A football won’t be kicked off in an SEC game for another four months, but coaches are already throwing jabs at each other.
Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian took a swing at an SEC rival’s academic standards in an interview with USA Today that drew attention across the sport.
Sarkisian was discussing tampering in the sport and highlighted how the University of Texas puts a value on academics – all while criticizing the standards at the University of Mississippi.
‘At Texas, we will only take 50% of a player’s academic credit hours,’ Sarkisian told USA Today.Â
‘You may be a semester from graduating, but you’re going all the way back to 50% if you play here and want a degree.Â
‘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.’
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian mocked Ole Miss’ academic standards in an interview
Sarkisian said, ‘All you have to do is take basket weaving, and you can get an Ole Miss degree.’
Ole Miss AD Keith Carter jabbed that his school’s success is making others uncomfortable
Sarkisian’s comments drew scrutiny from alumni, players and staff at the school – with Mississippi athletic director Keith Carter posting to X, ‘Kind of amazing how uncomfortable our success is making some people.’
Florida coach Jon Sumrall, who was an assistant at Mississippi for one season, defended his former employer by posting, ‘Grateful to coach at a top 10 public university that also offers advanced basket weaving!’
Sarkisian’s comments come weeks before the SEC’s annual spring meetings – which are being held in Miramar Beach, Florida from May 26-28.Â
His words also come after ex-Rebels coach Lane Kiffin praised the diversity of his new school, LSU, which he says was a draw for parents compared to his former spot.
‘[They would say], “Hey, Coach, we really like you, but my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi,”‘ Kiffin told Vanity Fair.
‘That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus’s diversity feels so great: “It feels like there’s no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that’s the real world.”‘
Sarkisian’s comments come after Ole Miss-turned-LSU coach Lane Kiffin made a comment about how it was hard to recruit some Black players to Ole Miss due to its segregated past
Vanity Fair says that Kiffin reached out a day later to clarify, ‘I just hope [my comment] comes across respectful to Ole Miss. … There are some things that I’m saying that are factual; they’re not shots.’
He repeated that sentiment to On3 on Tuesday: ‘I was asked questions about the differences in recruiting, and I said a narrative that we battled there from some out-of-state Black parents and grandparents was not wanting their kid to move to Mississippi.Â
‘That’s a narrative that coaches have been fighting forever. It wasn’t calculated by bringing it up.’
The University of Mississippi has a troubled past with racial issues that are still tied to the school today. Even the name ‘Ole Miss’ is vernacular used by slaves in the Antebellum South for the wife of a slave master, not a shortening of ‘Old Mississippi.’
The school was also the site of a race riot in 1962 when James Meredith attempted to attend classes after the Supreme Court ordered his enrollment.Â
The Rebels, a nickname that honors Confederate soldiers, were also among the last SEC teams to integrate – not adding a Black player on their varsity roster until 1971.
