Just like Texas‘s Steve Sarkisian didn’t stutter delivering his hot take on Ole Miss, walking in the footsteps of LSU’s Lane Kiffin, he didn’t shy away from admitting his fault either.
Speaking to the media on Tuesday as one of the nine SEC coaches, Sarkisian recanted his infamous “basket weaving” comment, accepting it was a poor choice of words on his part.
Both Sarkisian and Kiffin dropped back-to-back hot takes on Ole Miss, and both faced ample media and fandom outrage over it. The result was the same as any audacious comment going wrong: both Sarkisian and Kiffin had to defend their sides.
Just like he did in calling out Ole Miss, Sarkisian also followed Kiffin’s pattern of defending his words.
“I could have used macroeconomics. I could have used engineering. It wouldn’t have mattered. The class was irrelevant, and that was a poor choice of words on my part,” Sarkisian said per ESPN during his media appearance in Florida.
A poor choice of words still doesn’t mean Sarkisian backing off from the larger picture he was trying to paint previously with the comment.
THE Comment from Steve Sarkisian
GettyTexas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian backpedals on his comments on Ole Miss.
It all started with Kiffin’s bold take on recruiting at Ole Miss. In his viral interview with Vanity Fair, Kiffin stated how families of recruits, especially Black families, don’t have as much questions when visiting Baton Rouge as to what they did when visiting him in Oxford.
To this wild fire, Sarkisian’s comment on how Texas is essentially recruiting with a hand tied behind their back caused more anger among the already seething Ole Miss fans.
Sarkisian emphasized how at Texas, only 50% of a transfer player’s existing academic credit hours toward a UT degree. However other SEC schools, and he particularly named Ole Miss here, didn’t face the same roadblock.
“We have a rule at the University of Texas, we can only take 50% towards your degree, no matter how many hours you’ve completed,” Sarkisian said earlier.
“Other schools can take all of your hours that you take. But at Ole Miss, they can take you. All you have to do is take basket weaving, and you can get an Ole Miss degree. To me, that’s an inequity in our sport. Those are some of the things that we have to work through.”
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey Still Holding It Over Their Heads
GettyTexas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian backpedals from his previous comments about Ole Miss after massive outrage and potential penalties or fines.
On3’s Chris Low’s report clearly laid out the exact Bylaws that Sarkisian and Kiffin’s comments violates. When the SEC gatherted on Tuesday in Destin, Florida, one of the primary points of discussion were if SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey would announce some punishment or penalty over the head coaches.
He didn’t make any public announcements for now, but that hardly means that either of the two are off the hook, waiting for the hammer to potentially drop.
Interestingly, Sankey also has a precedent for situations like these. Back in 2022 when Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher went at each other over recruiting, SEC had a strong reponse. And they also had one ready, a financial fine this time of $25,000 for Kiffin whosesocial media post that violated SEC rules on coach commentary.
The SEC can very well make an example out of Sarkisian and Kiffin if they want to, but knowing the SEC, they will take a while before coming to a conclusion.
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