Texas coach Steve Sarkisian has never forgotten his BYU roots

PROVO — To many, Steve Sarkisian is the head coach at the University of Texas, the leader of the No. 7-ranked college football team in the country with a career record of 65-48, a 19-13 mark with the Longhorns, and a 6-1 start to the 2023 campaign that includes a win over Alabama.

But to BYU head coach Kalani Sitake, he's still "Sark," the former El Camino College transfer who he hosted on a recruiting visit to BYU in the mid-90's before Sarkisian went on to lead one of the best teams in BYU football history.

Sitake doesn't afford any credit for BYU landing Sarkisian, the All-American and Sammy Baugh Trophy winner who set a BYU record for pass completion percentage while throwing for 7,464 yards, 53 touchdowns and 26 interceptions in two seasons in Provo. He said the style of football and the program led by the late legend LaVell Edwards simply "spoke for itself" back then.

But as the two rose up the ranks in the coaching world — Sarkisian first as a graduate assistant at USC, Sitake a more untraditional route through junior college and the FCS before the former BYU fullback took over at his alma mater eight years ago — that connection has never been lost.

"We've always been in contact with each other, and that's because Sark cared to do that," the BYU coach said. "Sark was a great quarterback, and I was just a fullback. ... He was never too big to answer a phone call or reach out. He would instigate a lot of our conversations. He did this with a lot of people."

The starting quarterback on BYU's 1996 Cotton Bowl-winning team will face his alma mater Saturday at 1:30 p.m. MDT on ABC as head coach of the No. 7 Longhorns. But Sarkisian has never forgotten his Cougar roots, or the teammates he had there, while even being one of the more vocal supporters of BYU joining the Big 12 well before the two sides consummated the relationship.

"I know a lot of those coaches well," Sarkisian said. "Kalani and I were teammates back in the day, and I can't believe he's in Year 8 and doing a heck of a job. Aaron Roderick, their offensive coordinator, was a receiver of mine when I was there. These guys are really good coaches, they've got really good schemes, and they have a veteran football team that plays extremely hard. They're hard-nosed, they play the game with a real mentality of an effort-first team."

Roderick was a redshirt transfer receiver from Ricks College on that 1996 team. But Sarkisian treated him like one of the guys, he recalled.

"Sark treated me really well from the day I got here," said the third-year BYU offensive coordinator with stops at Snow College, Southern Utah and Utah. "I was a junior college transfer like he was, one year behind him. And right when I got here, he treated me well. He was a good friend right from the start, included me in in all the things that the guys did together, always acknowledged the new guy. We've been friends ever since and I have a lot of respect for him."

Of course, Sarkisian's ultimate respect and admiration goes to Edwards, the College Football Hall of Famer who died in 2016.

"I think one thing that he did a great job of in my time there was making you feel like coach believed in you, that I was his guy," Sarkisian said. "He believed in what I was able to do, and that's something that I try to do here. When you become the guy at quarterback, there's a sense of believe in that guy."

Saturday's game will be the only one between Sarkisian and his alma mater while Texas and BYU share the same conference; the Longhorns are bound for the SEC in 2024 (alongside Oklahoma). Maybe that's a good thing, historically, for Texas, which is just 1-4 all-time against the Cougars — and Sarkisian is 0-1 against the team that took him in as a California JUCO transfer.

But the Horns opened as 20.5-point favorites at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium, their first home game in nearly a month, with a backup quarterback in either Maalik Murphy or Arch Manning following Quinn Ewers' injury in his throwing shoulder.

For all the relationships that have been maintained over the years, Sarkisian will still be matching wits with Sitake's defense, now led by first-year BYU defensive coordinator Jay Hill.

"Jay and Kalani go back to Utah days. If you think about Kyle Whittingham and those great defenses they had at Utah over the years, Kalani and Jay were there for a lot of them," Sarkisian said. "It's a very aggressive style, they attack the line of scrimmage, the defensive line is penetrating and trying to get into the backfield. I think they have a lot of confidence in their players and in their schemes. ... Those guys are good coaches. They've been doing it a long time, and I've got a ton of respect for them."

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