Texas’ Steve Sarkisian rips Ole Miss academic standardsplayTexas’ Steve Sarkisian speaks on creating a more versatile offense (5:31)Sarkisian discusses the new additions to the Longhorns’ roster and how they are helping the offense become more dynamic and well-rounded. (5:31)Heather Dinich
Some SEC football coaches aren’t waiting for kickoff to get after each other.
One day after LSU coach Lane Kiffin’s controversial comments about Ole Miss, Texas coach Steve Sarkisian told USA Today that “all you have to do is take basket weaving, and you can get an Ole Miss degree.”
First-year Florida Gators coach Jon Sumrall, a former assistant at Ole Miss, added to the fray later Tuesday afternoon with a jab at Sarkisian on X: “Grateful to coach at a top 10 public university that also offers advanced basket weaving!”
A University of Texas athletic department spokesperson told ESPN on Tuesday that Sarkisian’s comments were part of a larger conversation about tampering and he was stressing the importance of academics at Texas.
“At Texas, we will only take 50% of a player’s academic credit hours,” Sarkisian told USA Today. “You may be a semester from graduating, but you’re going all the way back to 50% if you play here and want a degree. But at Ole Miss, they can take you. All you have to do is take basket weaving, and you can get an Ole Miss degree.”
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Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The flurry of jabs comes just weeks before the SEC’s annual spring meetings, which will be held May 26-28 at the Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa in Miramar Beach, Florida.
In a four-hour interview with Vanity Fair that was published Monday, Kiffin, who was the head coach at Ole Miss before taking the same job at LSU, stated some top recruits would tell him they weren’t interested in coming to Oxford, Mississippi.
“[They would say], ‘Hey, Coach, we really like you, but my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi,'” Kiffin told the magazine. “That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus’ diversity feels so great: ‘It feels like there’s no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that’s the real world.'”
According to the article, Kiffin clarified his remark one day later: “I just hope [my comment] comes across respectful to Ole Miss. … There are some things that I’m saying that are factual; they’re not shots.”
Kiffin told On3 on Tuesday that his comments were not calculated.
“I really apologize if anybody at Ole Miss or in Mississippi was offended by that,” Kiffin told On3. “In a four-hour interview [with Vanity Fair], I was asked a lot of questions on a lot of things, and Ole Miss has been wonderful to me and to my family. I was asked questions about the differences in recruiting, and I stated a narrative that we battled there from some out-of-state Black parents and grandparents was not wanting their kid to move to Mississippi. That’s a narrative that coaches have been fighting forever. It wasn’t calculated by bringing it up.”
The population of Baton Rouge — home to LSU’s campus — is 52% Black and 34% white, according to 2024 census data. Oxford is 66% white and 26% Black.
Kiffin led Ole Miss to a 50-19 record from 2020 to 2025 before leaving for LSU, which offered him a seven-year contract worth about $13 million annually. LSU plays at Ole Miss on Sept. 19.
