No. 4 Texas’ 24-23 come-from-behind win over No. 1 Ohio State on Saturday night in Austin, Texas was a showdown that was full of drama.
But there was a different kind of drama at different points of the night between ESPN sideline reporters and Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian.
At the end of Texas’ thrilling win, Hollie Rowe was attempting to begin an interview with Sarkisian.
As Rowe started to ask her first question, Sarkisian already was talking and yelled: Go Texas, fight! Let’s go Texas, fight! Hook ’em,” and walked away to celebrate with his team and Rowe did not seem amused.
This followed a first-half incident where ESPN’s other sideline reporter, Laura Rutledge, tried to interview Sarkisian, but the network was having technical difficulties and the Texas head coach couldn’t wait longer and had to talk to his team who was facing a big 20-3 first-half deficit.
During that moment, Rutledge acknowledged that Sarkisian had been waiting a while and did not blame the coach for not waiting to be interviewed.
Rutledge eventually spoke with Sarkisian after Texas came out of the locker room to start the second half and clarified what happened at halftime.
“I do want to make sure we clear something up: (Sarkisian) did decline the interview at the half,” Rutledge said before the start of the third quarter. “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.”
Afterward, Hollie Rowe’s name was trending on X as social media seemed to have more of a field day talking about the two incidents than the exciting game between two college football powerhouses.
