Steve Sarkisian calls college football ‘a lawless society’ amid lack of rules enforcement
· Yahoo Sports
With the college football season approaching, there are still plenty of off-field storylines. The 2026-27 school year will be the second of the rev-share era and the Protect College Sports Act is still on track for the Senate floor after a markup and committee vote.
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All the while, coaches have been vocal about the need for consequences if programs violate the rules. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian is among them, and he shared his assessment of the current landscape, particularly with regard to tampering.
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Sarkisian is hopeful the NCAA will be able to have stronger rules enforcement, alluding to the Protect College Sports Act and federal assistance for the landscape. He knows the realities about tampering in college football, but said there needs to be repercussions if rules are broken.
“I don’t want to be worried about my fourth wide receiver getting talked to by another school’s coach in pregame warmups,” Sarkisian said on The Stampede. “‘Hey, come transfer here at the end of the season. You’re not playing there anyway.’ Those are the things, like, if you do those things, there’s got to be consequences for breaking rules. And right now, we can’t govern our own rules, and that’s the most frustrating part of where we’re at in college football society right now. We can’t enforce our own laws. We can’t enforce our own rules. There’s no consequences right now.
“We’re living in a lawless society, unfortunately, and that’s not good. That’s not good for anybody. It’s not even good for those that are breaking the rules and getting away with it because sooner or later, those rules are going to get enforced, and then what are you going to do? So I think that that’s some of the challenges that we’re going through.”
Steve Sarkisian: Breakaway talks about ‘governing rules’
Thursday afternoon, Steve Sarkisian will be the final coach to step to the podium at SEC media days. Throughout the week in Tampa, talks of a potential breakaway have dominated the headlines after commissioner Greg Sankey said those conversations are “real.”
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Sankey’s point was about growing frustration within the SEC about the state of college athletics and the enforcement of rules. Sarkisian echoed that sentiment while also noting how strong the on-field product is. While change is inevitable in the age of NIL and the transfer portal, he stressed the need for the NCAA to be able to enforce the rules.
“We heard Commissioner Sankey talking about that to open SEC media days about, well, could the SEC ever break away and what is that going to look like? It’s about governing the rules,” Sarkisian said. “Putting rules in place, signing up for, you want to be part of this organization? Here are the laws that we you live by, and if you break these rules, here’s the consequences. Right now, we can’t even govern our own rules because you break a rule, you go to a judge, you get an injunction and everything’s good. Life goes on.
“We’ve got to find a way to get back to that because the game is too good right now. The quality of the game is too good. We’ve all had to adapt over the last five years. Change has been incredible in college football. But we’ve got to be able to enforce our rules. And I think that’s that’s that’s got to come to light at some point.”