SEC Media Days are over. The first practice is hardly two weeks away. Football season draws closer, and Pole Assassin got married.
Pole Assassin!
In case you were worried, yes, she got married to Jeff Banks, the Texas assistant coach she was dating when her pet monkey ALLEGEDLY bit a child on Halloween in 2021. They’re still together. To answer other questions: I’m not sure where the wedding was. I’m not sure how the monkey’s doing. I was unable to find any information on what ever happened with that lawsuit, which makes me think it was settled out of court (although boy, do I hope Pole Assassin was exonerated). Finally, for the Loreal Sarkisian hive: I did not see Loreal Sarkisian in any pictures, so I do not know what she wore.
There is, however, a nice picture of a bunch of Longhorns around the happy couple, flashing the horns up. Next to Jeff Banks? Over Dani Banks’s shoulder? Steve Sarkisian, bearing a big ol’ grin.
Steve Sarkisian attending an assistant coach’s wedding isn’t a big deal. You would hope these guys are close enough for an invitation. But there’s something I like—and I’m being serious, I am not trying to mess with you, Texas fans—about Sark getting right up next to Pole Assassin for a photo op. He’s not scared. He’s not worried about a little media dust devil involving college football’s most famous retired stripper.
Part of succeeding at Texas is about being a good coach. But a lot of it is being able to handle a little bit of a circus. It’s not Miami in the 90’s or anything like that, but this also isn’t Stillwater. (Note to self: Refresh references for new conference.) Tom Herman might have been fine if he didn’t look over his shoulder. He might not have lost as much as he did, and he might not have lost the locker room when the on-field losing started. For all the “Ok. Cool. Hook ‘em!”, Tom Herman’s Texas could not handle the dramatics. It tried to fight them. That did not help.
Sark, from what we’ve seen so far, isn’t concerned about dust devils. He knows how to handle them, and he sees them in perspective. That’s part of what you get when you’ve worked under Nick Saban. It’s also what you get when you lose one of the premier jobs in the country in the circumstances Sarkisian lost it.
It’s possible I’m wrong about this. It’s possible last year went luckily smoothly. But generally in college football, things don’t smooth out after a season as messy as Texas’s in 2021. It’d be different if Sark had enjoyed a honeymoon period. He didn’t. His first year was a shitshow. The fact the program’s moved forward from that to a period of startlingly little off-field noise is, well, startling. Even in 2022, when things went badly, things didn’t blow up. We heard hardly anything about Agiye Hall. Last year, when challenges arose, the team didn’t blink. The team scuffled into the Texas Tech game. It responded with two massive blowout wins.
Three years still isn’t that long, but the early indication is that Sark might be able to navigate this weird and unique program in a way his last two predecessors couldn’t. By letting the distractions happen and knowing they’ll blow over. By standing next to Pole Assassin, smiling, and putting the horns in the air.
There’ll be plenty of time to talk about the actual SEC adjustments, the new opponents and new routines and new logo on the 25-yard-line. Those will be a challenge. But that’s all on the field. Off the field, things are calm. Even Pole Assassin has gotten a ring and settled down.
Quick(er) Hitters
Glen Powell evidently never graduated college and is back at UT right now finishing courses. He’s taking them mostly online, which is probably for the best. That particular Wooderson line didn’t age very well.
The good news is that Jared Thomas, Lebarron Johnson Jr., and Tanner Witt were all selected in the MLB Draft. The bad news is that Thomas and Johnson went to the Rockies, and Witt went to the Mets.
We don’t have a comprehensive list of Longhorns in the Olympics, but it should be noted that Royal Ivey’s coaching the South Sudan team who almost upset the U.S. yesterday. Matt Scoggin’s on Team USA’s diving staff.
In other men’s basketball news, UConn is coming to Austin in December. The nice thing about UConn in December is that the last few years, they haven’t been as good as UConn in March.
Two more Texans committed to the football program these last two weeks: Nick Townsend, a four-star athlete or tight end from Dekaney High School in Houston, and Jonathan Cunningham, a three-star linebacker from North Crowley.
