Texas HC Steve Sarkisian offers blunt opinion on 16-team playoffs and difficult schedules in new CFB era

There's no denying that the expanded 12-team playoff puts some strain on programs, and Steve Sarkisian knows this better than most. The Texas Longhorns played a whopping 16 games last season, which in turn raises questions about player fitness and a higher risk of injuries.

There's now talk about the possibility of the College Football Playoff (CFP) expanding once more. This time, the CFP would grow to 16 teams. Steve Sarkisian seems to be somewhat worried about this, with the coach telling the press on Tuesday:

"I don’t know if we’ll ever see an undefeated national champion again," ESPN's Ross Dellenger reported.

The need for expansion of the CFP stems from the desire of the decision-makers of the Big Ten and the SEC to obtain automatic qualifiers for the postseason. In an extreme scenario, the playoff would even grow to 18 teams. However, according to reports by The Athletic, the problem is that such an expansion wouldn't be logistically or economically possible:

“You can play the games anytime, but there’s no way to maximize the TV audience,” a source close to negotiations told The Athletic.

“Even if we go to 14, we’re going to run into challenges with where to play the games,” another source said to The Athletic.

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Steve Sarkisian on how to insulate Arch Manning from media attention

In 2025, Steve Sarkisian will have an outside-the-field issue, which he has known about for at least two years now. His starting quarterback, Arch Manning, is a media darling. Now, the Longhorns, and Manning will have to deal with enormous amounts of media attention. During his press conference on Tuesday, Sarkisian told reporters that he's not even going to try to fight it, even though ge knows he won't be able to.

"I don't know if you can insulate it. Not anymore. I don't know when Peyton [Manning] was around if there were cell phones and all those things. So, it's a little different time, a little different era than what our guys operate in..."

"But it's also a great platform for our guys. And so it's not all negative. There's a lot of positives to this. But at the end of the day, for a guy like Arch, in this instance, I want to make sure he enjoys this experience, too. "

The only comparable situation in college sports is the hype that surrounded the arrival of Deion Sanders and his sons at Colorado for the 2023 season. For them, it worked sometimes; other times, it didn't. But that's the deal when you recruit the nephew of two of the most famous quarterbacks of the last two decades.