University of Texas head football coach Steve Sarkisian’s decision to go for it on a fourth-and-2 during the fourth quarter of last weekend’s 27-24 loss to Florida was aided by artificial intelligence.
Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte divulged that information in an interview with Karoline Leonard of the Austin American-Statesman this week, noting that Texas’ Bevo Lab AI platform is “the new wave.”
The decision to go for it came with Texas trailing 20-17 and positioned at its own 48-yard line with just over 8:30 remaining in the game.
Texas quarterback Arch Manning tried to run up the middle after stepping back to pass, but he was stopped for a loss, and Florida scored a touchdown six plays later to extend the lead to 10.
Per Leonard, Bevo Lab will be available to coaches, trainers, nutritionists, student-athletes and analysts for every Longhorns sports team.
The platform is sponsored by Dell, Google and SHI International, and it will use Google’s Cloud Platform and Gemini agentic AI system.
Del Conte called the development “earth-shattering,” while UT Business Sports Institute founder Kirk Goldsberry added, “We’re trying to put good data and good intelligence in front of our coaches, so that they can make informed decisions and informed strategies to help us ultimately win more competitions at The University of Texas.”
Although Bevo Lab made its debut last week with the football team, every varsity sport at the University of Texas will soon have access to the platform.
Following a 4-0 start, which included wins over ranked opponents in Ohio State and Tennessee, Texas is now 4-2 on the heels of back-to-back losses to Oklahoma and Florida.
Now, the Longhorns are perhaps entering a must-win scenario on Saturday against No. 7 Ole Miss.
Should No. 19 Texas lose, it could virtually mark the end of the Longhorns’ pursuit of a College Football Playoff berth.
The use of Bevo Lab did not prevent a loss to Florida last week, but Del Conte’s comments suggest it will not prevent the coaching staff from utilizing AI this week against the Rebels.