower lit up and getting a ‘1’ on the Tower is the ultimate (goal),” Sarkisian recently told ESPN’s Rece Davis in an interview. “The hard part here is we’re so good in a lot of sports. Softball wins it this year, and they put the ‘1’ up. Swimming and diving wins the national championship, they put the ‘1’ up. A year ago, volleyball wins it and they put the ‘1’ up. Women’s track and field, they put the ‘1’ up.”

Sarkisian isn’t making excuses with his mention of teams coached by White, Bob Bowman, Edrick Floréal, and Jerritt Elliott, respectively. In fact, Sarkisian has been sure to ardently support those programs in their championship pursuits. One of his contract perks is that he gets a handful of tickets to any Texas home game in any sporting event. He makes use of that stipulation regularly, and even tossed a ceremonial first pitch at a Longhorn baseball game in the most recent season.

Rather, Sark’s reference to other Longhorns sports is to acknowledge that the expectations at Texas are higher than anywhere else in the nation across the entire athletic department. Sarkisian’s football program is tasked with living up to those expectations. Under his watch, the standard of play has progressively increased year over year.

They still have not quite met the national championship standard in his four seasons. Only four times in school history has that happened, with three won by Darrell Royal and one won by Mack Brown.

Sarkisian wants to add his name to their company and start that clock over this year.

“As much as we’re doing some great things, at the end of the day you want to be the one that’s taking the picture with your team with that Tower lit up with the ‘1,’” Sarkisian said. “That would be a great moment.”

Sarkisian told Davis that during his near-daily walks around the UT campus, walks that almost certainly go by the famed UT Tower, he thinks about turning his dream of seeing a ‘1’ into reality. He admitted, though, that it’s not one that he lets engulf him since “the day-to-day operations matter too much to just daydream.”

There’s a lot to handle at Texas. Sarkisian is the highest paid public employee in the state, technically. Now that the Horns are in the SEC and have the uber-popular Arch Manning at quarterback, a considerable amount of media focus is directed toward Austin. It’s not always just college football media or college sports media. Having a Manning at the helm of a team with national title expectations brings mainstream attention to Texas football in a way not typically seen.

To get to that mountaintop, and to light the UT Tower in a way celebrating his team, Sarkisian knows it’ll take more than just a hope and a dream. It’ll take a concerted effort from not just him at the top of the program, but from everyone who walks through Moncrief.

It’s a dream he wants to make into reality.

“It’s good to have dreams,” Sarkisian said. “Like I tell the team all the time, the difference between dreams and reality is action. We’ve got to take action every day to get us closer to that dream.”

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That action starts in earnest this week when the Longhorns take to the practice field in hopes of winning a fifth national championship. The light at the end of the tunnel? Sarkisian wants it to be a burnt orange Tower with a big, white ‘1.’