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Paolo UggettiESPN
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said Tuesday that fifth-year defensive lineman Moro Ojomo will not be speaking to the media “for a while” following the lineman’s comments last week about the Longhorns’ culture.
In an interview last week, Ojomo alluded to the fact that only some players would listen to his perspective as a player who has been with the program since 2018. When asked to elaborate, Ojomo referenced the team’s youth as well as the systemic problems Texas has had in recent years:
“They’re 18- to 22-year-olds that want to chase women, want to chase money, want to chase alcohol and they don’t see the future,” Ojomo said of his younger teammates. “They’re distracted by what’s in front of them. It’s such a hard thing, especially guys that haven’t been in a winning culture.”
“They’re always talking about coming in here and changing stuff,” Ojomo continued. “It’s like ingrained. You’re uprooting, what? 10 years of s— that’s just been let go.”
Sarkisian told media Tuesday that he didn’t like one player speaking on behalf of others, and that “it’s a little disheartening that one guy makes a statement and all of a sudden, we’ve got a team full of guys that like to do things outside of the program that we don’t adhere to.”
“He should not have done that in public,” Sarkisian continued. “If you’re a family, you don’t go out and talk about family business. You take care of things internally. I think his intentions were right, but the delivery and the forum that he used was poor.”
Ojomo, who is heading into his senior season at Texas, has totaled 60 tackles over three seasons. Sarkisian came under criticism in his debut season with the Longhorns after starting the 2021 season 4-1 before losing six games in a row and finishing 5-7 and seventh in the Big 12.