While Texas has enjoyed the adulation that comes with knocking off Ohio State and surging to No. 1 in the college football rankings, the football program has also spent some of the week cleaning and clearing up some public relations missteps in the wake of the win.
After coach Steve Sarkisian cut an on-field postgame interview short with ESPN's Holly Rowe, the dismissive behavior was then exaggerated in AI videos that depicted domestic violence. When Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning was asked about viral videos from the Texas win at a press conference this week, he pointed to an AI video of Sarkisian hitting the ESPN reporter, but in a way that made the gathered media laugh.
Manning has since apologized for his approach to the topic at the press conference, and on Thursday, Sarkisian gave a full explanation addressing both his behavior with the broadcast throughout the evening (which also included cutting out on a delayed halftime interview) and Manning's earlier comments. Sarkisian cited technical difficulties that contributed to delays with both interviews, offered up his own personal history with Rowe as a sign of no ill will and shared his perspective on Manning's missteps from earlier in the week.
Sarkisian addressed these topics during his regularly scheduled Thursday availability:
"I want to address is a couple of my in-game interviews last Saturday night at Ohio State ball game. The first at halftime, I had I was scheduled to have an interview with Laura Rutledge. ESPN was having technical difficulties, and I had to make a had to make a in in-moment decision to say wait on the interview or try to get with our team and try to make the proper adjustments to come out and play as good as we could in the second half. I let Laura know that, and I think she said that on air. And then I had an opportunity to visit with Laura when we came back out of the locker room to let her know where where our thoughts were as a team and what we needed to do in the second half of that game. As as it pertains to after the ball game, again there was a delay after I greeted Coach Day in the middle of the field. There was a delay in the moment, you know, through that delay, I wanted to go celebrate with our team. We just had a 21-point fourth-quarter comeback against the No. 1 team in the country.
If hindsight's 20/20, if I could do it all over again, I would have exuded more patience in that moment and and and sat through and waited for the interview with Holly. Obviously, we have a ton of respect for ESPN and Holly. Holly and I go way back to even to my days of playing at BYU, and we've got a great relationship. ESPN is a great partner of ours.
We know we're going to have more opportunities with that crew covering us, and we're looking forward to those opportunities. So, could have definitely handled that situation better with a little bit more patience in the moment. But that obviously led to the situation. situation with Arch (Manning) and his press conference as it pertained to the AI video, and obviously Arch recognizes he made a mistake, and it's an unfortunate one. Nowhere do we condone domestic violence or violence against women. Nothing in our program says that nor Arch individually.
I think if he could take it back, he would. But he has since apologized to Holly. He's made a public apology, and you know our goal is that we can move forward and him be the guy that that we all know that he is and what he represents. So those are the two house cleaning things I wanted to make sure I address with with all of you on this call, and then get into the football side of things."
Texas will return to the field to defend its new No. 1 ranking on Saturday night against in-state foe UTSA in Austin.
