The Texas Longhorns will play in the Cotton Bowl for a record 23rd time against the Ohio State Buckeyes. No other team is even close to that number. But Texas hasn’t played in the (now) Arlington-based bowl since 2003. There is one more reason that makes the game truly special for the team. Before this season, UT has never played in a Cotton Bowl that was held in A&T Stadium. So their head coach Steve Sarkisian has an ask.

“We’re going to need our fans,” head coach Steve Sarkisian said Friday. “We’re going to need our fans’ support. I need Longhorn nation to show out in Arlington. We’re going to need everything we’ve got to try to win this game. Clearly, we’re massive underdogs. Nobody’s going to give us a shot. So we’re going to need all that we can to try to win this game.” No one doubts the fans’ presence. But just 3 days ahead of the Bowl game, the team received the news of the departure of one of the university’s important figures to assume office elsewhere.

Well, Sarkisian must be eager to give a fitting parting gift to this official by winning the Cotton Bowl and then probably the Natty. After all, he had a role to play in handing over Sarkisian the reins of Texas football. As a part of the school’s power trio that also included UT’s system board of regents chairman Kevin Eltife and Longhorns athletic director Chris Del Conte, this official orchestrated the football program’s most consequential coaching change in the post-Mack Brown era, firing Tom Herman and hiring Sarkisian in January 2021. 

In four seasons at Texas, Sarkisian is 38-16, taking the Longhorns to consecutive College Football Playoff appearances. They won the Big 12 championship in 2023 and played for the SEC title in 2024. That came after the Longhorns mostly struggled after Brown was pushed out after the 2013 season. After all this, the UT at Austin President Jay Hartzell is leaving his position to become the next president of Southern Methodist University. The SMU Board of Trustees voted unanimously to name Hartzell its new president on Tuesday morning. He will take over that position on June 1 from SMU’s current president, R. Gerald Turner. Hartzell became the president of UT in September 2020.

In a message to the Longhorns community on January 7, Hartzell, who got his Ph.D. in finance from UT, noted, “I will be eternally grateful for my 29 years at UT as a student, faculty member, and administrator. My wife, Kara, and I will always be Longhorns — as alumni, parents, passionate supporters, and fans — even when we are no longer on the faculty or staff.”

This departure brings a morbid question to the forefront. Will the new president of the university give the athletics department as much precedence? Hartzell oversaw some good and bad football teams, but one thing remained consistent. He has etched his dedication to the sporting culture into the school’s fabric. He leveraged both intangible as well as tangible support. In his message, Hartzell highlighted 11 NCAA national championships, three Directors’ Cups, and joining the Southeastern Conference as one his major success points.

Indeed, Hartzell was a central figure in charting the school’s move to the SEC. Hartzell started conversations with his counterpart at Oklahoma, Joe Harroz, in the fall of 2020 about the evolution of college sports and their universities’ place in it. They explored leaving the Big 12, which they were charter members of in 1996, and initiated talks with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey in the spring of 2021.

Texas and Oklahoma officially announced their move to the SEC in July 2021 and played their first football season in the league in 2024. Del Conte has often remarked how the synergy between the three of them, led by Hartzell, enabled the restoration of Texas football into college football’s elite. Hartzell’s ability to handle controversy has also been remarkable.

Early in his tenure, in the summer of 2020, Hartzell commissioned a 24-person committee to study the origins of Texas’ school song, “The Eyes of Texas,” after a group of Texas football players took exception to the song and its origin. The committee produced a 58-page report that concluded that the song “most probably” debuted in a racist setting at a minstrel show in 1903 but did not have racist intent. The debate on whether players would stand to sing it after games took over the campus.

But after Sarkisian’s hiring, the coach declared “‘The Eyes of Texas’ is our school song … We support that song, we’re gonna sing that song and we’re gonna sing it proudly.” Sarkisian even apologized for leaving the field after a 2022 loss to Oklahoma State without singing the song, but since then the issue surrounding the football team has faded away from public memory.

Steve Sarkisian and his current crop of players may not feel the direct impact just yet. UT-Austin will have contingencies in place to ensure a smooth transition. However, later iterations of the Longhorns, whether they’re helmed by Sarkisian or not, will indeed witness changes on a broad level. The fanbase will hope they are a net positive. Steve Sarkisian is tasked with blocking out fear-mongering of any sort ahead of what is arguably the biggest game of his Texas career. Fittingly, it also promises to be the most challenging.

Steve Sarkisian stood on the precipice of his biggest test ever in the Cotton Bowl

Repercussions from the Jay Hartzell news are something to ponder over in the offseason. For now, Sarkisian has more pressing matters at hand. He has to prepare his troops for the Cotton Bowl against the hottest team in the country. Ohio State is firing on all cylinders and has its eyes set on crushing Texas’ hopes next. The previous round couldn’t have gone more differently for the two teams.

Steve Sarkisian must be counting his lucky stars to have escaped the Peach Bowl with a W. Needing double overtime to beat ASU is an indictment in itself. But they were marginally away from losing outright, perhaps if not for a little outside intervention. Ohio State, meanwhile, just blew out no.1 seeded Oregon. After already mauling Tennessee prior. That fated loss to Michigan now seems eons ago.

As these two behemoth programs converge, the Longhorns have one silver lining to lean on. The proximity of the venue to their campus. Hoards of Texas fans will make the short trip to Jerry World in Arlington. The stands shall project more burnt orange than the Buckeyes’ scarlet. The Jay Hartzell custodianship is over soon, but there’s a chance to put a ribbon on his tenure. Sarkisian will need all the energy he can conjure to cause this upset. If rumors transpire into reality, this could be his last game with the school. Ohio State is currently a -5.5 point favorite to proceed to the Natty.