Steve Sarkisian on 2025 season: ‘I feel like I failed our team’

Steve Sarkisian is taking full responsibility for the Texas Longhorns falling short of their goals in 2025. While appearing on The Paul Finebaum Show on Thursday, Sarkisian said he “failed” the team last year because the culture wasn’t there. “I feel like I failed our team last year,” Steve Sarkisian said. “We didn’t do enough work on our culture because I assumed it would just carry over one year to the next. Inevitably, I spent the first part of training camp and then the early part of the season recalibrating our culture and breaking down some of the silos that have been built. I just felt like what I did wasn’t enough, so I started doing culture work in February. [ $19.99 gets you a FULL year of On3 | Rivals national coverage ] “We started doing it in February, March, April because that’s when all those guys are there anyway. I had 47 new guys, and I can’t just assume they’re just going to assimilate right into our culture. We had to put our culture on them.” Texas went 10-3 in 2025 and missed the College Football Playoff. It was a step back, as the team went 13-3 in 2024 and reached the CFP semifinals. And in 2023, the Longhorns finished 12-2 and lost to Washington in the CFP semifinals. Steve Sarkisian weighs in on Arch Manning In 2026, Texas is expected to do big things largely because of the return of Arch Manning. After a slow start, Manning finished the 2025 season strong and tallied 36 total touchdowns. At SEC Media Days, Sarkisian shared his thoughts on Manning heading into 2026. “He’s a lot more confident,” he said. “I think that last season, he found out a lot about himself. Anytime we’re faced with adversity, and we get on the other side of it, you gain confidence. You see a different leader in him, in the way that he interacts with his teammates. “The work ethic has to change, but I think the ability to lead vocally is much different than before. He’s very comfortable with who he is, and he’s not trying to be something that he’s not. He knows who he is, and I think you’ll probably get a very similar version of him this year that you had last year.” The Texas Longhorns will begin their quest for a national championship on September 5, when they face Texas State in the season opener. The game will start at 3:30 p.m. ET.