The University of Texas has denied that an AI program called the play on a crucial failed fourth down in last Saturday’s loss to Florida — after its own athletic director accidentally set the rumor mill spinning. Chris Del Conte clarified on Friday that his remarks about the team’s new AI-driven Bevo Lab platform were illustrative, not literal.
Texas Longhorns (Credits: Texas Athletics)
The confusion began when UT unveiled Bevo Lab on October 23, a 25,000-square-foot campus AI hub built with Google, Dell Technologies and SHI International that will use AI and analytics across athletics. Coverage tied the announcement to the Florida game, in which Texas trailed 20-17 and faced fourth-and-2 late at Royal-Memorial Stadium before quarterback Arch Manning was stopped for a three-yard loss.
Texas AD Chris Del Conte Clarifies AI Role in Florida Loss
Del Conte told reporters the fourth-down sequence was an example of what Bevo Lab could suggest in the future — not of what actually informed coach Steve Sarkisian’s call. He stressed that the platform is being built for training, preparation, recruiting and game-prep efficiency — pilots have reportedly cut coaches’ game-prep time by about 15 hours per week — rather than live play-calling duties.
The lab, a collaboration between the Texas Longhorns Athletic Department and the McCombs School of Business, will run on Google Cloud’s Gemini as its AI engine, with 24 undergraduates involved now and plans to scale to roughly 200 student researchers annually ahead of full operation in 2027.
Bevo Lab’s Real Mission: Training and Preparation, Not Play Calls
The episode shows how quickly AI hype can distort a story: one illustrative example became a viral claim that a computer called a fourth-down play. For now, the AI stays in the film room, not the booth — and Sarkisian’s calls, for better or worse, remain human.
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Source: ESPN — read the full story there.