Steve Sarkisian earning his keep as Texas football coach/motivational speaker | Bohls

While I got ya, here are nine things and one crazy prediction:

And Steve Sarkisian is worth every penny

1. Coach on the rise: Count ESPN's Kris Budden among those who endorse the extension and raise that almost doubled Steve Sarkisian’s salary at $10.3 million. The pay bump should move the Texas football coach into the top three highest-paid college coaches behind only Clemson’s Dabo Swinney and Georgia’s Kirby Smart even though he’s never won a bowl game at Texas and has had just the one sensational season. Of course, he was more proven than the 32-year-old Darrell Royal, who was 17-13 as a head coach and who accepted a five-year deal from Texas for the princely sum of $17,500. That marked a sweet $500 raise over his salary at Washington. Sarkisian’s getting a little more than that. “Give me another coach that hasn’t won a national championship that you think is going to be that good now that Nick’s gone,” the ESPN sports reporter told us during our “On Second Thought” podcast that airs Thursday. “And you’re not allowed to say Kirby (Smart). I’d put Sark in the top two. I think absolutely. He took this team in three years to the playoffs. Who else would deserve that kind of money? Texas has the money. So, if you have the money and you want to keep your guy … He probably could have gone to Alabama. If I’m Alabama, that probably was my first call.” In fact, Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne did call Texas’ Chris Del Conte, if only to pick his brain on the Saban successor. But Sark was off limits. Budden also mentioned Florida State’s Mike Norvell in that elite level and as a strong candidate before Byrne plucked Kalen DeBoer out of Washington. Ryan Day belongs on that list as well. … Incidentally while Sark is 25-14, DKR was 22-9-1 in his first three seasons at Texas. But Sark went 5-7 in Year 1, and Royal never had a losing record in his 20 UT seasons. … Sark dropped by to give a pep talk to the Texas men’s basketball team, and coach Rodney Terry said Sark told them, “This time of year you’ve got to go for the knockout punch and the way to get that is with a fist. No one gets knocked out with the slap. They get knocked out with a fist.”

Their long and winding road

2. Looking back: Interesting to look back at the recruiting tales of the four Longhorns seniors who played their final home game at Moody Center last Saturday. Max Abmas narrowed his top two relocation spots to Texas and Kansas State. Terry said last week that he had “a bad travel date” to visit the Wildcats and he told the elite scorer, “So we're like, man, you don't want to have the travel issues every time your mom and everybody needs to go to Manhattan. You come here from Dallas to Austin and it’s easy peasy.” Abmas, by the way, was a pre-med major. Could he still become a doctor? “Possibly,” he said, “but I want to keep the ball bouncing as long as I can.” … Dylan Disu returned home to his roots as the Hendrickson High star left Vanderbilt, and when he committed, Terry said, “We were all high-fiving each other.” Interestingly enough, he was once a football player who played quarterback, receiver and safety: “I played everywhere. If you had told me when I was 9 years old when I went to a Mack Brown football camp that I’d be here now playing basketball, I wouldn’t have believed you.” Disu's favorite moment at Texas? That would be last year’s Kansas game when “I got the Dickie V ‘Are you serious’ award after my put-back dunk.” … Brock Cunningham admitted that his mom didn’t even want him to go to Texas where his dad, Ed, was a star offensive lineman. She wanted him to go to an Ivy League school so he visited Penn and Columbia. “But they didn’t give me a chance to play at a level I wanted to.” Brock went down memory lane about all the hecklers he’s encountered in his six-year career. “I always see the ‘Get a Job’ signs,” he said. … Ithiel Horton’s recruitment stood out to Terry because after the phone call to the UCF player, who had already played at Pitt and Delaware State, “IT” was so enthralled with the conversation that Terry afterward told assistant Frank Haith, “He was so excited, giddy about us calling once he went into portal. He just about committed to us. And he hasn’t even visited yet. But he told the same thing to Bill Self, that he was going to Kansas.” … All four of these Longhorns came here via the portal. My guess is Texas has to have a list of the top 20 targets it will pursue in this year’s window. Or it’d better.

The NFL draft is just around the corner

3. Brooks is the draft's top runner: Texas running back Jonathon Brooks’ NFL draft stock might be rising, even with his torn ACL against TCU on Nov. 11. Mel Kiper Jr. loves the guy and thinks Brooks “clearly would have been the No. 1 guy and still should be, but that injury kind of clouds where people go.” He added he thinks Brooks will go in the third round as the first running back off the board because of the injury, because he had only one career year and didn’t finish it off and because running backs are devalued. … A new mock draft from The Athletic names Texas wide receiver Adonai Mitchell as the only Longhorn drafted in the first round, slotting him to the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs with the 26th pick after a trade with Tampa Bay. “Mitchell had some drops in 2023, but he’s a smooth route runner with arguably the best catch radius in this draft,” the website says. “I doubt he’ll take the leap and become a true franchise receiver, but he won’t have to if he lands in a place like Kansas City.” Damning with faint praise. Hey, guys, he’s going to be a superstar. … It goes on to predict Arizona will take defensive tackle Byron Murphy II in the second round with the 35th pick, Dallas will select Brooks at No. 56, San Francisco will choose Xavier Worthy at No. 63 and the Chiefs will double up and take tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders at No. 64. … One guy I’m high on is Texas A&M linebacker Edgerrin Cooper, who The Athletic projects will go to Pittsburgh. I’m not sold on Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy. I think he has bust potential.

The good, bad and really bad of college basketball

4. And in this corner: Kim Mulkey is the Marjorie Taylor Greene of college basketball. Both are very loud, abrasive and in your face. Have some decorum, Kim. For all her greatness, the LSU coach can be completely tone-deaf as a person as she was in her strong reaction to the late-game scuffle with South Carolina, urging the South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso to pick on someone her own size instead of Flau’jae Johnson. Really, Kim? That’s the main point you want to make? At least Dawn Staley gave a proper message, apologizing for her team’s role. Can the selection committee promise us another rematch in the Final Four? Or make it two out of three at the Final Four?

A 10-game homestand is just what Texas needs

5. Looking for confidence: Texas baseball isn’t dead yet. But its pitching might be on life support. The Longhorns’ hitting prowess and defensive skills may just have to carry them for awhile, but David Pierce’s club showed some inner resolve by holding on to win the series in Lubbock the same as Terry’s basketball team did the week before. It won’t surprise at all if the diamond dudes make hay in this 10-game homestand with confidence restored and go on a big winning streak now as it did a year ago.

The one that got away in that recruiting trip

6. Not THAT funky: Chad Morris, the former SMU and Arkansas head coach and current Texas State receivers coach, still chuckles about the one that got away. When he was the Clemson offensive coordinator, he made a trip to Whitehouse to check on this very athletic but unorthodox quarterback named Patrick Mahomes to consider offering him a scholarship. “It was one of those deals where I go watch him, and yeah, I just don't see it. You know? Yeah, he's got a little funky, loose motion, whatever. And so then fast forward. We're sitting in the green room with Deshaun Watson at the draft in Philly. I was the head coach at SMU at the time. And I remember talking to (Kansas City Chiefs owner) Clark Hunt on the phone in my car a couple weeks earlier. And I'm like, hey, look, if Deshaun is still there, you should take him because he’s special. He says yeah, yeah, OK. So I’m like, I think Deshaun's going to go there. And then they take Patrick Mahomes. And the rest is history.”

And with the first fake pick of the fake draft ...

7. Business as usual: Ducks on the Pond has its new fantasy baseball team, and I’ll blame partner Tom Dore if we finish last. He insisted we take Garrett Crochet, new White Sox ace-in-training. I did get a Yankee, but not Aaron Judge. Nestor Cortes will have to do. Here’s hoping our studs like Bryce Harper, Bo Bichette and Kyle Tucker do their thing although we already know perennial champion and former American-Statesman colleague Kevin Lyttle will win it all again per usual. … A new study revealed the top three states that are most obsessed with March Madness. They were Arizona, Utah and … Nebraska. Really? Nebraska. Creighton’s Bluejays did upset UConn, but the Cornhuskers haven’t even made the NCAA Tournament since 2014, their only appearance since 1998. The study also showed 33% of Americans watch the tournament each year. Only 33%? No freaking way. And the average American watches six games in the NCAA Tournament each year. Just six? America, I don’t even know you anymore.

Searching for a memorable Longhorn

8. Scattershooting: While wondering whatever happened to former Texas running back Lonnie Bennett, the first Black player to score a touchdown for the Longhorns as a sophomore in 1971. (Freshmen weren’t yet eligible.) Roosevelt Leaks, the Heisman contender and an inspiring role model that helped Earl Campbell decide to come to Austin, was a sophomore the following year.

Meanwhile, from the greatest seat in the world ...

9. On the couch: The Oscars. The romantic side in all of us may be drawn to “One Day,” this Netflix series remake of the 2011 Anne Hathaway movie because it invites us to love/hate/rail at the immature, handsome Dexter at the same time as we adore/respect/root for the principled and serious if lovestruck Emma. Reminds me of one of my favorite movies, “Same Time, Next Year,” the touching, heart-tugging tale of a long-term, sweet affair between actors Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn who meet the same weekend each year. Love is wonderful, but not promised. Gave “One Day” 7 ducks. … As for the Academy Awards, I loved the hilarious exchange between glaring Batman Michael Keaton and foils Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito, Billie Ellish's poignant song, the upbeat Robert Downey Jr., the celebration of “Oppenheimer” with seven Oscars, John Cena’s, uh, vulnerability and Jimmy Kimmel’s quips. I was sad Lily Gladstone didn’t win, thought “Barbie” deserved more, Emma Stone was so awesome with her candor, and Al Pacino was a complete mess as a presenter.

Going out a winner

Crazy prediction: Kelvin Sampson will retire if he wins it all.

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This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas football ups the ante, ups Steve Sarkisian's paycheck | Bohls