Sarkisian voices more concerns about state of college football

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Last week, in a wide-ranging interview with USA TODAY Sports, Texas coach Steve Sarkisian went off on the current state of college football. Sark talked about his biggest issue (the college football playoff committee) and took shots at teams he felt aren’t doing things the right way, like Ole Miss and the Texas Tech Red Raiders. But Sark wasn’t finished.

Sark spoke more about his issues with the health of his sport at the SEC spring meetings. The impact the playoffs have had on coaches job security is one of his biggest issues.

“I watched a coach get fired five games into a season last year after being in the semifinals the year before. That’s concerning to me about the health of our sport,” Sarkisian said.

Sarkisian is talking about James Franklin at Penn State. Franklin’s firing last year has been a behind-the-scenes talking point among coaches since it happened. Franklin had a dozen successful years in Happy Valley. He (as Sark mentioned) got the Nittany Lions to the final four of the CFP in 2024 after going 11-1.

But Penn State started last year’s Big Ten slate with a tough double-overtime loss to Oregon, which certainly shouldn’t be considered a bad loss. Then PSU lost to UCLA and Northwestern, two mediocre teams at best.

The loss to the Bruins was widely considered the worst loss in program history by many Penn State fans and the pitchforks started to come out. Against Northwestern, the Nittany Lions lost starting QB Drew Allar for the season. Franklin was fired the next day.

If you really look at it, Franklin was fired for two consecutive bad losses. One of them he lost his preseason Heisman candidate quarterback. Two bad losses flushed away 12 solid years and a final four trip less than 12 months earlier. Penn State had a lightning fast trigger finger. Franklin was later hired by Virginia Tech.

If you are a college football coach, the Franklin story is a cautionary tale. You can build for over a decade and get close to the ring, but a bad fortnight and you’re history.

Again, Sark points to the playoff as a big part of the problem.

“We live in an era right now of college football, it’s playoff or bust,” Sark said. “And I feel for people because there’s only 12 teams that get in, and we have close to 70 power four schools, not to mention the G5 schools, and so the disappointment for the majority of these fan bases, because they all live with a playoff or bust mentality, and that’s the mentality right there with the question you just asked, that we’re minimizing the value of an SEC championship, all with the hopes of just winning a national championship, and just one team gets one of those.”

The Texas coach feels 70+ teams after just one prize diminishes the smaller wins and victories, like making the playoff to begin with, making the semifinals, or even winning a bowl game. As a result, more teams like Notre Dame are opting out of bowl games and are scared to play in a conference championship game.

“I think that’s part of the problem right now in college athletics, everybody’s chasing one end goal, and we’re losing sight of the small victories along the way,” Sarkisian said.

This article originally appeared on Longhorns Wire: Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian sounds off at SEC meetings

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