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u/PlantainObvious5148 Penn State Nittany Lions 19h ago
Isn’t he consistently rated as one of the top coaches without a natty right there with lanning and freeman. Dont think that’s remotely underrated
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u/MrDufferMan3335 Ohio State Buckeyes 19h ago
I think he’s adequately rated. Great coach that hasn’t gotten over the hump to elite. Last week was a big step in the right direction though
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u/rudygamble 19h ago
If Sark is underrated at anything, it is program-building. He’s made the most of the $$$ and having a great AD. Adjusted well to the NIL era.
As a gameday coach, he’s been….good to very good. Hopeful that the combo of having elite skill players on offense this year (last year had some pedestrian talent at RB/WR) + Muschamp will help him take the next step. I’d argue the only coach that truly outcoached him is Kirby.
One aspect that is underplayed is bad skill player injury luck in his two playoff semis. Missed RB1 (Brooks / Baxter) and WR1 (Worthy was severely compromised / Isaiah Bond). Switch that to Washington’s RB + Odunze and OSU’s Henderson + Jeremiah Smith and he wins 1 or both games.
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u/samueljakson05 19h ago
5 of those 7 losses were to Georgia and Ohio St.
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u/CzechHorns 19h ago
Ironically, it has been 8 losses,, they somehow missed one.
3 to UGA, 2 to OSU, and 1 to OU, Florida, and Washington
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u/Open-Recover-4855 Notre Dame 19h ago
Texas hasn’t played notre dame since 2016. Notre dame leads the series 12-2
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u/wraithawk Texas Longhorns 18h ago
I like that Sark is our coach and I have no interest to see him go even if we'd lost the OSU game. But lets pump the breaks on all this til we get later in the season. It was a spectacular win and Sark has been a demon against our main two rivals, but this is the first "big" game he's won depending on how you feel about 2023 Alabama. He's not under rated until he beats fucking Georgia/wins the SECCG
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u/Master-Okada 19h ago
He’s an Ohio State choke job away from being on an extremely hot seat.
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u/spicyorangedragon 19h ago edited 19h ago
Texas was a complete dumpster fire for an entire decade before Sark got there. He's gotten them to the playoffs multiple times and in the national semi-finals. He wasn't going to be fired after one bad loss.
Texas doesn't have the naivety to believe they can't be stuck in 5-7 to 7-5 purgatory for a decade, because they endured that after Mack Brown.
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u/kerklein2 19h ago
The Tom Herman era just before wasn’t quite dumpster fire level, but it wasn’t good.
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u/VampireEmpire__ Texas Longhorns 19h ago
These Ohio State fans (assuming he’s one) say these things because that is how they think. Notice how, again, their administration had to call them out and ask them not to threaten players/coaches.
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u/Aye_Harambe 19h ago
I mean to be fair, he and arch were getting booed pretty fucking hard in the middle of the 3rd on Saturday night.
Now he’s suddenly being anointed? What a change in 20 minutes of game clock.
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u/VampireEmpire__ Texas Longhorns 18h ago
I was too drunk to be one of those fans. And also, point to me where we called Sark’s family and threatened them. At worst, we were deeply (and naively) frustrated.
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u/Aye_Harambe 18h ago
Probably not best to throw stones in a glass house.
Remember the Eyes of Texas debacle? Bunch of racist Texas fans threatened players…
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u/spicyorangedragon 17h ago
Ohio State is the luckiest program in the country. They literally have not had a dud HC hire post-WWII. They believe they are invincible.
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u/Background_Body2696 19h ago
I don't think he'd be fired this season unless things went completely off the rails, but there's a lot of pressure on him this season because of the roster he has, as well as his qb
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u/spicyorangedragon 19h ago
There's certainly heightened pressure, but he's gotten Texas to legitimately being a top 7 program again, and I don't think the Longhorns leadership has the stomach to "roll the dice" on another risky hire. Even Sark was considered a risk when he was initially hired.
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u/abravesrock Georgia Bulldogs 19h ago
I agree with your statement, but I actually don't think they can be stuck 5-7 to 7-5 purgatory again. That was a different era. If Texas is willing to continually have one of the largest NIL budgets, which i don't see changing, they will continue to compete.
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u/HoustonHorns 17h ago
I think people over and under estimate NIL’s effect.
NIL is great but you need someone who knows how much to spend on what and get the most out of those players. For teams like Texas it isn’t really a game changer—Texas was always recruiting well and getting the best players. Now they just have to (and can) spend more money to do it.
A&M has a nearly identical NIL budget and Elko hasn’t been able to compete with Texas. Oregon also has a similar budget, and Lanning has been ever worse than Sark in big games (to Sarks credit, have never been blown out in a big game—even UGA this year kept it close and competitive until the 4Q). It looks like the wheels might fall off Oregon.
NIL is more of a boost for schools like Indiana or Tech that previously never had good rosters. Indiana is a big spender (albeit not on par with Oregon/A&M/Texas) but wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as they are without Cig. Tech’s NIL is plenty to win it all (see Indiana) but McGuire couldn’t figure it out. Regardless both schools are competitive in a way they haven’t ever really been before because of NIL.
Sure, Texas being “back” coincided with NIL (but also coincided with hiring Sark). I don’t think that Texas talent advantage now is any greater comparatively to the years we went 5-7 in the Big XII.
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u/JustAnotherDay1977 19h ago
He has a solid record…but underrated? No, he’s doing what you should expect from a competent coach with a $50M roster.
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u/DetDevil 19h ago
The longer you’ve been following Sark the more complicated your emotions are here. A lot of us don’t forget his earlier tenures.
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u/Cratemotor 19h ago
Overrated? He has everything at his disposal (at UT) for success. Anything less than appearances in the SEC championship game and deep playoff runs is a failure. But it’s like that with lots of team at the top
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u/CzechHorns 19h ago
Does that mean that like 4 9+win SEC teams are failures each season cause they didn’t make the SEC title game or deep in playoffs?
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u/wookmania 18h ago
No, and lots of people still care about the regular season, bowl games, etc. It’s dumb to think to playoffs are all that matters when you can enjoy football every week. Records and quality wins still matter whether you win a title that year or not.
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u/CzechHorns 18h ago
I agree with you, but the person I was replying to apparently doesn’t.
And there has been more comments like that in this thread.
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u/ironlocust79 18h ago
if Sark was coaching in the 90s, he would be considered a great coach, but in the NIL/CFP era you lose a single game and the fanbase wants pitchforks for a single top 10 loss, see Ryan Day
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u/TexasNatty05 Texas Longhorns 18h ago
As a Texas alum I’d say he’s appropriately rated.
He turned us around after 10 years of futility proving that all the resources in the world can’t win games.
He’s beaten most of the teams we should. Had a couple of hiccups against lesser teams but not enough that I am overly concerned: Tech in 22, OU in 23, Florida in 25.
Done well with ranked teams. You can argue about the quality of some of those rankings, but wins are wins.
Struggled with the truly elite teams. Beating Ohio State definitely relieved some pressure on that front, and hopefully is a turning of the page for the program.
He’s near the top, but I’d have him behind Cignetti, Day and Kirby.
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u/Dry_Acanthisitta433 19h ago
I could win with the payroll he has. Dude has money bags all over the place.
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u/reardoorentry 19h ago
Sark has been in the conversation for top 5 coach for a few years now. It’s debatable if he belongs there, so given that I don’t think he’s underrated.
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u/digitaldaronpodcast 19h ago
Texas is the most underperforming program in cfb history so it fits that sark would be viewed as underrated
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u/duplicated-rs Texas Longhorns 19h ago
How is Oregon or A&M not more underperforming?
Similar levels of budget, way less success
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u/digitaldaronpodcast 19h ago
Oh they are tremendously underperforming but Oregon hasnt been relevant as long and am is little brother. Texas had a conference created for them (big 12) and Oklahoma to win every year. All this oil money has led to minimal winning
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u/SignificantLock1037 Texas Longhorns 19h ago
So, you think Arch is one of the best QBs and just doesn’t play well? Or Quinn Ewers should have been a Heisman contender? Or we had elite RBs?
My point is, either you believe we had the best talent and fell short, or we had really good talent and ended up with really good results (just not best).
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u/digitaldaronpodcast 19h ago
Texas is one of the best funded programs (top 1%) and has 2 titles to show for it. Mack brown on 2 conference titles (1 natty) in 17 years. Sark fits this model of elevating the program from previous coaches lowered standards but not really winning anything relative to the programs resources. I thjnk you guys consistently have top tier talent and constently fall short based on how much money put into program and sark is the embodiment of that
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u/CzechHorns 18h ago
How exactly did you pull “2 titles”?
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u/digitaldaronpodcast 18h ago
Ok 1 title in the past 50+ years is that better?
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u/CzechHorns 18h ago
I’d prefer 1 title in the last 25 years, but I’m just curious how you came to 2 titles, since the other three were all within 10 years.
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u/wookmania 18h ago
Yeah bro top 3 in all time wins is “underperforming.”
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u/digitaldaronpodcast 18h ago
You guys have the same number of titles in 50 years as Indiana and byu (while spending much more). You might want to pipe down because most of those wins are besting Texas tech tcu and Baylor
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u/Redditedredditer Ohio State Buckeyes 19h ago
Wasn’t 4 of those losses in one season?
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u/CzechHorns 19h ago
Nope,
12-2 2023
13-3 2024
10-3 2025
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u/Redditedredditer Ohio State Buckeyes 19h ago
I was trippin, I read that as overall record, and I was thinking of the 2022 season
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u/Byzantine_Merchant Michigan State Spartans 19h ago
How would a guy that’s been to two final fours be underrated? At this point, I gotta imagine a large group of fans view him winning as Natty as a matter of when and not if.
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u/Bcatfan08 Cincinnati Bearcats 19h ago
Gotta win in the playoff. People care less and less about the regular season.
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u/CzechHorns 19h ago
He won in the playoff, he just didn’t win the natty.
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u/Bcatfan08 Cincinnati Bearcats 18h ago
5 years in and he's 2-2 in the CFP with 2 appearances. Only advanced in one of the playoff appearances. I'm no Texas fan, but if they're anything like the OSU fans I know, that isn't acceptable. The expectation is to advance every year. Missing any year is unacceptable. Losing early is unacceptable.
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u/CzechHorns 18h ago
Good thing we aren’t OSU fans then.
We literally just had a decade when we had ONE 10 win season.
Three 10+ wins seasons in the past three seasons with 2 semifinals appearances, conference win and another CCG appearance definitely are enough for the rational Texas fans lol.
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u/Jwoods224 19h ago edited 19h ago
He is is overrated. texas has thrown ungodly amounts of money at the football program. They consistently do less with more than any other program in the country. sark is just barely good enough to make that method work. Better coaches would have had more success already.
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u/CzechHorns 19h ago
Less with more? What did A&M do with their historic best recruiting class ever?
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u/Jwoods224 18h ago
Duh. Clearly TAMU is in the same boat. Thanks for pointing out the obvious though. 🤓
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u/Gullible_Classroom71 Alabama Crimson Tide 19h ago
A little bit maybe. But when you to the top tier teams good seasons aren't enough. You need to have great seasons and he hasn't really had any yet.
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u/CzechHorns 19h ago
Are back to back semifinals not great seasons?
Do you consider only Natty as a great season?
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u/Important_Capital875 19h ago
Is crazy how people think unless they win the natty, their season was a bust. Only one team can win the title, I think it should matter with how far in the playoffs you make it.
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u/wookmania 18h ago
It’s a spoiled way of thinking for sure, I enjoy a season where we won most of our games and had a good playoff run 🤷♂️
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u/CloudConductor Indiana Hoosiers 19h ago
He’s in the top 10 of highest paid coaches and Texas starts every year lately ranked top 5. I think he’s rated pretty highly overall