Texas' Steve Sarkisian Clarifies Ole Miss Comments After 'Basket Weaving' Jab

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian believes Ole Miss is a "fine institution" even if it didn't seem like it when he made previous comments about its "basket weaving" classes.

Sam Khan Jr. of The Athletic relayed Sarkisian's comments from a speaking engagement at the Touchdown Club of Houston on Thursday.

"The only reason the Ole Miss thing came up is because two of my best friends were there in Lane Kiffin and Pete Golding," Sarkisian said. "And so, I know when we would compete with them that they were able to take kids and then they were able to graduate. I probably shouldn't have used basket weaving as my example for the class, OK? Macroeconomics, I don't give a damn, whatever the class is. Yoga, we have yoga at UT. The class part of it was irrelevant."

His latest comments were a follow up to ones he made in an interview with USA Today's Matt Hayes earlier this month.

"At Texas, we will only take 50% of a player's academic credit hours," Sarkisian said. "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."

Florida head coach Jon Sumrall was among those who reacted:

Sarkisian provided more clarity for the intent behind his initial statements on Thursday.

"The point I was trying to make is, at UT, you have to complete half of your degree at the University of Texas, 60 hours," he said. "You have to do those 60 hours at UT to get a degree from the University of Texas. At a school like Ole Miss—I'll reference them that way—they can take one class (after transferring) and get a degree (from Ole Miss). Maybe that one class is basket weaving, maybe that one class is macroeconomics, I don't know, statistics, irrelevant. My point is that this was one of the inequalities and discrepancies that we deal with in college athletics."

He continued and said, "Ole Miss is a fine institution, they've got the great degrees, all the things there, but there is an inequality when it comes to transfers of who can transfer to us—or to Vanderbilt for that matter—and who can transfer to an Ole Miss."

Those weren't the only comments Sarkisian made Thursday that drew headlines.

He also took a shot at an in-state rival when he said, per On3's Anwar Richardson, "There's a team in our state that plays in another conference that has a schedule that I would argue if I played with our twos and our threes, we could go undefeated, and they'll probably make the CFP this year."

It's not a leap to assume he was talking about Texas Tech from the Big 12, especially since the Red Raiders made the CFP last season going against competition from that conference before getting shut out by the Big Ten's Oregon in the postseason.

And Texas certainly has a daunting schedule, as ESPN's Bill Connelly pointed out:

The Longhorns will face Ohio State, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Florida, Ole Miss, LSU and Texas A&M this season, which will leave them battle-tested by the end of the campaign. Perhaps that will have them more prepared for the CFP should they make it, which might have been a problem for Texas Tech last season.

But Texas is also the school that left the Big 12 for the brighter lights of the SEC. If it didn't want to deal with the more difficult schedules that came with that move, it should have remained in its old conference alongside the Red Raiders.

Regardless, Sarkisian is certainly turning heads with some of his comments this offseason.