ESPN's Finebaum Rips Longhorns, Says Texas Is "Irrelevant" and "Pathetically Behind" Rivals

ESPN's Paul Finebaum blasts the Texas Longhorns, saying they are no longer a relevant program in college football.

Matt Galatzan | Jun 2, 2021

The Texas Longhorns have been in limbo for more than a decade, struggling to regain their status as one of the nation's elite programs since their disastrous showing in the 2009 national championship game against Alabama.

Since then, the program's relevance has been on a substantial teetering point, as they worked towards repairing the image of a once-dominant force in college football.

The Longhorns took a positive step in that direction this January, when it fired former head coach Tom Herman, and replaced him with the nation's most sought-after head coaching candidate, Steve Sarkisian, who subsequently hired an all-star staff around him.

However, according to outspoken ESPN radio host Paul Finebaum, Texas is still far from where they once were.

"This is not a relevant program anymore,” Finebaum said in an appearance on ESPN's Get Up. “Go back to 2013 when Texas people fired Mack Brown. He didn’t resign. He was shown the door. The same Mack Brown who now has North Carolina in the Top 10."

Even within its own state and conference, Finebaum believes that the Longhorns are not just behind their arch-rival Oklahoma Sooners, who have won six of the previous eight meetings since the exit of Mack Brown, as well as nine of the last 12 since the fateful national title appearance, but they are also far behind their in-state arch-nemesis, Texas A&M.

“Texas can’t even win its own state anymore, lost two of its best players to Alabama. It’s pathetically behind Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M and its way, way behind its biggest rival in Norman, Oklahoma. Texas is fighting for third at best in its own league."

So what is the standing in the way of the Longhorns returning to national prominence? According to Finebaum, it starts at the top.

"'The problem isn't Sark, the problem are Texas people,' Nick Saban told me one time when he was considering Texas, he didn't want to report to 15 or 20 billionaires every day," Finebaum said. "That's the way that program rolls. Saban took over at Alabama and said I'm in charge. Lincoln Riley has very few people that he has to answer to in Norman. That's the problem for Sark. Every other minute someone else is calling up and wants a piece of him in that program. Until they clear that up, and they haven't yet, that program will be stuck in the mud."

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Published Jun 2, 2021

MATT GALATZAN

Matt Galatzan is the Managing Editor and Publisher of Texas Longhorns On SI and Texas A&M Aggies On SI and a long-time member of the Football Writer’s Association of America. He graduated from the University of Mississippi, where he studied integrated marketing communications, with minors in journalism and business administration. Galatzan started in the sports journalism industry in 2014 covering the Dallas Mavericks and SMU Mustangs with 247Sports. He then moved to Sports Illustrated's Fan Nation network in 2020, eventually being taking over as the Managing Editor and Publisher of the Longhorns and Aggies sites a year later. You can find Galatzan on all major social media channels, including Twitter on @MattGalatzan.