Texas Longhorns head football coach Steve Sarkisian wanted no part of the traditional post-game interview with ESPN on Saturday night. Instead, he opted to run off and celebrate his team’s thrilling 21-point fourth-quarter comeback over Ohio State.
Leaving sideline reporter Holly Rowe fuming.
The bizarre moment shocked many viewers, who wondered why Sarkisian ran off without talking to the SEC’s broadcast partner.
“Coach, this was one of the most—” Rowe started to say. However, Sarkisian spoke over her, seemingly repeating, “That’s called Texas fight.”
“Hook ’em!” Sarkisian then said, before giving the “Hook ’em Horns” sign to the camera and running off. At first, it seemed like Rowe was going to follow him. Instead, she just rolled her eyes and walked off.
Of course, it’s more than understandable for Sarkisian to want to celebrate knocking off the #1 team in the country, as opposed to standing around talking to ESPN. But the coach’s impatience with ESPN may have roots in an incident at halftime.
ESPN on ABC sideline reporter Laura Rutledge ran after Sarkisian as he hurried into the tunnel.
“Alright, we actually just lost Sark because he had to go. I’m sorry about that, you guys. He waited for a long time. Credit to him for waiting. We’ll try to get him on the way out of the half.”
Rutledge continued, “I do want to make sure we clear something up,” Rutledge said. “[Sarkisian] did decline the interview at the half. He had waited a long time, been very patient with some technical issues that we had. He apologized to us. We should be apologizing to him, which we did.”
The win avenged the Longhorns’ defeat in Columbus last year and, presumably, Texas will replace the Buckeyes as the No. 1 team in the country when the AP releases its updated rankings.