"Thats when you get that bad marriage": Steve Sarkisian reveals hardest part of NIL recruiting via transfer portal at Texas

Coach Steve Sarkisian is part of one of the biggest brands in college football, backed by ultra-rich NIL boosters and collectives, where a football roster expenditure is estimated to be around $35 million to $40 million per year. He is aware of the biggest pros and cons of having such luxury, where the program often receives applications from athletes all across the country. It becomes extremely difficult to differentiate between a true contender and a pretender since a single wrong decision could affect the strength of their roster.

While speaking to College Gameday analyst Rece Davis on Monday, Sarkisian shared some of the biggest challenges in recruiting amid a tricky NIL ecosystem, creating uncertainty among the coaches. He mentioned it is easy to make a call by looking at the tape since players often present the best version of themselves. However, what's more important is how they are off the field and their culture growing up.

This helps the coaches get a fair idea as to why they are joining a program. If it's just about NIL money or more about the sport.

“The film is pretty easy to tell," Sarkisian said to Davis on Monday. [Timestamp - 4:00] "What is their makeup, that's the hardest part. And so how much can we dive into it personally. How much can we get to know the family.”

“How much of an indicator of who they might become is what their family structure is and what they're like there. You know what their competitive spirit is like? I'm just trying to make sure that we're getting players that want to come to the University of Texas for all of the other reasons. And then the NIL or the revenue share, or the publicity rights, or whatever you want to call it, is kind of the cherry on top,” he added.

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Steve Sarkisian shares the importance of culture on Wednesdays

One of the unique bond-making activities that Steve Sarkisian loves to arrange is the "Culture Wednesday," where he sits with all the players alongside assistant coaches and they interact about life outside the realms of Texas football.

Sarkisian mentioned that a random topic is picked, which is not football related and he shares his own perspective before players join him one by one.

The main motive of this exercise is to improve communication skills and storytelling ability among the student athletes. Steve Sarkisian believes that such soft skills are slowly diminishing in this era of social media. There are a lot of aspects that are necessary for personality development and he enjoys overseeing this weekly activity diligently.