Texas Longhorns football coach Steve Sarkisian isn’t done with Texas Tech or Red Raiders coach Joe McGuire. After calling out Tech’s weak schedule a few days ago, Sark is trolling the Lubbock school’s legal efforts to keep alleged gambling addict Brendan Sorsby eligible.
Still stinging from being left out of the 2025 college football playoff after having a seemingly better resume than other of the teams that made it, Sarkisian has gone on the offensive. The UT coach is trying to show the CFP selection committee that all schedules are not created equal.
Sark used Texas Tech as an example of a school that doesn’t strong opponents. Of course, Sark believes the Longhorns difficult 2025 schedule should have been given more respect by the CFP committee last year.
“There’s a team in our state that plays in another conference that has a schedule that I would argue if I played with our twos and our threes, we could go undefeated, and they’ll probably make the CFP this year,” Sarkisian said at the Touchdown Club in Houston.
Sark didn’t mention Texas Tech by name, but 1 + 1 = 2. The Red Raiders leaders quickly responded by challenging Texas to a Week 1 game and calling Sark “scared.”
Tech coach Joey McGuire claimed to have spoken to Texas’ opening weekend opponent, Texas State, and the Red Raiders Week 1 opponent, Abilene Christian to offer a buyout.
“I’ve actually talked to Keith Patterson, and I’ve talked to G.J. Kinne,” McGuire said Thursday at the Big 12 spring meetings, according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network. “And they’re willing to take our games, and Abilene Christian will go to Texas State. We’ll buy our contract out with Abilene Christian. I’m sure, because Texas has got a lot of money, they can buy their contract out (with Texas State). I do know there’s a lot of Red Raiders that will help them buy that contract out if they don’t want to, and they can come to Lubbock week one, and we can figure out if their twos and threes can win this conference.”
Of course it wasn’t a real offer. Texas would have to give up a home date, not to mention the millions that go into last minute changes to a schedule. Tech didn’t appreciate Sark putting them on blast and tried to publicly embarrass Sark and carry favor.
Later, speaking at the San Antonio QB Club, McGuire teased that they will be announcing a home-and-home series against a “major blue blood” for the 2027 and 2028 seasons, but it will not be against the Longhorns.
“It won’t be Texas because they’re scared,” McGuire explained.
It was a big story until a few days later when Tech sued the NCAA to keep Sorsby on the roster. The NCAA declared him ineligible for impermissible sports betting violations, including multiple bets on his own team and bets after arriving in Lubbock.
Retired Tarrant County judge Ken Curry granted Sorsby an injunction against the NCAA, allowing the fifth-year quarterback to play during the upcoming 2026 season.
The injunction sparked national outrage from all corners of college football outside of West Texas. Teams threatened to never schedule Tech again in any sport and there were rumors the Big 12 wanted to severely punish or boycott the Red Raiders, including possible expulsion from the conference.
That spawned legal threats from Texas AG Paxton last week. In an open letter, the Texas Attorney General stated that any effort to “disadvantage” the university would violate antitrust laws and prompt swift legal action by his office.
In response on Monday, the Big 12 announced legal action against Texas Tech and the Texas attorney general, looking to sanction the Red Raiders if they play Sorsby this year. The conference filed a 47-page complaint against Texas Tech, the Texas attorney general, the system’s chancellor, the school president, and the athletic director in seeking a declaratory judgment and a preliminary injunction to enable it to enforce its bylaws.
The Red Raiders finally gave up, and Sorsby announced he would enter the NFL Supplemental Draft. But Sark couldn’t help another shot at the Red Raiders, who are quickly becoming the pariah of college sports.
“The way these injunctions are going, Pat Mahomes might be playing quarterback for Texas Tech again before Joey [McGuire]’s done,” Sarkisian said on Up and Adams with Kay Adams.
Sark was actually apologizing for the way he worded his statement about Tech’s schedule, the second later trolled the Red Raiders legal maneuvering. Clearly, the war of words isn’t over.
Follow us on X/Twitter at @LonghornsWire.
This article originally appeared on Longhorns Wire: Texas’ Steve Sarkisian takes another shot at Texas Tech’s Joey McGuire
Reporting by Trey Luerssen, Longhorns Wire / Longhorns Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Trey Luerssen, Longhorns Wire | USA TODAY Network
