Texas lacks internal offensive play-calling options

AUSTIN — Don’t worry — as Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian goes through the difficult process of evaluating Texas Longhorns offensive play caller Steve Sarkisian in the wake of back-to-back losses to unranked opponents, Texas Longhorns offensive play caller Steve Sarkisian won’t get offended by the feedback from Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian.

“I don’t take it personally evaluating myself — I’m probably harder on myself than anybody and I’ll evaluate this game the same way,” Sarkisian said Saturday. “I’m sure there’s going to be situations I’m going to be really hard on myself because we weren’t good enough.”

The assurance from Sarkisian that he won’t have a schizophrenic reaction to his attempts at striking the difficult balance between leading the offense and evaluating everything that contributed to his program falling from No. 1 in both polls after a 4-2 start to consecutive defeats in games the Longhorns led by double digits is hardly heartening.

Even before the losses, the struggles of the high-priced offense led by senior quarterback Arch Manning forced historical perspective about how few head coaches have led their teams to national championships while also calling plays offensively.

Since Florida’s Steve Spurrier and Nebraska’s Tom Osborne won national championships calling plays in the 1990s, only Florida State’s Jimbo Fisher has achieved the same feat. And 2013 was a long time ago — the College Football Playoff, expanded from four teams to 12 teams and now potentially to 24 teams, hadn’t even started yet. The transfer portal didn’t exist. Nor did players have the rights to their own name, image, and likeness.

As it becomes harder for Sarkisian to justify maintaining his play-calling duties every time Texas goes three and out — which has happened on 16 of 37 drives in SEC play — an assessment of Sarkisian’s offensive staff reveals that the Texas head coach lacks realistic options to take over the offense.

Here’s why.

Offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Kyle Flood

The relationship between Sarkisian and Flood was formed in 2017 when Sarkisian was the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons and Flood served as the assistant offensive line coach as he tried to resurrect his coaching career following his scandal-plagued head coaching tenure at Rutgers that ended ignominiously in 2015, the same year Sarkisian was fired at USC after multiple alcohol-related incidents.

When Sarkisian returned to Alabama to serve as Nick Saban’s offensive coordinator, Flood joined the staff, too, following Sarkisian to Austin when he took over at Texas in 2021.

After dodging the ultimate accountability for the disastrous offensive line situation last year, Flood’s unit is once again struggling to consistently pass protect or create running lanes.

Beyond the Texas struggles to execute in the trenches, Flood doesn’t have any play-calling experience in his career.

During Flood’s long tenure as a Rutgers assistant under Greg Schiano, he did hold the title of offensive coordinator in 2009 and 2010, but Schiano was heavily involved in the offense, which was called on game days by co-offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarocca. When Ciarocca was fired after the 2011 season, Frank Cignetti Jr. was brought in to lead the offense for the Scarlett Knights.

So whatever Flood is capable of contributing to game planning during the week and play calls on Saturdays, it’s already happening.

Co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach AJ Milwee

Like Flood, Milwee has longtime ties to Sarkisian after serving as an offensive analyst at Alabama when Sarkisian was the offensive coordinator.

On the Forty Acres, Milwee spent his first two seasons as the quarterbacks coach before adding the co-offensive coordinator title for the 2023 season.

The lack of development by Quinn Ewers and Arch Manning, two quarterbacks considered generational talents when they arrived at Texas, reflects poorly on Milwee, whose career has largely stagnated since Terry Bowden made the Alabama native the second-youngest FBS coordinator at Akron in 2013.

A look through Milwee’s bio doesn’t reveal any real superlatives during his time calling plays for the Zips over six seasons, during which Akron went 34-41 and endured four losing seasons. When Bowden was fired after going 4-8 in 2018, Milwee wasn’t retained by new head coach Tom Arth and landed back in Alabama trying to jump start his one-promising career.

Nothing about Milwee’s time at Akron or his career trajectory suggests that he’s remotely qualified to take over play calling from Sarkisian.

Passing game coordinator and assistant quarterbacks coach Mike Bimonte

A career backup quarterback at Rutgers when Flood was an assistant, Bimonte spent a year as an assistant at Delaware following his playing career, then worked for a tech company for three years before his connection to Flood landed him a job as an offensive analyst for Texas in 2021.

Bimonte assumed his current role after the 2024 season.

Whether Bimonte is a capable assistant in his current role remains in doubt.

Running backs coach Jabbar Juluke

A New Orleans native who played safety for Southern University, Juluke is the latest addition to Sarkisian’s offensive staff after Chad Scott was fired following one season at Texas.

Juluke’s coaching career started in the high school ranks in Louisiana, including a seven-year stint as the head coach at Edna Karr. Louisiana Tech hired Juluke as its running backs coach in 2013. Stints at LSU, Texas Tech, Louisiana, and Florida followed with Juluke often holding assistant head coach or associate head coach titles, as he does at Texas.

Even at the high school level, Juluke has never served as an offensive coordinator.

Passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach Chris Jackson

Like most of the other assistants, Jackson has an important tie to the Longhorns staff — he was a college teammate of tight ends coach and special teams coordinator Jeff Banks at Washington State. After Jackson’s professional playing career ended, he coached wide receivers at an Arizona high school and served as a defensive assistant and assistant wide receivers coach for the Chicago Bears before landing a job as the Jacksonville Jaguars wide receivers coach in 2022.

Sarkisian had already gone through two wide receivers coaches during his first two seasons at Texas before hiring Jackson in 2023. Most of Jackson’s developmental success has come through the NCAA transfer portal, leaving questions about his ability to evaluate and develop high school wide receivers.

Jackson does not have play-calling experience.

Assistant head coach, tight ends coach, and special teams coordinator Jeff Banks

A punter at Washington State, Banks built a reputation as a strong recruiter and one of the nation’s best special teams coordinators during stints at Texas A&M and Alabama, where he worked with Sarkisian.

In Austin, Banks had a strong start as a tight ends coach after inheriting tight ends Ja’Tavion Sanders and Gunnar Helm from Tom Herman’s final recruiting class, but his ability to evaluate and develop high school tight ends has been underwhelming. In Saturday’s loss to Florida, four tight ends played 52 snaps, failed to record a catch, and were graded out as four of the five worst players offensively, along with Manning.

On special teams, Banks hasn’t consistently lived up to his reputation with numerous issues over the years, including allowing a punt return touchdown against Tennessee and a blocked punt touchdown against Oklahoma.

Banks does not have play-calling experience.

There’s no evidence that Sarkisian built his offensive coaching staff in an attempt to avoid assistants who could challenge him as the play caller, but it is notable that he hasn’t made any proactive attempts to ensure that ‘he could hand off those duties to a proven offensive mind in the event of an emergency situation like the one currently facing the Longhorns.

Over six seasons as Texas, Scott and former wide receivers coach Brennan Marion are the only offensive assistants with play-calling experience besides Milwee.

The creator of the Go-Go offense, Marion had a successful stint as the offensive coordinator at UNLV after leaving Austin, but hasn’t been as successful in his sole season as the head coach at Sacramento State or through his first six games as the offensive coordinator for 2-4 Colorado.

Scott was bad enough leading the West Virginia offense that head coach Neal Brown was fired. He’s now the running backs coach under Brown at North Texas and will likely never have another chance as an FBS play caller.

The bottom line — if Sarkisian is going to fire himself as the play caller, that’s a decision that will happen during the offseason because handing over those duties to an assistant currently on staff would almost certainly produce even worse results.